MCh. 20 Mike! Out! I'm making drugs!

2 weeks after Ch. 19, Next to Billy's hideaway, in a specially constructed shed. Time is 6 am

El ran through the steps in her head one more time. 'One, reflux the PMK glycinate with the hydrochloric acid to form PMK. Two, dissolve 35 g of methylamine hydrochloride crystals in 35 ml (or more) of distilled water, then slowly pour in an ice-cold solution of 20 g NaOH in 60 ml of water.

'That reaction is very exothermic and if I don't do it slow enough, I could easily die.' El thought. 'That's where I've got to be extra careful. Burning to death for drugs is not how I want to spend my weekend,' El thought. 'I've also got to be careful with the methylamine gas. It smells terrible and isn't healthy to breathe in.'

She continued, 'Of course methylamine is, to use the official legal terminology, suspicious as holy FUCK, so I can't exactly just buy at the corner store. I'm going to have to make that myself. The question is how to go about producing it? The easiest way would produce a ton of toxic byproducts, but all the other ways are extremely hard. You know, I bet Mr. Clarke would help me find a toxic chemical disposal site, so I'm going with the easy option. So for that, I'll need a 1,000 ml round bottom flask, 12 g of aluminum foil scraps, and a large

stir bar.

I'll then dissolve 100 mg of HgC12 (mercury chloride) in 300 ml of methanol. Then we add that to the aluminum. That will form the mercury-aluminum amalgam. The foil will turn gray, and start releasing hydrogen gas bubbles. There's no turning back after that. The amalgam will completely decompose over time. I will need mercury to form the HgC12, though, because HgC12 is both highly toxic and suspicious. I will oxidize that to a chlorine salt using aqua regia, and boom! HgC12!

Then, once the amalgam starts bubbling, I add the methylamine and my 25mg of PMK. That is a moderately exothermic reaction and should be contained by my reflux condenser. Once the reaction calms down, I can add heat to gently reflux the reaction for another 4 hours. Once that's done, I will flood the reaction flask with 100g of sodium hydroxide, which that needs to be dissolved in 250 ml distilled water.

Then the whole mess needs to be extracted with a nonpolar solvent (which I'll probably use a few hundred ml of toluene). The extraction solvent needs to be washed with distilled water, then a saturated salt solution, then 5-10 mg of Epsom salts. Of everything has worked out, I'll have about 15-20 g of MDMA free base (an oil) dissolved In toluene. I need to distill off the solvent, then dissolve the crude product in 80 ml of dry isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol).

Then, add concentrated hydrochloric acid one drop at a time until the solution turns slightly acidic. At that point, MDMA hydrochloride will have formed. To get it to crash out of solution, I'll need to add 150 ml of dry ether. After letting the solution sit, (and maybe cool in a freezer) the crystals that form can be filtered off and dried.

Then, voila! MDMA, or molly as Billy likes to call it.' El concluded running through the method Billy had told her, put on her goggles, gloves, and apron, and prepared to break a shit ton of laws.

8 hours later,

El crept on silent feet through the house she shared with the town police chief with a bag of precursors for a Schedule 1 Drug in her hand. 'No big deal,' she thought sarcastically. 'It's not like he used to work in the DEA or anything.' (A/N: Hopper is an NYC homicide in cannon stranger things, but in this story, he also worked for the DEA)

She was placing the bag in the freezer when a hand tapped her on the shoulder, scaring her half to death. "Ahhh!" She screamed before seeing it was Mike. She slapped him across the face and told him to get out. He asked what she was doing and she told him she was making some more chemicals for her chest of poisons and witch's brews. He looked skeptical enough that El showed him the door.

'Dammit! Now he is both hurt and suspicious! What could I have said though? It's not like I could have just said, "Mike! Out! I'm making drugs!", now is it? Whatever. He won't tell anyone. Not yet anyway. That's why I need to finish this and get out.' And as she finished her thinking, she did just that, returning to her makeshift drug lab to finish her first batch.

End Ch. 20

A/N: I wanted to be accurate with my portrayal of the effects and production of the drugs depicted in this story, so I did lots of research. I mainly used (dea stands for drug enjoying American) and their MDMA synthesis page. Here's a link if you're interested. Anyway, this in no way endorses the use or production of ANY illegal substances, which is fraught with peril (legal and otherwise). I hope to be able to this amount of research for all my writing. I have neither produced nor used any illegal substances and have no plans to do either. See you guys next chapter (we should be away from Billy and drugs for that)

MDMA Synthesis (How to make Molly) | The DEA: The definitive guide to MDMA (molly, ecstasy)