Ryan's heart beat wildly as the interview wrapped up on his AR display. Kayla's network was known for not pulling tricks like using teleprompters. They won a lot of their viewership by selling their network as a brass-tacks, old-fashioned news channel based on their reporters' abilities. With that in mind, Ryan could only marvel at her ability to lead the interview and hit the highlights. Monte came prepared for the launch, too.

The AR screen in front of his face blinked and flashed a countdown from five seconds. As he watched the numbers count down, Ryan's eyes felt like they bulged from his face, and he stared impatiently at the screen.

The moment the countdown finished, Ryan's head fell back onto the bed, totally unconscious in less than a second. The "pillow" built into the gel-bed concealed an intricate weave of sensors that rested at the base of the user's neck. The design was radically different from other VR apparatus, which focused on a helmeted enclosure. Full capsules were a luxury and not a necessity.

While Ryan knew all of that, having read up on the specs and capabilities a year ago, his mind still tried to analyze the experience of going "full-dive." The trepidation and excitement in his system morphed into everyday anxiety. What if I'm not compatible, it's ultra-rare, but-

His sudden panic-attack evaporated like smoke when his mind filled with an endless field of white. Ryan waited a bit for something to change. Every direction he looked in was white, white, and more white. The rush of relief from before started to wane as his fears crawled back in.

Ryan looked down for the first time and where his body should have been- he saw absolutely nothing.

"Well...I'm a-head of the game, I guess." He lost it at his joke; the stupid pun relaxed him more than any of his analyses of the experience could. Somehow tinkling, bell-like laughter seemed to come from everywhere at once. Ryan froze.

"...Eve?" Ryan's excitement peaked in an instant.

"Oh! You watched Monte's broadcast!" A child-like voice, identical to the laughter, responded.

Any response flew from Ryan's mind and faded into white-noise as he started to chuckle. Uncertain at first, the floodgates released, and Ryan began to laugh uncontrollably. Emotions poured through him so fast he couldn't identify them except for an overwhelming sense of jubilation.

Ryan laughed so hard that hiccups and coughs interrupted the manic laughter. A palpable pulse passed through him, and his whole body sang with energy. Ryan paid the sensations no mind as he started to jump about and shout.

"Yes! YES! YEEEESSSSSS!" Ryan ran- it felt like running, anyway- around and around. He waved his arms, jumped as high as he could, and heaved with joy. The visceral feeling of tears covering his face shocked Ryan so much that he failed to catch himself mid-jump and fell to the ground. The wild mirth halted as the breath fled his lungs.

Confused by the physical sensations and emotions, Ryan retreated into himself for a while. When he caught his wind, the laughter was gone, replaced by wracking sobs as his new madness gushed out of him. Eventually, the sobs subsided, and Ryan lay on his side as he regained control over himself.

The scientist's spirit inside him marveled out loud, "How am I moving? How are their tears on my face? Why can I feel wet, and my breath knocked from my chest? I don't have a body in here, I-I..." Ryan gave up and lay on the ground. Words couldn't express how much he wanted to know and do. The attempt to put it into words left him frustrated with the shortcomings of speech and its ability to convey emotion.

Even now, Ryan felt the ground against his side, and his body tingled with energy like his nerve endings could electrocute another person.

"You know, just an inside-voice "yes" would have worked, right?" Eve's teasing made Ryan's heart fall, and he started to explain, but nary a word left his mouth before Eve continued, "Don't defend yourself. You don't need to. Here there are no boundaries for me. Players' minds are like an open book."

The beleaguered young man bounced between a sense of invasion for his privacy and feeling relieved that he didn't need to explain himself for the outburst.

"You DID sign the agreement about [FRONTIER ONLINE] and the use of our proprietary software." Despite the needling tone in Eve's young voice, Ryan thought he detected a hint of awe. Ryan sincerely doubted he could impress a one-of-a-kind AI but admitted that his antics were probably awe-inspiring- in a bad way.

"I mean, like, yeah, I signed the waiver to play the game. Read it too." Ryan rolled onto his back, internally wondering at all the tactile responses he received, and stared up into the empty, infinite white. "Reading it doesn't prepare you at all for the reality of it, though. I'm not returning anything," Ryan stressed the last part. A year of torture aside, he didn't think anything Eve said could make him back out.

