Many years ago, in front of Nexi’s home. The neighbour's kid, Jett Cooper, stood on her lawn.

  “Go away, Cooper, our families are enemies!”

  “Ehhhh, but I wanna play on the sim.”

  “Go ask your dad to buy you one, Cooper!”

  “We have one– dad won’t let me play on it. He said it's for my brother’s training,” Jett sighed.

  “Why do you even need to use the sim, Cooper?”

  “I want to train too! To drive race cars faster than my brother, so I can impress dad.”

  Nexi's eyes lit up when she heard the word “race car”.

  “Well… I DO want to see you beat your brother, Cooper, but since you are my enemy this will be considered an invasion of my home.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Nexi.”

  “Coopers are sly and should never be trusted.”

  “I’m Jett!”

  “I know your name, Jett Cooper.”

  “No, you don’t, then why have you never called me that?”

  “Because you are a Cooper, Cooper.”

  “I want to race with you on the sim, Joanna.”

  Nexi ignored Jett’s request.

  “I’ll easily beat you.” Jett teased.

  “I’ll beat the heck out of you, Jett.”

  They raced each other on the sim and Nexi won by a wide margin.

  Back to the present day in Jett’s hospital room. He is watching that TV broadcast of his dad’s press conference.

  “A competitor to Forefront, perhaps… someone who doesn’t want my son to get first place on the podium. From the analysis we determined that an EMP blast went off right before Jett Cooper was about to overtake Joanna Nexi,” Jackson told the reporters.

  Jett’s face widened in disbelief then returned back to his already depressed state. Jett slowly exited his bed and walked out of his hospital room. The nurses were gossiping outside.

  “Did Jackson Cooper really put another person instead of his son for the next race?”

  “Yeah, he like… KICKED his son right out as if he was replaceable.”

  “Poor kid.”

  The nurses finally noticed that Jett was watching them.

  “AH– MR. COOPER! Please return back to resting, sir, your father’s demand.”

  “I need some fresh air.”

  The nurses stood there looking at each other while Jett was already walking away from them.

  Jett slowly and tiredly descended down the stairs of the hospital. Outside, a random taxi driver recognised him. He honked his car and called out to Jett.

  “Is that the real Jett Cooper?”

  Jett walked up to the taxi.

  “Take me to the Race-zone.”

  Mikey, Vance, and Cipher entered a new district. They’ve never been here before. Vegetation filled the roads. Skyscrapers were abandoned and reclaimed by nature. The whole city was a historical ruin. The two cars owned the streets.

  “What is this place? Cipher, where is this?” Vance spoke on the intercom.

  “This is district 0, I chose it because it's the first one that pops up on the control panel screen.”

  Cipher read the overgrown highway sign passing them by.

  “Oh! Tokyo. On the sign it said ‘Tokyo district’. It’s written in an ancient language I’m studying.”

  “Tokyo? Who is that? That’s a weird name for a district.”

  Mikey in the passenger seat of the RX-8 glanced at Cipher who was driving.

  “Why did you learn this ancient language?”

  “I– I– want to learn about their culture and read forgotten media, don’t question me!”

  Cipher tried to change the subject.

  “Guys, my car is almost out of fuel.”

  “Okay, maybe we shouldn’t have cheap out and try to sell a car at a quarter of a tank of fuel,” Vance said.

  Mikey held onto his seat belt.

  “Is this the end of the car?” Mikey asked Vance.

  “Seems like it… a car without fuel is just a hunk of metal.”

  Mikey looked down at the car’s floor mat before closing his eyes. He listened to the rotary engine spin.

  This might be the last time…

  They cruise down the empty streets. The fuel gauge was in the red. Cipher seemed just as worried as Mikey.

  Mikey looked outside the window, he spotted a gas station.

  “Guys, what is that place with the liquid symbol on top?”

  “THAT’S OIL BABY!” Cipher cheered.

  They parked their cars next to the fuel pump.

  “This right here is a station that stores old world’s fuel underground,” Cipher explained.

  Vance clamped the fuel nozzle and the fuel gushed out.

  “Wow, this is a gold mine. No more pumping out fuel residue from old cars or smuggling old cars to sell at all… we just sell this– this is liquid gold!”

  “Shame we couldn’t sell the fuel though, we can’t go back home.”

  “Yet. We lay low for now and later think of a way to smuggle all the fuel back home.”

  They both refueled their cars.

