I opened the door. It creaked like it was whispering old secrets. Inside, leather cracked just enough to feel authentic, not trashed. Dashboard looked like it once hosted illegal radio signals.
"How much?" I asked, eyes still on the wheel.
The salesman rocked on his heels. "Depends what you are looking to spend."
"Depends how honest you are," I said, tapping the steering wheel. "This car has a rebuilt transmission, rust in the wheel well, and mismatched bolts on the hood hinge. Someone tried to make it look mint with a coat of wax and a prayer."
He blinked twice. "You a mechanic or something?"
"Or something," I said, checking the odometer. It was rolled back, obviously. No car that old only had forty thousand miles unless it had been hibernating in a museum. The leather was cracked, pedals worn down. Whoever reset that gauge needed a class in subtlety.
"Sixteen thousand," he said, finally giving a number.
I leaned back in the seat, fingers tapping the edge of the window. "Three."
"Three?" His voice jumped like I had insulted his ancestry. "Kid, this is a '67 Impala. You don't just walk in and offer three grand like you are buying a toaster."
"You do when it is been parked here for six months, has a cracked intake manifold, and the left rear tire's pressure sensor is busted. I scanned it before I stepped on the lot."
He paused. "You scanned it?"
I lifted my phone. "App. Bluetooth OBD. Took all of thirty seconds. Want to see the engine fault list or keep pretending?"
He frowned like I was ruining his day. "Four-five, lowest."
"Three-five," I replied. "And I walk out with it today. Cash."
He squinted. "Three-eight."
I opened the door, stepped out, and started walking.
"Alright! Alright!" he called behind me. "Three-five. But no refunds if the door falls off."
I turned, smiling, and pulled the envelope from my pocket. "Pleasure doing business."
It took fifteen minutes to sign the paperwork. Mostly because he had to pretend to read every line like he was not just printing it from some recycled PDF. I gave zero fucks. The car was mine now.
When I pulled out of the lot, the Impala growled low, like it was testing me. The engine rumbled, not purring but snarling. I liked it. No Bluetooth. No navigation system screaming directions like a backseat mother-in-law. Just me, the wheel, and raw muscle under the hood.
The tires squealed a little as I hit the first turn. The power was there. Although heavy and raw.
[System]: Ohhh yes, baby. You just went from high school menace to leather-seated daddy. That engine noise? Creamier than Trixie's legs after Friday.
I flipped the radio on. Static. Then a burst of old rock. Perfect.
I drove past the school district, past the sleepy strip of pawn shops and vape stores. Took a left under the bypass, then straight through a dead intersection where half the traffic lights didn't work and the other half blinked red like they were on their period. I passed the warehouse I once brought Jessica to. That place was not safe anymore. Not going back there.
I took a turn into a different zone and pulled into the lot, driving in. I scanned the walls. Nothing. Checked the corners. No heat signatures. No pulses.
[System]: Area clear, sugar. No pests. No peepers. No punks. You are free to whip it out. The Impala blinked. Literally. Chrome shimmered, lines dissolved, the whole car pixelated mid-air like a video game glitch. Then gone. Stored.
Crates followed. Ten of them. Materials, wires, scrap plates, a welder set I stole from a repair shop that doubled as a meth dealer's front. Some other I purchased. I stepped out and tapped the roof.
I lay down on the bed and called out, "Open Dreamscape. Time to modify the car into a Spider-Mobile."
[System]: Loading Dreamscape... lubrication applied... preparing your ride for the kinkiest garage session in multiversal history. Welcome, sugar.
The ceiling dissolved. The bed vibrated. Not the sexy way. The system's fingering your reality way. I sat up as the world glitched sideways and rebuilt itself into chrome scaffolding, neon lights, and walls that looked ripped straight out of a Tony Stark wet dream during a mushroom trip.
The Impala hovered in front of me, stripped of dust. Black body gleaming under fake light. No rust, no salesman stink, no tape-holding bumpers together like lazy stitches. Just muscle, history, and potential.
The interface snapped into a gear-head grid. Each panel blinked, options locked behind gray icons, others pulsing like horny buttons begging to be touched.
The Impala rotated mid-air, slow and smooth, like she knew I was about to violate her with science.
[System]: Categories available.
BODY MODS
ENGINE & POWER
DEFENSE SYSTEMS
GADGETS & UTILITY
VISUAL SEX APPEAL
SPECIAL SYSTEMS (LOCKED)
Current Inventory:
• 3x Vibration-absorbing suspension coils
• 2x Grade A Titanium-boron alloy plating (enough for front hood + undercarriage)
• 1x Adaptive-torque steering matrix
• 5x Military surplus rubberized treads
• 4x Shock-diffusing axle joints
• 1x Prototype silent muffler
• 1x Scrap electromagnetic pulse bouncer ring
• 3x Reinforced polymer cable reels
• 1x Shielded drive core housing
• 6x Auto-repair patches
• 1x Rear spoiler that doubles as riot shield
• 2x Custom headlight projectors (holographic)
• 1x Web Canister Adapter Unit
• 1x Foldable Cloaking Mat (one-time use for testing)
First tab: BODY MODS
Panels exploded into options. Roof mod, tire armor, undercarriage shielding, retractable spikes, reinforced windows.
I selected the titanium-boron plating for the hood and undercarriage. Confirmed with a tap.
