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course.
Sometimes when ExOps helps local cops, we get to keep the perpetrator’s ride. If the D.C. SWAT team can’t take care of a situation or if the FBI is in over their head, Director Chanez will send one of his Levels out with them. It never takes long after that. Regular crooks can’t compete with a million-dollar murder machine designed to help topple whole governments.
    I rev the engine and yell, “Think there’s any cocaine left in this baby?”
    Brando turns up the heater, puts on his seat belt, and smiles. “I doubt it. The mechanics probably got it all.”
    I ease the Cokemobile up to the start line. In front of us, a pair of titanic hangar doors slide open. My copilot riffles through his instructions and nods to me when he’s ready.
    â€œTCC, Scarlet and Darwin ready for launch.”
    The Training Control Center comms back, “Roger that, Scarlet. Arming the tree. Go on green.”
    The “tree” is a tall pole supporting two vertical series of lights. Right now the top lights are lit up bright red. I press the clutch down and shift into first. My right foot floors the gas and holds it there.
    The light tree flashes down: reds, yellows,
green
!
    I slip my left foot off the clutch pedal. A white cloud of tire smoke billows behind us as we screech off the line. The tachometer redlines, I shift into second, and we burst out of the hangar. The sun smacks my face, and my vision Mods adjust their gamma to compensate.
    I holler,
“Yeee-hahhhh!!!”
    As we roar up the first straightaway, Brando feeds me his pace notes for the first turn. “Turn One. Left, 105 in, long sweep, 95 out.” This means we should enter this long sweeping left turn at a hundred and five miles per hour and exit it at ninety-five.
    I zoom the Cokemobile up to a buck ten before I tap the brakes to set up a spectacular power slide around Turn One’s broad expanse. I countersteer and wallop the gas before I’ve even passed the corner’s apex. Cokey leans into this scandalous driving like a drunken businessman doing the motorboat between a hooker’s tits.
    Oh, I am totally getting one of these honeys.
    We thunder out of the turn. My partner yells, “Turn Two. Right, 60 in, opens, 80 out.” When Brando says “opens” he means the turn gets broader as we go around.
    I twist the wheel ninety feet away from the turn and downshift from fifth to third to transfer the car’s weight forward. All that weight up front makes Cokey plow into the corner. When we’re almost at the pavement’s outer edge, I stomp the gas and shift the car’s weight back onto her rear wheels. The unloaded front tires suddenly grip tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet and whip us through Turn Two.
    â€œTurn Three. Right, 70 in, opens, 75 out. Jump at apex.”
    I slither us into Turn Three with my right toes on the gas and my right heel on the brakes. My left foot peppers the clutch as needed to keep our revs up. I’m doing great until we pass the turn’s midpoint, where a sharp little bump kicks Cokey into the air and screws up my driving line. The car flies sideways and lands inches from the outside edge. I overcorrect, and the Bimmer tilts onto her two left wheels. Brando and I both lean the other way. I jiggle the wheel left to get us back on all fours, but now we’re headed off the track.
    I haul up the emergency brake, crank the steering wheel right and then left, then shove the e-brake down again. This throws us into a sideways skid. I look over my left shoulder to see where we’re going.
    God almighty, we’ll be lucky if there’s any rubber at all on the tires after this one. My training has taught me to not to slow down when faced with an all-out mental-patient driving disaster like this. If I even breathe on the brakes right now, we’ll spin out of control. I bury the gas pedal and hold my breath. Brando grasps his door handle and hangs