After finishing dinner, they were on the way together to look at apartments when Carl grew curious about a word he kept hearing from Oliver and Jack Welles. He asked what Braindance was supposed to be. The question sounded simple, but it stopped the other two for a moment.
"Is it like some kind of Bao-mon game?" Carl asked.
"What are you even talking about? Bao-mon or whatever," Oliver said. "Braindance is just Braindance."
Knowing that Carl was unfamiliar with many everyday things, Oliver explained it properly. Under his explanation, Carl gained a rough understanding of what Braindance actually was.
In simple terms, it was a form of VR-like experience that converted the recorder's personal sensations into digital data. After special amplification, it played directly through the viewer's nervous system, letting them feel everything the recorder felt at the time. Pain, pleasure, fear, and excitement were all transmitted with no filtering, making the experience identical for both sides.
This was the most popular entertainment of the era, and Braindance Display was something nearly every household owned. Its place in daily life was similar to the role mobile phones once had in Carl's old world. Hearing all this, Carl showed clear interest.
"Sounds interesting. I want to try it," he said.
"Alright then," Jack Welles replied. "We will stop by a shop that sells a 'Braindance Headset' and get you one to try."
Both Jack Welles and Oliver were already used to Carl's sheltered level of common knowledge. Seeing his interest, they immediately changed direction and drove toward a Braindance Shop first.
A head-mounted Braindance Display was not very expensive. A brand new personal unit only cost one thousand Eurodollars, and it came bundled with several of the latest popular Braindance Chip on the market. The price was low enough that most people could afford one without much thought.
"'Make My Heart Race', 'Soul of Light', 'Sword Bay Gate'. Why are all of these game types?" Oliver muttered.
He wanted to help Carl pick something decent, but after flipping through the options, he found that all the bundled popular titles were games. It felt a bit disappointing.
"I bet game types do not sell well, so they bundle them," Jack Welles said. "They are popular, sure, but in Night City, they are probably less exciting than just walking down the street."
He glanced over the shelf with other Braindance and pointed at one. "I think 'The Old Man and the Sea' looks pretty good."
"Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea'?" Carl asked.
That question immediately got Jack Welles excited. "You read Ernest Hemingway's books too?"
"Isn't it a classic?" Carl replied.
"A classic?" Oliver scratched his head. He seemed to be the only one there who had no idea what 'The Old Man and the Sea' was about. "So what is it about?"
"To put it simply, it is the story of an old man fishing," Carl said.
"Fishing?" Oliver frowned. "The seas around Night City are almost completely polluted. I cannot imagine feeling immersed in that."
He had been a little curious about the famous Braindance Chip that both Carl and Jack Welles knew, but once he heard it was about fishing, he lost interest. To him, it sounded dull.
"The theme is not really fishing," Carl added.
He picked up the 'The Old Man and the Sea' Braindance, which cost only fifty Eurodollars. He wanted to see what a Braindance based on a classic work would feel like.
Then he noticed something else. "What are those?"
Carl pointed toward a corner shelf where the Braindance cases looked like they had been splashed with dark, black-red colors. They stood apart from the rest of the shop's stock.
"Those?" Oliver looked over and explained. "They are the ones with heavy violence and sexual content."
"How violent are we talking?" Carl asked.
"If they can be sold openly in a shop like this, they should not be illegal Braindance. Probably around the level of bullets punching through the chest or stomach."
"Through the chest?" Carl repeated.
He walked over and looked more closely. One of the titles read "The Years I Spent in Trauma Team," and the description showed it was a series following a recorder during missions with Trauma Team, full of emergency calls, gunfights, and gang members.
It sounded interesting. The price was higher than ordinary titles, but still only seventy Eurodollars, about the cost of twenty meals for an average person in Watson District.
Carl currently had over forty thousand Eurodollars, so this price was nothing to him. After a quick look, he decided to buy the entire series, parts one, two, and three. Buying the full set cost two hundred Eurodollars, saving him ten Eurodollars in total.
Besides that, he also picked "A Mercenary's Combat Record," "The Boxer's Road," and "The End of the Samurai." These were not bundles, but they were cheaper, adding up to only one hundred eighty Eurodollars altogether.
"Carl, you are really buying that many at once?" Oliver asked.
Watching Carl blink calmly while holding the Braindance Headset and spending one thousand four hundred thirty Eurodollars in one go, Oliver felt genuine amazement. In the past, he would hesitate forever before buying even one adult Braindance. Carl casually buying six at once felt unreal.
"You said Braindance lets you fully experience the recorder's senses," Carl said. "There is something I want to verify."
Beyond simple curiosity about the latest entertainment of 2075, he wanted to test whether the sensations from Braindance could be remembered by him. If they could, then these Braindance would be like one-on-one training sessions. With that thought, he had deliberately bought ones covering medical work, firearms, boxing, and sword techniques.
"Verify?" Jack Welles blinked.
He did not really understand what Carl meant, but he did not care much either. In a good mood after coming into money, he picked a few Braindance he had long been interested in and prepared to check out.
With Carl's purchases, Jack Welles's choices, and a few picked by Oliver as well, it was a rare day of booming sales for the shop owner. Unfortunately, his happiness did not last long. The door of the Braindance shop was suddenly kicked open.
Three men wearing black hoods that covered their faces stormed in, each holding a Militech Lexington. The moment they entered, they raised their pistols and aimed at everyone inside.
"Do not move. This is a robbery."
'Now this really feels like Night City,' Carl thought.
With guns pointed at him, Carl was confident he could shoot all three men in the head in an instant. Still, there was risk involved, and if they only wanted money, he would not lose anything. He raised his hands slightly to show he had no intention of resisting.
Oliver and Jack Welles exchanged a glance and cooperated by raising their hands as well. They clearly had no intention of getting involved in such a common robbery.
The robbery moved quickly. The three robbers showed no interest in hurting anyone and only wanted cash. With a helpless expression, the shop owner handed over all the money in the register, about seven hundred Eurodollars.
The owner felt fortunate that he had not yet completed the transaction with Carl and the others, and that there was not much cash in the shop. Otherwise, today would have been a huge loss.
Besides the money, the robbers also grabbed a few game-type Braindance. They did not take expensive items like the Braindance Headset, since those had codes that required specialists to remove. That was beyond the ability of street thugs like them.
Possibly worried about NCPD arriving, the entire robbery lasted less than two minutes. After getting what they wanted, the robbers rushed out, slamming the door behind them and leaving the shop owner in pain over his losses.
"Bastards. I am calling NCPD and sending them all to jail," the owner cursed.
He sighed and was about to turn back to attend to Carl and the other customers when gunshots rang out from outside. The sound was unmistakably that of a Militech Lexington. In the next second, the door that had just closed was smashed open again.