Reverse Conditioning

The restraint collar felt like a serpent made of ice and lightning. Seraphina arched against the medical slab as Evander secured the neurocarbon alloy around her throat, his fingers brushing the exact point where her carotid artery throbbed with fractal-patterned rage.

"Adrenaline suppression at 90%," the lab's AI chimed. "Emotional volatility containment protocols engaged."

Seraphina's laughter came out distorted through the collar's filter. "You think this dog tag can muzzle a supernova?"

Evander adjusted the collar's biometric sensors, their cold blue light reflecting in his mercury-colored eyes. "Your endocrine system is a loaded gun pointed at your own skull. I'm simply removing the bullets."

The lab had been rebuilt since her last visit – reinforced graphene walls, floor-mounted tesla coils, and an entire containment grid powered by the wasted potential of Wall Street's anxiety indexes. Seraphina's gaze locked on the new addition: a ceiling-mounted array of emotion spectrum analyzers shaped like inverted crucifixions.

"Careful, Blackthorn." She tested the collar's limits, savoring the neural feedback sting. "Keep playing messiah and you'll end up nailed to your own tech."

Evander's response died in his throat as Seraphina suddenly convulsed. The monitors erupted with warnings – her cortisol levels were composing jazz riffs, oxytocin production diagramming Celtic knots.

"Subject attempting biological override," the AI warned as Seraphina's body temperature swung between hypothermic and pyroclastic.

"Compensate with dopamine inhibitors," Evander ordered, his retinal display scrolling through twelve simultaneous diagnostics.

Seraphina's spine arched off the slab. "You want to regulate me?" Her voice split into harmonic frequencies that cracked observation windows. "Let's overclock your little toy!"

The collar's biometric lights stuttered. Evander's calculations faltered as her vital signs began cycling through prime numbers – heartbeat at 179 bpm (prime), blood pressure 131/83 (both primes), even her pain receptors firing in Fibonacci agony.

"Impossible..." He reached to stabilize the collar.

Seraphina seized his wrist, her nails drawing black code across his skin. "Meet my secret weapon – clinically diagnosed goddamn spite."

The collar exploded in a shower of rainbow sparks.

Chaos unfolded in perfect symphony.

Seraphina's liberated scream shattered the tesla coils, their arcs of electricity dancing around her like worshippers. Evander's containment grid shorted out, translating her rage into a sonata that made lab rats chew through titanium cages.

"Emotional cascade breaching Level 9 containment!" the AI screamed as fire alarms transmuted into death metal growls.

Evander activated his emergency visor just as Seraphina pirouetted through the lab. Her every footstep left radioactive burns in the shape of middle fingers. When security drones deployed, she ripped off her biomonitor pads and threw them like shurikens – each sticky sensor adhering to drone optics and projecting VR simulations of her most traumatic memories.

"Psychological warfare protocol!" a technician screamed as drones began self-immolating.

Seraphina leapt onto the central console, her sweat corroding quantum processors. "This what you wanted to study?" She tore open her hospital gown, revealing skin mapped with glowing mutation sigils. "Take fucking notes!"

Evander's retinal display overloaded. He tore it off just in time to see her slam both palms against the emotion spectrum analyzers. The machines wailed like damned souls as she force-fed them pure, uncut euphoria.

The fire suppression system finally activated – but instead of foam, it rained liquid dissonance.

Water fell in hexagons.

Seraphina stood hip-deep in the flooding lab, watching the fire suppressant defy physics. Each droplet contained micro-holograms of corporate logos that dissolved when touched. Evander emerged from the deluge with his tie repurposed as an ocular bandage, blood and algorithms leaking down his cheek.

"Remarkable," he breathed, staring at the water warping around Seraphina's bioelectric field. "You're generating localized reality distortion."

She flicked a glowing droplet at him. "Reality's just mass hallucination anyway."

The water between them began boiling and freezing simultaneously. Seraphina's mutation sigils pulsed in time with Evander's damaged visor – a synchronization that made the lab's AI start reciting Buddhist mantras in machine code.

"You're not a machine," she taunted, wading closer. "I can smell your cortisol when I break your toys."

Evander's hand shot out, a neural disruptor pressed to her mutation sigil cluster. "And you're not invincible."

Seraphina grinned through the pain as the disruptor melted against her skin. "Wrong again, pretty boy." She grabbed his soaking shirt. "These aren't mutations."

Their collision sent shockwaves through the water. Evander's scientific mind catalogued the data even as she pinned him against sinking equipment:

Her breath smelled of burnt capacitors and jasmine

The water evaporated where their skin touched

His heartbeat now matched her 179 bpm prime rhythm

"Still think you're the puppetmaster?" Seraphina licked the blood from his split lip. "Your pulse is writing love letters to my DNA."

Evander's retaliation was beautifully predictable – a calculated knee to her ribs that would disable normal humans. Seraphina laughed as the impact only fused their bioelectric fields tighter.

"Fascinating," he murmured, genuine awe bleeding through his clinical tone. "The pain receptors in your..."

Seraphina silenced him with teeth and fury.

The kiss tasted like copper wires and rebellion. When she bit through his lower lip, their mixed blood created miniature supernovae in the electrified water.

"See?" She pressed their bleeding mouths together. "No machine bleeds this hot."

Evander's hands found her throat – not to strangle, but to feel the quantum vibrations in her vocal cords. "You're an event horizon," he gasped against her radioactive smile. "A beautiful catastrophe."

The lab's structural integrity finally failed. As the ceiling collapsed, Seraphina dragged them both through a sewage grate. They tumbled into underground tunnels, still entangled in wires and want.

Twenty meters below the city, Seraphina pressed Evander against a moss-covered wall. His pristine suit was now a masterpiece of ruin – one sleeve missing, collar branded with her teeth marks, pants ripped to reveal a thigh holster full of syringes marked Emotional Neutralizer.

"Still want to cure me?" She plucked a syringe and jammed it into her own neck. The fluid turned neon pink upon contact with her blood.

Evander watched, transfixed, as the neutralizer transformed into something wilder. "What are you?"

"Your worst investment." She crushed the empty syringe and kissed him again, transferring the chemical chaos. "And best mistake."

When the underground tremors began, they broke apart – Seraphina fleeing into steam vents, Evander left clutching a handful of her glowing hair.

Back in the drowned lab, technicians found all digital records corrupted... except one file. Security footage showed the flooding water forming fractal patterns around their clash, the liquid arranging into a recurring symbol – an ouroboros made of circuit boards.