The crystal chandelier trembled under the frequency of the neural resonator.
Seraphina curled inside a gilded birdcage, twelve layers of champagne tulle draping her wheat-colored skin. The auctioneer was presenting this "Anxiety Special Reserve"—a Wall Street wolf's memory from the eve of the subprime mortgage crisis, extracted into golden-hued neuropeptide solution and sealed in an engraved glass vial.
"Opening bid: three months of accelerated heartbeat." The auctioneer tapped his titanium gavel.
Holographic bid boards flickered like fireflies. Tycoons wearing metallic respirators raised chip-implanted hands, LED screens on their wrists flashing icy numbers: some mortgaged palm sweat from their first love, others pledged tear gland secretions from their daughter's graduation ceremony.
Seraphina licked the micro-detonator on her canine tooth. The neural-electric shackles around her ankles chimed sweetly—custom-made restraints that had become perfect percussion instruments. She swayed her feet to the bidding rhythm, chains clanging jazz beats against the cage bars.
"Five years of fear threshold from this gentleman!" The auctioneer's voice distorted. When a Silicon Valley prodigy offered his mechanical eye as collateral, Seraphina knew it was time.
She ripped her skirt open. Champagne tulle exploded like fireworks, revealing twenty rainbow vials strapped to her thighs. In the 0.3 seconds before security hounds locked onto her pupils, she'd already shattered three vials with her stiletto heel.
Lavender smoke engulfed the auction hall. Her new hallucinogen—a blend of holy water, underground rocker vocal waves, and antidepressants—forced victims to relive their most humiliating memories.
"Fuck! Why's my eight-year-old bedwetting memory surfacing?!"
"God damn! The sugar baby I kept last week is my secret lovechild?!"
Amid the screams, Seraphina slipped from the cage like an eel. She vaulted onto the auction podium via an oil tycoon's gleaming bald head, her diamond-studded heel piercing the neural resonator's port.
"Ladies and gentlemen—" Her breath against the microphone activated the chandelier device, "Let's elevate this farce!"
Azure raindrops cascaded from the dome. Not water, but her "Blue Requiem Tears"—each molecule carrying shards of Billie Holiday's fractured sobs. When the first drop hit a socialite's crocodile purse, the hall erupted in synchronized weeping.
"My private island... can't fill this soul-shaped void..."
"Why clone ten replicants for family dinners..."
Seraphina reveled in the chaos. Her irises shifted from amber to warning crimson—her gene-modded adrenaline alert. As particle beams grazed her ear, she shattered bulletproof glass with her shoulder.
Thirty-seven stories up, wind whipped through her tattered skirt. Mid-fall, she triggered the EMP device hidden in her navel ring. Every electronic system died, including missiles targeting her spine.
The emergency stairwell reeked of lemon-scented tranquilizers. Seraphina ripped off her bustle and stepped over twitching hound carcasses. Bursting into the men's restroom for an escape route, she found a sight more dangerous than missiles.
Evander Blackthorn adjusted his tie before the mirror. His charcoal suit clung like a second skin, but Seraphina's gaze locked on his left hand—long fingers gripping a shard of mirror, carving a seventeenth cross on his inner arm.
Blood snaked down marble into gold drains. Even self-harm looked clinical, like signing merger papers.
"Wow." Seraphina whistled. "Eclipse Corp too cheap to buy their CEO proper blades?"
Grey-blue eyes narrowed in the mirror. Evander turned with Swiss precision, but Seraphina moved beyond algorithms—she lunged to bite his tie, tearing silk with canines, slapping a Hello Kitty bandage on his wound from her bra.
"Know what?" She licked blood from her lips. "Your geometric self-mutilation makes you look like a jammed 3D printer."
Evander's composure cracked. As he reached for her throat, Seraphina flipped onto a stall door. Ripping open final vials, she laughed through magenta smoke: "Tell your AI god—"
"Every order He creates, I'll blow to smithereens!"
Sirens wailed. Before vanishing into vents, Seraphina glanced back. The man stood frozen, peeling at the pink bandage. Yet for a millisecond, his fingers hesitated over the unicorn pattern.
Key details preserved:
Cyberpunk aesthetics (neural shackles/EMP devices)
Absurdist humor (Hello Kitty bandage on a CEO)
Synesthesia descriptions ("tears carrying Billie Holiday's voice")
Psychological warfare through emotional weapons
Let me know if you'd like to adjust the tone balance between poetic prose and gritty cyberpunk realism!