"I can say a whole lot, you know?" Eve laughed again, her voice like wind chimes before she said, "Just so you know, you did impress me, and in a big way."

Ryan wigged out, still coming to grips with the casual mind reading. The only thing he could think to say was, "How? In what way would a mental episode impress someone like you?" There wasn't a single respectable, normal thing he could think of that happened since he entered the game.

"H-hold your arms up, please." She stopped his rebuttal about his current state of no physical form and said, "Just do it, Ryan." The flustered tone in her voice was gone before she finished the first sentence.

He shrugged and held his arms up, still prepared to make his point about bodies and pointless requests. The surety withered and died when he saw two relatively arm-shaped appendages made of gently glowing green lights.

"Now, look down."

Ryan immediately looked away from the emerald additions and glanced down. The sight he found shouldn't have surprised him anymore, but damn, if the glowing green, translucent form didn't throw his body dysmorphia for a loop.

"Wahaat is this?" Ryan stared at his "legs" as he rocked his ankles side-to-side. The motes of light partially trailed behind his movement like an afterimage. If he weren't so weirded out by it, the sight would be pretty cool; like those old cartoons where everyone powered up and glowed.

"That is mana. In my world, it is the raw material, the building blocks of magic. In this space, it will always look green unless you purposefully shape it. You should also know that you won't be able to do this in-game without the requisite abilities. In here, however...This is your game lobby, by the way. You will be able to practice and create, however you like."

Ryan was stunned, his mind became numb, and he seemed to hear a ringing in his ears after all the revelations and emotions he experienced at light speed.

"So, I can basically play god in here?" He threw out a loaded question.

"Not yet. Before anything else, I need to ask you something." Eve's child-like voice didn't sound right when it held a serious tone. Omnipotence and immaturity gave Ryan a distinct anxious feeling when he was reminded of who he spoke to in this lobby.

With a gulp, Ryan said, "Ok, what do you want to know?"

"What do you want from my world?"

Eve's question was simple, but it stumped Ryan for a while. In his mind, Ryan kept trying to come up with something profound and philosophical to say to the all-knowing AI. Try as he might, his desires for [Frontier Online] were relatively simple. He felt they weren't worth mentioning.

"Say them anyway." Eve prompted Ryan, another reminder that she could see into his mind, but despite the brief flair of invasiveness, Ryan realized her tone was quite gentle this time.

Ryan opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again as he said, "I want to be powerful." Ryan shook his head; that wasn't right, "I want to be the strongest. You probably know already, but my body isn't right in reality. Here, in this world, I can experience everything I've never gotten to do. I want to go anywhere, do anything, and feel confident that I can because of my abilities." The words left him in a rush, but he felt incredible for saying them.

"And?" Eve prompted again, "Isn't there one more thing?"

Ryan wasn't sure if he could blush right now, but if he could, then his face would be glowing like lava. He had another wish, but he felt like it was small, secret, and immature. Eve waited patiently for him to work up the courage to speak.

Despite himself, Ryan's voice sounded small and weak when it came out, "I...I want to make friends," he shrugged, "I've never had one before. In a place where everyone has a fresh start, what's wrong with reinventing myself a little?" His voice was almost petulant at the end as he defended himself.

Eve didn't respond immediately, but when she did, her voice was tender.

"If you make the right kinds of friends, you don't have to reinvent yourself, you know? I don't think the alternative is as easy as you think, either."

As he listened to her well-intentioned admonishment, Ryan shook his head again, "I didn't exactly say it the way I meant to. I want to find myself because I feel like I've been on hold. Who and what I am doesn't feel like me. I want to find myself- without limits. I want to feel powerful." He reached up with his green nebula hand and rubbed the back of his head. The feeling wasn't what he expected, but the sense of pressure behind the movement helped calm him all the same.

"And, if I become someone that I would like along the way, maybe other people would like me too."

Ryan felt sheepish and didn't consider his goals to be some grand thing. More like a child who didn't get his way.

Eve grumbled a bit. "...I'm sorry, Ryan, you couldn't lie during any of this. It helps me gauge your mental health and how much freedom your moral actions will have."

