21. Mewtwo

"Braindance, what is that?"

After finishing their meal, on the way to look at apartments, Karl asked about the term he kept hearing from Oliver and Jack.

"Is it something like Pokemon?"

"What are you talking about? What's a Pokemon? A braindance is just a braindance."

Oliver knew that Karl was ignorant of many things, so he simply explained it to him. Under Oliver's guidance, Karl gained a rough understanding of what a "braindance"—or BD—actually was.

In short, it was a form of virtual reality experience. It recorded the personal experience of the creator in a digital format, which was then specially amplified and played directly into the viewer's nervous system. This allowed the viewer to experience every aspect of what the recorder felt at the time—from physical pain to sheer pleasure—ensuring that the sensations of the recorder and the viewer were identical.

It was the most popular form of entertainment in this era, and BD players were found in every household, holding a status similar to the mobile phones of the world Karl once came from.

"Sounds interesting. I'd like to try it."

That was Karl's stance on braindances.

"Alright then. We'll head to a shop that sells 'headset braindance players' on the way and get you set up."

Jack and Oliver were already accustomed to Karl's sheltered, high-society-like ignorance. Seeing he was interested, they immediately changed direction and headed toward a BD store.

The price of a headset BD player wasn't expensive. A brand-new, personal-use unit cost only 1,000 eddies, and it came bundled with several of the latest popular BD titles on the market.

"《Let My Heart Beat》, 《Soul of Light》, 《Gate of the Sword Coast》... why are they all games?"

Oliver wanted to help Karl pick out something good, but after flipping through the options, he realized all the free bundles were games.

"I suspect the game ones don't sell well, so they bundle them. They might be 'popular,' but in Night City, this stuff is probably less exciting than just taking a stroll down the street."

Jack, meanwhile, was browsing the shelves for other BDs. "I think 《The Old Man and the Sea》 looks pretty good."

"Hemingway's *The Old Man and the Sea*?"

Karl's question made Jack excited. "You read Hemingway too?"

"Isn't it a classic?"

"A classic?"

Oliver scratched his head, seemingly the only one of the three who didn't know what *The Old Man and the Sea* was about. "What's it about?"

"Simply put, it's the story of an old man catching a fish."

Karl’s summary was concise.

"Catching a fish? The seas around Night City are pretty much entirely polluted now. I don't think I'd feel any sense of immersion."

Oliver had originally wanted to see what a classic BD was like, but once he heard it was about fishing, he lost interest.

"The theme isn't really just about fishing, though."

Karl picked up the copy of *The Old Man and the Sea*, priced at fifty eddies. He was curious to see how a literary classic would translate into a braindance.

Then...

"What are those?"

Karl pointed to a corner where the BD cases were colored as if splattered with black blood.

"Those?" Oliver looked at them and offered a rough explanation: "Those are the ones that involve gore or pornography."

"How bloody?"

"If they're being sold openly in a shop like this, they aren't 'XBDs'—black braindances. The level is probably just bullets passing through the chest and abdomen?"

"Passing through the chest and abdomen?"

Karl walked over to take a look. He found a disc titled 《My Years at Trauma Team》. Reading the synopsis, he saw it was a series. It documented a mission performed by the recorder while working for Trauma Team, with keywords like "emergency," "gunfight," and "gang members."

Interesting.

He checked the price. These discs were a bit more expensive than the others, but at seventy eddies, that was about the cost of twenty meals for an average person in Watson.

Karl currently had over 40,000 eddies, so he could easily afford this. He looked them over and decided to buy the entire series—parts one, two, and three—of 《My Years at Trauma Team》. Buying the whole series at once cost two hundred eddies, saving him ten.

In addition to those, Karl picked out 《Combat Logs of a Mercenary》, 《Journey of a Boxing Champion》, and 《End of a Samurai》. These weren't bundled, but they were cheaper than the series, totaling another 180 eddies.

"Karl, are you really buying all that at once?"

Watching Karl blink while buying the headset and a pile of BDs, spending 1,430 eddies in one go, Oliver felt that Karl spent money with incredible ease. In the past, Oliver would have hesitated for a long time just to buy a piece of smutty BD, yet Karl was grabbing six intense ones without a second thought.

"You said that a braindance allows you to fully experience the recorder's senses, right? I have something I want to verify."

Beyond his curiosity about the latest entertainment technology of 2075, Karl was more interested in seeing if the sensations within a braindance could be memorized by his own mind. If they could, then this stack of BDs would effectively be one-on-one tutelage. With that thought in mind, he had bought a variety of subjects, including medical procedures, firearms, boxing, and swordplay.

"Verify?"

Jack blinked, not quite understanding what Karl was talking about, but he didn't mind. Since they had come into some money, he picked out a few BDs he had been interested in for a long time, ready to check out.

With Karl's haul, Jack's picks, and a few items Oliver added, it was a rare, profitable day for the shop owner. However, his joy didn't last long. The store's front door was kicked open, and three men wearing black masks burst in, brandishing Lexington pistols. They immediately raised their weapons at the people in the shop.

"Don't move! This is a robbery!"

*Wow, now this feels like Night City.*

With guns pointed at him, Karl was confident he could blow the heads off all three men in an instant, but there was still some inherent danger. Since they only seemed interested in robbery, he wouldn't lose much, so he chose to raise his hands, signaling he had no intention of interfering.

Oliver and Jack exchanged a look and cooperatively raised their hands as well, clearly not wanting to get involved in such a mundane robbery.

The heist proceeded quickly. The three robbers had no intention of harming anyone; their target was just the money. Under the shop owner's teary-eyed expression, he honestly handed over all the cash in the register—about seven hundred eddies.

The owner was just thankful he hadn't finished the transaction with Karl and his friends yet, and that there wasn't much cash in the store, otherwise, he would have lost a fortune today.

Aside from the money, the robbers took a few game BDs. They didn't bother with the expensive headset players because they were encoded, and it would require a professional to wipe them—a task these thugs weren't capable of.

Perhaps worried about the NCPD arriving, the robbery was over in less than two minutes. After grabbing what they wanted, the robbers rushed out the door, leaving the owner in distress.

"Those bastards! I have to call the NCPD and make sure they rot in jail!"

After swearing, the owner sighed, preparing to greet Karl and his companions again. Suddenly, gunfire erupted outside. The sound was unmistakably that of a Lexington—the same sound Karl was now all too familiar with. The next second, the door that had just closed was smashed open again, and a mangled corpse rolled in. Looking at the damaged mask, it was clearly one of the robbers from moments ago.

"Looks like something happened."

Night City, indeed.

Karl sighed. With a silent, tacit understanding, he, Oliver, and Jack simultaneously drew their weapons.