  Cipher and Vance talked to each other far away from Mikey. He couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Vance came back with the RX-8 keys in her hand.

  “She’s all yours, Mikey.”

  Vance handed him the keys.

  “We are going to sell it anyway– plus we need a good driver. Go ahead and train with it, Mike.”

  At the Race-zone, Jett is practicing in his Forefront race car.

  “Current speed 230 kilometers per hour, recommended speed entering the corner 200 kilometers per hour,” Neo-gen reported.

  “Shut up.”

  “Unable to satisfy request “shut up” due to safety reasons.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Let me drive.”

  Tires squealed as Jett entered a corner.

  “You have exceeded the grip limit. Traction control assisted.”

  “I know, turn off traction control.”

  “Unable to satisfy request “turn off traction control” due to safety reasons.”

  Jett battled his car into each corner. He sighed, falsely hoping to relax himself through driving.

  “This is not fun.”

  “Requesting for ‘fun’... Permission denied. Forefront race cars are designed for safe and efficient racing.”

  Jett let out a long sigh.

  Meanwhile, Mikey was also driving in district 0 with Vance teaching him in the passenger seat.

  The RX-8 drifted through Tokyo's city streets.

  “WOOOHOOO, MIKEY!”

  “I lost the rears again, didn’t I?”

  “You got it! You were drifting, Mikey! That’s how you do it. Just keep feathering the pedals.”

  Mikey erratically adjusted his steering wheel.

  “Anddd… you’ve straightened out. And that’s how you control oversteer. The Blacklines might have speed and brute force but you, Mikey, you have agility. That’s how we get away from them.”

  “So I need to intentionally oversteer to rotate the car more in a tight corner?”

  “Yea, and you can also use it in a wide corner. Drive just above the limit of grip into a corner and you will magically rotate the car, I called it ‘Slip-driving’.”

  Mikey accelerated into a wide corner.

  “Okay, I’m going to do it.”

  Mikey patiently increased his steering angle.

  “Can you feel the rears slipping a bit?” Vance asked.

  “Yeah– I can…”

  “Only smooth inputs now— do everything slowlyyy.”

  Mikey worried that he might be entering the corner a little too fast so he hit the brakes.

  “No– don’t do that, Mikey!”

  The rear of the car kicked out fully and they went into a spin, stopping right before hitting a barrier.

  “Sorry, Vance!”

  Mikey closed his eyes, waiting for what Vance might do to punish his mistake. Instead, Vance slapped Mikey on the back and put her arms around him.

  “HAHAHAHA! That’s how you learn, kid!”

  Mikey blinked at her confused.

  “I did the same thing! Braking mid corner– learned it the hard way– ended up in a ditch!”

  Vance grinned.

  “Keep learning and you’ll catch up to me in no time— but your car will never catch up to the GR GT though!”

  A while ago, Mikey and Hailey were living on the rooftop of one of the residential buildings. Hailey called it “The Hideout”. Mikey didn’t like the name, but he reluctantly called it that too, because Hailey kept saying it.

  “Tada!”

  Hailey showed Mikey an old recorder camera with a huge grin on her face.

  “A camera? Where did you find this, sis?”

  “I found it in the ruins I explored last week!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier?”

  “Because it was broken… And I didn’t want to disappoint you. So I fixed it!”

  “You fixed it on your own?”

  Hailey proudly tapped the patched-up wiring of the camera and smirked.

  “What would we even use this for?”

  “To film the things both of us like!”

  Hailey showed a video of her exploring the ruins while narrating the experience.

  “Coolll– you went back to that ruins?”

  “Yep!”

  She showed a video of her inside of a rusted old car.

  “Woah! You filmed at the junkyard– that’s like one of my favourite places!”

  “Yep– since you always like to go to see the old cars there, I figured you must really like it! So I definitely need footage from there!”

  Hailey accidentally showed footage of Mikey sleeping.

  “Hey! What is this?”

  “Hehe– camera test run!”

  Hailey closed the camera.

  “I want the world to see how we live, Mikey! Remembering what we like– I hope when people in the future see this footage they’ll say ‘Ohh– so that’s who they were!’.”

  Mikey didn’t interrupt her. He looked like he was weighing every word.

  “I’ll make sure everyone gets to see your footage when we are still alive, sis.”

  Hailey embraced Mikey.

  “You are the best, broski!”

  Back to the present, Mikey slept next to the campfire set up by Vance and Cipher. The two were still awake.

