The neon smear of Night City's Watson District clung to their boots like gum as they walked, its flickering holograms casting jagged shadows over pockmarked concrete.
Jackie's Saints necklace clinked rhythmically against his jacket zipper—a cheap metronome keeping time with the distant thump of bass from a joytoy bar. Oliver kicked a crumpled synth-beer can into the gutter, where it joined a mosaic of hyposprays and bullet casings.
"Braindance?" Carl asked, squinting at a glitching hologram of a chrome-limbed woman mid-backflip. Her form pixelated as they passed, dissolving into static. "Like… virtual reality?"
"Nah," Oliver said, scraping gum off his boot with a spent casing. "VR's for corpos jerking off in their ivory penthouses. Braindance? That's raw. Slaps someone else's memories into your skull—tastes their synth-whiskey, feels their broken ribs, even smells their ex's perfume. All the nasty shit."
Jackie grinned, patting Carl's shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Ever wanted to know what it's like to get your chrome peeled off by Maelstrom? There's a BD for that."
Carl's neural port buzzed faintly, a phantom itch. "So it's… training? Or just entertainment?"
"Depends how suicidal you feel," Jackie said, ducking under a flickering Tsunami Arms billboard. Its holographic katana sliced through the smog, advertising "Blade Sharp Enough to Cut Through Tomorrow!" "Some gonks pay extra to feel their guts hit the floor. Me? I prefer my organs inside."
The braindance vendor's shack hunched between a noodle stall and a pawn shop hawking "lightly used" cyberlungs. Its cracked plexiglass window glowed with pixelated titles: Make My Heart Race pulsed in migraine pink, while Soul of Light scrolled synth-orange kanji over a samurai's silhouette. A flickering sign above the door read: "MEMORIES SOLD HERE (NO REFUNDS)."
Oliver shoved the door open, its hinges screaming like a tortured synth. "Got a BD virgin here!" he announced to the gaunt vendor, whose neural port crusted with dried bio-gel. "Needs something that won't melt his meat-brain."
The vendor slid a visor across the counter—sleek black plastic stamped with the Arasaka logo. "Maseo X-7. Basic neural interface, no ICE. Plug-and-play for rookies."
Carl turned it over, thumbing the temple pads. "How much?"
"Thousand eddies. Toss in Gate of the Sword Bay and Soul of Light for free." The vendor's smile revealed a gold molar. "Corporate-approved fun."
"Games?" Oliver grimaced, flipping through a bin of discounted BDs. "Who the hell wants to sim a corpo's idea of adrenaline? Real thrills are free in the Combat Zone."
Jackie lingered by a warped shelf labeled Classics, his calloused fingers brushing a chip titled The Old Man and the Sea. The case was dusty, its holographic summary flickering: Experience the salt spray, the aching joints, the triumph of the human spirit.
"Ever read Hemingway, hermano?" Jackie asked, uncharacteristically quiet.
Carl blinked. "The fishing story?"
"Sí. Man versus nature. Versus himself. Versus a fish bigger than your ego." Jackie's grin softened. "My abuela had a paper copy. Pages so old, they'd crumble if you sneezed."
Oliver peered over his shoulder. "Wait—this's just some gonk wrestling a tuna? Hard pass. Last fish I saw had three eyes and glowed like a reactor core."
"It's not about the fish," Carl said, slotting the chip into his palm. The holographic fisherman's face glitched, replaced by a Tyger Claw's snarling visage for half a second. "It's about… stubbornness."
"Then it'll fit right in here," Jackie said, tossing it into their pile.
Carl's gaze drifted to a shadowed corner where the holos bled crimson. A shelf sagged under titles like Scav Night and Corpo Bathroom Break. He picked up one labeled My Trauma Team Years: Season 1, its case sticky with something he chose not to identify.
"Trauma Team sim?" Oliver raised an eyebrow. "You wanna play medic now?"
"Might learn something," Carl said, adding the trilogy to his stack—200 eddies for the set. "Ever seen a ripperdoc panic?"
"Only when I forget to pay," Jackie said, grabbing A Merc's Combat Log and Last Stand of the Samurai. "This one's got a five-star review: 'Felt my spleen hit the floor!'
The vendor rang them up, his fingers dancing over a holographic keypad. "Fine choices. You want the special catalog?" He leaned closer, breath reeking of synthetic mint. "Half-off for new customers. Educational content."
"We're good," Carl said, ignoring Oliver's snort.
The door exploded inward before the transaction cleared.
Three figures in ski masks stormed in, Lexingtons raised. The leader's voice modulator garbled his words into a mechanical growl: "Eyes on the floor! Wallets out!"
Carl's hand twitched toward his holster—a microsecond calculus. Three hostiles. Two civilians. Low cover behind the counter.
But the lead robber's finger already trembled on the trigger, his pupils dilated behind the mask. Too jumpy. Too desperate.
Not worth the bloodshed.
He raised his hands slowly, catching Oliver and Jackie's mirrored movements in his periphery. The vendor whimpered, shoving a wad of eddies across the counter.
"Pleasure doing business," the leader sneered, snatching the cash and a handful of BDs. "Don't miss us too much."
The door slammed behind them, the bell jingling like a death rattle.
"NCPD'll take three hours to show," the vendor muttered, dialing a number on his holo. "If I'm lucky."
A gunshot cracked outside. Then another.
The door burst open again, hinges screaming. A body sprawled across the threshold—one of the robbers, mask askew, a third eye smoking in his forehead. Blood pooled around his skull, mingling with neon reflections from the street.
Jackie sighed, drawing his Nue. "Dios mío, can't even shop in peace."
Carl thumbed his Lexington's safety off. Somewhere in Night City, a BD chip labeled The Old Man and the Sea waited patiently in his pocket.
But first—survival.
The night hummed with fresh violence.
In sync, three pistols cleared leather.