[TN: 2 Chapter for missing yesterday]
"Everyone thinks they're special. People always say that—right before they go insane."
Jimmy's voice had fully regained its energy, though his mood swings were clearly all over the place.
And that excitent only escalated as Leo continued his setup:
Leo's cyber modulator and braindance (BD) decoder were incredibly high-end!
Jimmy could tell—this wasn't just so street-level Maelstrom Gang database. It included military-grade perception-sync data modules!
To make the experience as authentic as possible, Leo also used his usual fixed-position braindance chair.
And judging from Leo's cyberware, which looked like a military-grade model from Sandivistan, the BD playback experience was practically identical to what the original recorder felt!
Seeing Leo sit down and prep the braindance, Jimmy was practically drooling. He couldn't wait to see what was about to happen!
Even David, standing nearby, started sweating from Jimmy's manic energy. Maine and the others looked grim too.
They were beginning to understand the basics of cyberware—so bodily responses weren't sothing you could just "tough out."
If your pain nerves got hit with a jolt of current, your brain would feel pain—no matter what.
Emotions, when it ca down to it, were just combinations of chemicals and electrical signals.
Even if they believed "Burger King" (Leo) was the toughest badass in town, that didn't an he could just ignore physiological responses!
V and Jackie exchanged glances, not quite understanding what the others were so tense about.
The braindance activated.
Suddenly, Leo's muscles twitched violently!
BDs stimulate the brain directly to replicate the protagonist's experience. For soone with a Sandevistan-grade body, their physical form reacts accordingly.
Jimmy was getting even more hyped. He was so ready to watch the infamous "Burger King" tremble and piss himself in the chair!
The atmosphere thickened with tension—
But the scene Jimmy had imagined didn't happen.
Aside from so minor muscle twitching, there was… nothing.
Honestly, Leo's muscle spasms weren't even as bad as a mild cramp.
Then V casually asked, "What's the highest body count for one of the cyberpsychos in your tapes?"
Jimmy rattled it off like trivia: "Most kills? Fifty-six. Happened two years ago in the slums. Most intense one killed twenty-six."
"That's it?" V scratched her head.
"..."
Already agitated by not getting the reaction he wanted from Leo, Jimmy now felt even more annoyed by V's attitude. He instinctively wanted to argue.
But then the words caught in his throat.
By all trics—combat difficulty, cyberware level, etc.—the most intense protagonist in the tapes had killed twenty-six people.
That guy also had military-grade Sandevistan gear, killed fourteen gangsters and twelve NCPD officers before getting put down by the MaxTac unit.
But Burger King... basically debuted by flattening Jas Norris, who had comparable combat capabilities.
Wait—that ans one of the tapes was Jas Norris!
Right! These three guys—they probably each had over 100 kills under their belts by now!
From low-level 6th Street grunts to Tiger Claw elites, Maelstrom psychos, Corpo ops… even—
Even MaxTac had taken losses to them!
Hell, they even blew up an armored hover vehicle!
They might've even fought lizardn at so point.
Jimmy's head was buzzing, his thoughts chaotic. Sothing inside him just felt wrong.
He tried a different angle of defense:
"Madness can't be asured just by body count. These tapes… they include every emotional nuance of the protagonist—their pain, hatred, madness, and fanaticism pushed to extres.
Emotion is complex. A lifeti of suffering and repression can explode in just a few hours, like a burning fla.
In the BD, you are that person. The fire scorches everyone indiscriminately. That's what makes it intense."
He took a breath, feeling like he'd scored so poetic points to salvage his dignity.
V and Jackie shared another glance. Jackie said, "He's a special case. By your logic, maybe he's… non-flammable garbage."
"I told you—every psycho thinks they're special!"
The two shrugged and casually sipped their drinks.
anwhile, David and Maine's crew learned sothing new—and got tense all over again.
Then—
Leo moved his hand!
Jimmy thought this was it. The ltdown was coming!
But instead, Leo calmly pulled out the BD disc and imdiately slotted in another one.
He even frowned and muttered, "Bit slow. Let's speed it up."
Huh?
Jimmy's brain froze.
He'd just claid that cyberpsychosis flared like a fire—short, brutal. But Leo wanted to condense that fire even more in his own brain?