[System]: Plating applied. Your Impala can now survive light artillery and dick-measuring contests with Humvees.
Added the shock-diffusing axle joints and vibration suspension coils. The whole frame adjusted, lowering itself an inch like it just flexed for a car commercial.
Then I dragged the adaptive steering matrix into the main column.
[System]: You can now drift around corners like a Fast & Furious slut with control issues. Welcome to Tokyo Drift but make it Spider.
Wheels up next. Rubberized treads in. Manual override confirmed.
[System]: Your tires now laugh at nails, glass, and insecure parking lots. Off-road ready. Snow, rain, apocalypse-proof.
I slapped on the silent muffler.
[System]: Stealth mode toggleable. Purrs like a sexy whisper. You can now sneak up on people like a vehicular creep.
Next Tab: GADGETS & UTILITY
Panels restructured. New slots lit up across the grid. Interface switched to utility overlay. No glow. No neon buzz. Just icons. Sharp. Practical. Ready to be dragged.
[System]: Time to play smart, baby. These are the bells and whistles that let you look basic while hiding sin under the hood. Use em right, and this Impala will be the Swiss Army knife of quiet chaos.
Interface pulsed. Slot locked in.
Next, Polymer Cable Reels. Three total. Dragged two into trunk assembly nodes. Fed the third into roof storage.
[System]: Cable Reels installed. You can now spool reinforced polymer lines for high-torque pull, street anchoring, or fast rappel. Disguised as emergency tow kits. Standard enough for any cop to ignore.
Moved to rear spoiler. Riot Shield function already installed. System blinked when I added reinforced recoil dampers to base.
[System]: Your spoiler is now officially more than a NFS fetish. It drops, locks, and blocks incoming debris or small-arms fire. Riot-grade deflection. Looks like a piece of bad street mod if anyone asks.
I added two headlight projector units next. Clicked them into the front panel.
[System]: Twin holographic beam lights. Project any preset image at up to 40 feet. Menu includes: School Parking Pass, Broken Light Flicker, or everyone's favorite, Fake License Plate Reflection.
Selected default to Blank Flash. No reflection under IR.
[System]: That is my boy. Legally invisible, morally questionable.
Dashboard options blinked next. I opened the compartment tab. Selected utility drawer integration. Installed one of the zipline scrap coils and loose wire bundles.
[System]: Internal toolkit compartment activated. Hidden below glovebox. You can now pull out makeshift tools mid-ride. Lockpick. Wire-splice. Mini crowbar. Enough for urban fixes or improvised dumbfuck solutions.
Moved to floor panel. Opened trap bay. Dropped in one auto-repair patch.
[System]: Quick-fix patch loaded. Floor deployable. Touch-activated. Will auto-seal minor cracks in undercarriage or redirect minor damage through filler foam. Also doubles as a sneaky drop compartment if you need to stash something on the fly.
Rearview mirror. I tagged it. Integrated fallback micro-cam.
[System]: Hidden cam installed. Rearview now streams to your mask HUD on trigger. Can record, loop or feed live. 240-degree swivel range. It also adjusts lighting automatically, so no more cop flashlight face reveals.
Switched to side panel compartment. Inserted Shielded Drive Core Housing.
[System]: EMP bouncer online. Low-range zap protection. Your engine won't flatline if someone drops a pulse bomb. Bonus: fries most phone scanners nearby. Looks like a fused regulator to most repair techs.
Final slot. Foldable Cloaking Mat.
[System]: One-time use. Once deployed, will project static illusion of default vehicle state. Includes low-heat shell and light diffusion. Park it. Cloak it. Walk away. Best used in sketchy zones or emergency drop sites.
I grinned, "The last thing, it should be able to change color so I can ditch police by changing color and they have no idea where I got."
[System]: Ohhh baby, now you are speaking dirty. Color Morph Module inbound. Chameleon Paint protocol. Limited spectrum- grayscale, deep blue, charcoal black, matte maroon, rust-orange... anything that lets you vanish in traffic or pull the ol' swap-a-roo mid-chase. Default: Ghost Black.
The Impala shimmered. Coating peeled in digital flakes, rewrapped itself in pulses of light. The new texture had no shine. Just menace. Matte as sin, smoother than a promise with no intention of keeping it.
[System]: Paint field complete. You are now officially color-fluid. Detectable range reduced by 43 percent. Cameras hate you. Cops cannot track you. Bystanders swear it was a red car.
A final flick of the interface locked the current settings in place. System blinked, overlay fading back into silence. Car lowered from its hover position, tires kissing fake pavement with a hiss like satisfaction. I tapped the trunk.
[System]: Dreamscape closing. Wipe your fingerprints off the fantasy, sugar. You just built a legend.
Reality blinked back like a strobe light. The garage returned. Impala parked exactly where I left it, but new. That paint drank light.
I sat behind the wheel. "Time to shock Aunt May."
The Impala rumbled underneath me like it had just swallowed a thunderstorm. I pulled out of the alley and merged onto the main street, the engine purring. A man at the bus stop straightened like he had just seen his divorce regrets drive past. Some kid with a scooter nearly flipped over his handlebars trying to get a better look. I revved the engine, that deep, throaty growl rolled out like thunder with an attitude problem.
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You can read up to Chapter 101...
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