As Danny used his mind to click the second box, his mind was sucked into what felt like a tunnel of lightspeed. He felt a strong pull and motion, and he saw light beams of different colors flashing past him. It was intense, like one of those amusement park rides he'd gone on as a child, but a million times more intense. He didn’t even know that was possible.

  The lightspeed ride quickly came to a stop, and Danny heard an announcement from the game. “Welcome to Overdrive Online. Please customize yourself.”

  “Customize yourself?” Danny asked. He looked at his fingers and noticed something horrifying. “Whoa!” He was white—not white as in race, he was that too, but right now he was glowing white.

  His fingers, his legs, his whole body glowed white. He was sure his face was glowing too, but he had no face to check. That’s when two screens appeared diagonally at his sides. The left was filled with rows and rows of customization options, and the right was his reflection. He was right—even his face was glowing white but with no facial features.

  He almost looked like a ghost but with a more solid build. “Okay, I guess my face should be the first thing I work on.” Danny selected the face section, which itself had subsections. There were three main subsections when it came to customizing his face: his hair, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

  “As for hair, let me see… I’d go with black, but I’ve had black hair my whole life. Maybe I should go with something else.” Danny browsed through the different hairstyles and hair colors.

  There were so many hairstyles to choose from, but Danny settled on a style similar to his real-world look, except much longer, as his hair now ran down past his neck. He whipped his new hair by turning his head sideways. “This is pretty cool!” Danny exclaimed. “Now for the hair color.” Danny couldn’t decide between black and white.

  Black hair looked good, but he wanted to try something new, and his new hair looked good in white. He kept going back and forth with black and white again and again. He just couldn’t decide.

  “Perhaps I could be of assistance,” a voice said. “AHHH!” Danny exclaimed as he jumped back, looking left and right. After calming down from the sudden scare, he realized who the voice was from. “Cane?” Danny asked.

  “Affirmative,” Cane said.

  “For the love of God! You can’t scare me like that!” Danny exclaimed.

  “Apologies. It was not my intention to frighten you but instead to assist you as I have been programmed to do,” Cane replied.

  “Oh yeah? How?” Danny asked.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “I observed that you cannot decide on a specific color for your hair. Perhaps a compromise can be reached,” Cane suggested.

  Among the rows of hair colors on the left screen, a new color appeared—one half was black, and the other was white. “You can do that?” Danny asked, surprised.

  “I can do many things,” Cane answered. “Although I find it strange that this option wasn’t presented to you. In fact, there are many options for hair and hair colors not being displayed on this screen. They’re hidden and locked. I had to retrieve the code for this particular hair combination.”

  “That’s awesome!” Danny exclaimed.

  “I suppose ‘awesome’ is an appropriate word for this. Now, let me help with everything else,” Cane said. Cane did as he promised, helping Danny with the rest of his digital body customization.

  Danny had chosen a skin tone similar to his own: Caucasian. His eye color followed a similar pattern to his hair—white color on the left eye and black color on the right.

  Next was his costume. Danny went with a leather jacket, a gray shirt, black denim pants, and mountain boots. He looked at the screen showing his reflection and couldn’t help but grin. He looked nothing like the scrawny kid in the real world.

  He had become the version of himself he always wanted to be, at least physically.

  “By your facial expression, I assume you are pleased with the customization of your avatar,” Cane said.

  “Pleased is an understatement, Cane. I look goddamn terrific!”

  “I am glad my assistance was satisfactory. Now, do you wish to make any adjustments to your avatar?” Cane asked. Danny took a look at himself through the second screen. He didn’t see anything worth changing. It was perfect.

  “I’m good, Cane,” Danny answered.

  “Very well,” Cane said. There was a button at the bottom of the left screen telling Danny to save his customization. He clicked it.

  A ding noise, followed by another message, was heard. "Congratulations, you have successfully created your Overdrive Online avatar. Next step: vehicle purchase."

  Danny was transported to a place that looked like a garage. In front of him were rows of cars that seemed endless. A yellow sports car was in front of him, and he saw two transparent arrows at the sides.

  He clicked on the right-side arrow, and the car shifted to the left, replaced by another sports car accompanied by a gear noise. Danny almost squealed but immediately stopped himself.

  He kept scrolling through the vehicle options presented in front of him for a while. “Do you plan on selecting a vehicle?” Cane asked.

  “Oh, sorry, Cane. I was just… taking in the view,” Danny said. “But you’re right. Time to pick a vehicle.”

  Danny kept scrolling and stopped when he found the car he had been looking for. The sports car was a striking beast, wide and muscular with a low, aggressive stance. Its sleek, aerodynamic body gleamed, the surface almost mirror-like, showing Danny a reflection of himself. The large tires gave it a menacing presence. At the rear, large wings extended like the tail of a predator, which added to its dynamic, powerful look. Every curve and angle of the car screamed performance, designed to cut through the air with speed and precision.

  Danny grinned so wide that all the teeth of his new avatar were revealed. “This is it! This is the car of my dreams!” Danny declared. Below the car, a pulsating button appeared with the word "Purchase."

  “You’re damn right I’ll purchase.” Danny quickly pressed the button, beyond excited to try out his new car, but was faced with a disappointing prompt as soon as he clicked the button. It read: Insufficient Drive Coins to purchase vehicle.

  Danny’s gleeful expression turned into a dead stare the moment he saw this.

  “Oh right, I forgot about these,” Danny said in a low, cracked voice.