  “I really was planning to fight our way through the Blacklines after we teleport, by the way. Maybe dramatically sacrificing myself in the process,” Vance told Cipher.

  “We are still not financially ready for your heroic sacrifice, Vance.”

  Vance glanced at Mikey asleep.

  “The kid saved me.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You agreed about the decision to give him the car right?”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  “Cipher, we owe him.”

  “YOU owe him, he saved your life– I would still have escaped. I owe him nothing.”

  Vance's lips flattened into a thin line.

  “Ciph…”

  “You got damn lucky, Vance, that you HAPPENED to pick a random kid who HAPPENS to drive better and think faster than your own prodigy hacker crewmate.”

  “He’s not a random kid, Cipher…”

  “Who? Who is he?”

  “We hurt his sister, they were in the abandoned building.”

  The fire popped.

  The anger drained from Cipher’s face.

  He swallowed.

  For the first time that night, neither of them knew what to say.

  “What? What happened to his sister? I thought we cleared the building.”

  “Two kids slipped in right before the operation. The crash hit the building hard. She was… badly injured. But alive. She had a pulse.”

  “Oh no. The kid should not know this. He might do something irrational.”

  Both of them glanced back at Mikey. Still asleep. Peaceful. Still trusting. The secret sat heavy between Vance and Cipher.

  Back at the Race-zone, Jett stepped out of his race car, unsatisfied. Dr. King stood nearby, a tablet in hand. His eyes remained fixed on the screen as he addressed Jett.

  “Entry speed 214 kilometers per hour. Neo-gen recommended 200. Traction control activates”

  “Why are you here?” Jett questioned.

  Dr. King looked at the race car.

  “I should be asking you, Mr. Jett. You should be resting in the hospital. Instead you stole a test vehicle to take for a joyride.”

  “I didn’t steal anything, these are all my cars.”

  “These are Mr. Jackson Cooper’s cars… But you did provide us valuable data. “

  Dr. King swiped on his tablet.

  “For example, your driving causes the chassis stress level to hover above 80% of the tolerance the whole time.”

  “What? These are race cars, I’m supposed to push it.”

  Dr. King kneeled down to inspect the race car’s micro-fracture on the double wishbone suspension.

  “These are precision machines, designed to respond to smooth and predictable inputs… Not your sloppy improvisations, Mr. Jett. Maybe you are the variable that limits the capability of this machine on track.”

  Dr. King noted something down on his tablet.

  “Your driving style matches more with those illegal old car drivers.”

  “Hey– then design something that’s more raw and more fitting to my driving style.” Jett retorted.

  “If we listened to your selfish request you would have ended up dead in that crash… The chassis and safety systems I designed saved you.”

  The sharpness in Jett’s eyes faded, replaced by something quieter.

  “Oh… you designed the safety system, thank you.”

  Dr. King finally looked up from his tablet, as if he only just noticed Jett.

  “You better start driving like Neo-gen instructed.”

  Jackson Cooper was watching Marshal Rinova train on the simulator behind a glass window.

  “Mr. Cooper, sir, they escaped,” Jackson’s bodyguard reported to him.

  Jackson Cooper looked at him for a moment and gave a condescending smile before going back to watching Rinova.

  “Elaborate.”

  “The Blacklines surrounded both of the teleporter hubs, but when team Beta entered they saw no one.”

  Jackson’s brows pulled together faintly and exhaled through his nose.

  “We– we got confirmation from Alpha team that they got eyes on one of the saboteurs but they teleported before we could eliminate them.”

  “They couldn’t escape could they?”

  “No sir, both exits were blocked.”

  “Then, they might have used the teleporter and it glitched. Erased from existence. Job well done.”

  “Sir, that rarely happens.”

  “But it did. Go. Now.”

  A sweaty, excited like a golden retriever Marshal Rinova exited the simulator room.

  “Sir-ry, you were watching?”

  “Yes, Mr. Rinova, excellent control.”

  “It’s all thanks to the car and the Neo-gen, perfectly engineered!”

  “I am glad you like it, Mr. Rinova. The engineers will be enthralled to hear such praise.”

  “The simulator simulates the car incredibly well, it feels exactly like the real thing!”

  “Making you ready for the real thing. Tomorrow will be your next race.”

  “What? What about Mr. Jett? Didn’t he already recover?”

  “I want my son to rest after such a traumatic incident… please… race in his place… race for him.”

  “Roger that, Mr. Cooper, I’ll make him proud!”