56. Attack and Something Strange

"Back already? How'd it go?"

"Don't even ask. It wasn't the kind of goods I was looking for."

Speaking to Jack, who sat across from her on the couch, Carl sighed. "It wasn't a total waste of time. I did manage to put a dent in the illegal braindance trade in Night City, more or less. But damn it, the way they transported braindances was even more over-the-top than smuggling military hardware."

Carl shook her head and tossed the braindance headset she had been wearing onto the table with a dull thud.

"Four people, all fitted with military-grade cyberware and armed well enough to fight a small war, just to escort this pile of cheap Cyberpsychosis knockoff garbage made by some second-rate director."

"It takes a professional to make it worth watching, right?"

Jack laughed. "Still, some people are into that sort of thing. I remember not long ago, someone somehow got your number and called to ask if they could buy the last braindance JK recorded before he died. They were offering a pretty good price, too."

"I don't know how they found out I had that," Carl said, her tone darkening. "But I'll never sell that final work."

If she sold it, wouldn't that be admitting she was a Cyberpsychosis patient?

Although Carl no longer took it as badly as she had at first when people labeled her a "Cyberpsychosis patient," the fact that she had dragged Oliver into staking the place out the moment she caught wind of it meant that, deep down, she still cared.

"If you care that much about it, why not just destroy it?"

"That's different."

Carl sighed again, her voice dropping. "I do have some respect for JK's spirit as a director. Even though what he did made me want to string