That's like turning slow-burning fuel into an explosive! Sure, it's possible—but that's not burning, that's detonating.
Forcing soone to watch black-market braindance is like roasting them over a fire.
But Leo? He was basically saying: This BD has no flavor.
Jimmy started to think clearly again—for a second. He looked at the console's display.
It showed that Leo wasn't just speeding it up.
He was scrubbing forward and back repeatedly, zeroing in on key monts for further viewing.
Such abnormal behavior… Maybe Leo had finally hit his limit?
Maybe he'd already gone mad?
Jimmy comforted himself with that idea—
"Next one."
Leo emotionlessly changed to another disc, starting the loop again.
His movents were calm and practiced—not a hint of shaking.
As Leo kept swapping and reviewing discs, Jimmy's brain spiraled into chaos.
"Sigh… You really gambled hard, you moron," V muttered, annoyed that Leo had made such easy money.
Jackie chuckled: "Told ya. He ain't like your actors."
[HEART OF EVOLUTION: High stimulation from BD nullified]
So people watch BD and convulse, limbs twisting, foaming at the mouth, even losing bowel control.
So people watch BD like eating a dinner roll—and eat it fast, too.
Apparently, Leo was the dinner roll type.
Black braindance does have strong ntal impact. As Jimmy said, pain isn't quantifiable—not just body count or cyberware.
Each original BD covered a cyberpsycho's breakdown, their rampage, and eventual death, by MaxTac or otherwise.
So tapes lasted over two hours, but most ended within 30 minutes.
The subject's entire life collapsed over days. Their leftover humanity ignited, turning them into psychological bombs, releasing their rage at the world.
These emotions, impossible to quantify, were replayed in the BDs. The editor would strip out the dull bits, leave only the most intense emotions.
Normal people's nervous systems would be altered permanently, dulled.
But under Leo's control, those scenes flashed by like a slideshow.
All those violent emotions compressed together, until they beca indescribable chaos. A normal person would go insane.
The loop was: stimulus recreated the scene, which triggered emotional response, which amplified neural activity, which intensified the stimulus again.
For Leo, the loop didn't work. He had no strong emotional reactions to those scenes.
He wasn't skipping around for thrills. He was comparing data. He knew only the highest-spiking neural activity had any value to him.
Each cyberpsycho had different causes and cyberware, leading to slight variations in neural response.
But all of them overclocked their cyberware during the breakdown. That overclocking followed patterns. Human minds couldn't track them, but AI could.
The BD tried to recreate those neural states in Leo's body. The neural signals beca data—and every byte was logged by Little Octopus.
Then Little Octopus scratched its head with one tentacle—and scratched Leo with another:
[Little Octopus: Boss… why aren't you reacting at all?]
[Leo: Why? Is the data wrong?]
[Little Octopus: No, the data's fine. It's just… you really aren't reacting. At all.]
[Leo: Don't worry about that. Any progress?]
[Little Octopus: In theory yes… but since you don't seem human, I'll have to test this on others.]
[Leo: So we're done.]
[Little Octopus: Boss… are you hiding sothing from ? You're not human, are you?]
The curious Octopus climbed further over Leo's digital body, though it was just code, the movent looked eerily real thanks to its new behavior models.
Leo felt the chilly, crawling sensation in his brain, frowned, and shoved it back into core storage.
[Little Octopus: Eek! Nooo!]
Ding—
The cyber modulator stopped outputting. Braindance ended. Leo exited the last cyberpsycho's world.
He looked at the dumbfounded Jimmy.
"That's all?"
Jimmy nodded blankly—he did have more, but they were garbage tapes from others. Even he didn't like them.
Guys like David—newbies—might find them thrilling.
The real value was in these eleven original cyberpsycho tapes.
Leo shook his head with regret: "Well, as per our bet—10,000 eddies per tape. Eleven tapes, that's 110,000."
[Transaction: 110,000 eddies]
[Account Balance: 120,000 eddies]
To Jimmy, who just had his worldview shattered, 110k was a small price to pay.
The black-market BD editor slumped into his chair, zoning out—his world was shattered.
Maybe… maybe soone really was special.
Leo turned to the two tied-up rcenaries nearby.
"Now let's talk about your situation."
Soviet rcs showing up in Night City… Leo had a feeling this wasn't going to be simple.
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