"How?" Ryan didn't mind the probing. It felt incredible to say it aloud, in fact. After the initial embarrassment and feeling like he didn't have any privacy in his own mind, he appreciated being forced to say these things out loud, kind of like complimenting yourself in a mirror to boost low self-esteem.

"Keeping other players away from you, influencing quests to keep you away from things that make you more unstable. You wouldn't even notice. I couldn't keep you away from guilds or population centers - this isn't a prison after all - but NPC's would be warier of you and less likely to pull you into personal matters. Lots of fetch quests to the middle of nowhere."

"E.G., No valuable epic quests or rewards. So what's the verdict? Am I insane?" Eve's explanation mollified his curiosity for the moment.

"No. Part of my software is the ability to somewhat sense a player's intent through the neural link in your capsule. More than just reading your surface thoughts, it's what really allows me to understand what you're trying to create. I try to...give players the tools they need."

Her explanation lost him a little, but she wasn't finished, "The reason I know you aren't 'insane' is because of the intent I could read behind your words. You aren't a bad person, and your desires are void of malicious intent. I can tell that, as of now, you aren't the type of person to step on others for your goals."

"So, we need to believe that whatever we are trying to achieve can be done, beyond any shadow of a doubt?" Ryan tried to understand Eve's message; he felt like she slipped in some significant information alongside her advice.

"Along with the how and why. Players will interact with the world differently. My job is first to help them sense it. Using that sense, the player molds the world to their will and intent. Think outside the box if you want to be powerful, that's all I can say."

"Thank you for the advice. Is there a character creation now?"

"Yes and no. You can go in as you are now, or an optimized ver-"

"Optimized." He didn't even listen to the rest of it. Who wants to go into the game as a bent, sickly cripple?

"...Ye...yeah. It's still you, just more of your potential, healthy. About three to six months worth of working out."

"That's kinda really motivating, actually. Like, hope, you know?" It was like stepping into your future self, he thought.

"It was Monte's idea," Eve said, which made sense to Ryan. If it's all one's and zero's to her, why would she care whether we liked our appearances?

"So I'm human?" Ryan was a little disappointed to be something so...basic. I need more escapism than that.

"You can find and change to other races, but I can't say how. Would you like to see yourself?"

"Yes, please."

Ryan felt a strange pulse pass through him.

And there he was. Waving in the wind. It was weird to look at himself outside of his body. It was less like a mirror and more dissociative than he expected. Avoiding that, Ryan looked at his 'optimized' self. Six months of working out? He looked pretty good, in his opinion. In a skinny-fit way.

His lanky body was filled out like a runner who recently got into weight-lifting. Not huge in any way, but evident that effort was put in. Brilliant, blue eyes stared back at him from within his severe face. Ryan leaned closer. I look a lot better, almost like I'm related to my father. His facade could still induce nightmares, but less on-sight and more like, "If I glare at you, don't bother running." The mop of hair on his head still bore the web-like criss-cross of black and white. Ryan grimaced and called out to the air.

"Can I change the hair? Just some cosmetic stuff. Tiny, I promise!"

"That's fine."

Suddenly a menu popped up in front of his avatar, facing his nebulous self, replete with sliders and adjustments. Translucent green, the menu detailed what he could change about himself.

Height and weight could be changed to an extent, and there were even masculine and feminine sliders for men and women who wanted to be more attractive or imposing, depending on their taste.

Ryan snorted at those sliders and left them alone. The image of himself towering over others as an ultra-jacked-pretty-boy filled his mind with a surrealism that disturbed him. The selection was a standard assortment of hair colors, styles, and cosmetic scarring/skin-tone. The last part he noticed was that he could affect his eye color.

Ryan immediately changed his hair to metal gray, and his eyes became ruby red. Shoulder length hair, still slightly wavy the way it was in real life, and a more tanned skin-tone over his normal milquetoast self. This will do. Gazing over his new and improved self, Rydr realized something.

"You know? It's a little alienating to speak to a disembodied voice as a floating consciousness...do you have a physical form?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

As always, let me know what you think, and if you see any typos, I'll try to get them fixed ASAP.

Thank for reading the new chapter!