It was early evening in downtown Los Angeles. The storefronts along the streets were dark as the various vendors closed up shop for the night. While the sidewalks were not totally devoid of night life, it was the streets that were teeming with activity as cars worked their way around a five-mile route of connecting streets known simply as the Circuit.

"This must be that section of the strip that Rodriguez mentioned in his report," Akane said, anxiously looking out the passenger window. "So this is what young people do for fun in the evening? I would think they'd get bored after a while just going in circles."

"At least it's real," Kogami said. "I'd rather be going in circles in the real world than in a virtual one."

"I don't think Kagari would agree with you." Akane jabbed him in the ribs for his curt reply to her comment. "Kogami, that lavender Supra has driven by us three times now."

"Did you notice the driver?" Kogami sat back in the Porsche's specialized racing seat and tried his best to look bored, but his heart was pumping frantically. Being undercover was a rush, but the chance to actual street race the Porsche left him euphoric.

"Notice her because she's a pretty girl?" Akane glared at him.

"Is she pretty?" He rested his chin on his fist and stuck his elbow out the window. "I hadn't notice. I have all the pretty I need, right here." He glanced at her with a roguish grin and rubbed her thigh. "That's Tsuki. She's one of the Purgatory Patriarchs in the LAPD file."

A black RX-7 pulled up beside him on the street. Even though there was plenty of room to move ahead, the car matched BabyGirl's speed down the strip. The driver, a young Korean man, didn't seem bothered by stopping traffic behind him to stay even with the Porsche. Kogami focused on the straight ahead him, but cut his eyes to glare at the driver. When the driver grinned at him and chirped the tires in challenge, Kogami yawned in reply and continued to drive the speed limit. The RX-7's tires squealed loudly, and the car lunged forward and cut into the lane ahead of them.

"They've certainly noticed you."

"More like they've noticed the car," Kogami replied. "We're the strangers here."

Akane clasped her hands in her lap and sat back in the seat with a despondent expression on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"Just worried about if I can pull this off."

"It's a little late to be thinking that, don't you think?"

"The ladies in the Vice Department were very helpful and knowledgeable. They've been going undercover for years to capture criminals. This is my first time, Kogami, and the stakes are so high."

"You've got to stop behaving like a deer in the headlights. If you look scared, you probably are scared," he said. "Act like you own whatever ground it is you're walking on. Be willing to fight over it. No matter what it takes."

"You mean think like an Enforcer?"

Kogami laughed. "Something like that."

"You never really answered Special Agent Iazzetti's question," Akane said. "How did you learn to drive like this?"

"Thought you attributed my skill to juvenile delinquency?"

"I've seen your file, Mr. Kogami," she replied, taking a stern tone with him. "I've also seen your grades."

"There's a correlation between being a delinquent and high grades?" Kogami teased. "You should check out Gino's file then."

"Kogami, just answer the question."

"Physics class."

"What?"

"My last year in high school, I had a physics teacher who was more unorthodox than academic. The man was brilliant. He believed in hands-on experience to learn challenging concepts."

"You were his best student, I bet."

"One of them."

"Just before graduation, I learned that he had taken a position at the university. With his help and my parents' blessing, I switched schools. It was a step down, but I knew Mr. Bessho would put the school on the map in a few years."

"Did he?"

"Their physics program was one of the top academic tiers in the country by the time I graduated. I took every course he offered, and when I exhausted those possibilities, I became his teaching assistant."

"You? A teaching assistant?"

"I wasn't always Enforcer material, Akane."

Fearing that she had hurt his feelings, Akane gasped in horror. "I didn't mean—"

"To hear Kagari tell the tale, I heard you liked bad boys," Kogami said to tease her. "And here I thought you liked me for my good looks?"

"You really are incorrigible."

"Quarter-mile challenges off the strip tonight!" said a young man at Akane's door. "You in or you out?" He was dressed in a loose white tank top and jeans that were too large for his narrow frame. Fine blond locks were tossed about in a night breeze, but the huckster kept them under control beneath a Raider's baseball cap. "It's $50 to buy in. It's $25 return for a win."

"I'm in," Kogami replied. He handed the boy a $100 bill, but refused the change.

"Why the tip?"

"I want to race Supra. I'm sure you know the one. It's lavender."

The kid looked at him skeptically. "A Patriarch? You got the car, man, but you've got to prove you've got the skill. Stay in your pay grade." He tossed a $50 into Akane's lap. "Take the second right off the strip and wait for further instructions from the pit crew."

Kogami carefully made his way to the second turn as instructed. Heart thumping against his breastbone, he was guided through a clandestine network of smaller alleys and narrow side streets for six blocks until the streets and alleys began to widen again.

Doubled parked cars, vans, and trucks lined the street in a backstretch formation that opened into a small gathering area. A hundred or more spectators were crowded between the buildings on both sides of the narrow street to take advantage of food trucks and a variety of vendors. There was even a DJ table and makeshift dance floor.

"Looks like this is your stop," Kogami said. "Remember what I said about owning the ground you walk on." He watched the cars in front of him as all the occupants except the drivers exited the vehicles. They all faded in with the assembly of spectators moving among the entertainment venues awaiting them. "Will you be alright?"

"What choice do I have?" Akane said. With a deep breath, the expression of worry faded away. Her eyes narrowed and grew hard and her neck abruptly stiffened with attitude. "I'm not certain I could pull off an Enforcer, but I can act like Ginoza." She pretended to push a pair of glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"It's alright, mami," a young man in denim overalls said. "He either comes back correct, or he comes back with a wreck. Step off the line." Staring at Akane's butt, the huckster watched her go for a moment and then tapped the hood of the Porsche. "Move into position please."

Kogami marveled at the efficiency of the road crew as they employed their cell phones as walkie-talkies to gather information and set up the racing occupants into lines. BabyGirl was placed beside a black BMW M5. The young driver looked over to Kogami with a smirk and then gave him a dismissive glance. There was no time to reciprocate the sentiment. They were promptly brought to the line by the young man in denim and directed to follow the directions of a scantily clad girl in a red cheerleading outfit.

Kogami took a deep breath and kept his eyes soft when her arms dropped after a count of three. He popped the clutch, and BabyGirl roared off the line. Deviating from their lane, the BMW bucked slightly when the driver struggled to maintain control at the start of the heat. The cheerleader cried out in fear of being hit and quickly retreated. There wasn't much room to maneuver, so Kogami slightly altered his course to avoid bumping into her. Though the Porsche got a slow start off the line, BabyGirl easily outpaced the M5. Three seconds later, he was crossing the finished line by a full car length.

Directed off the line by the road crew, Kogami turned the agile Porsche into the narrow alley as spectators cheered the victory. Across from him, sitting in a row of vehicles, he saw the lavender Supra and its driver, the Patriarch Tsuki, watching the activities from a front-row point of view.

"Nice!" The huckster handed him $25, the return on his entry fee. "Win like that, you qualify for special heats."

Kogami glared through the windshield at Tsuki. "Stop wasting my time, and bring out the real competition."

"I got you." The youth turned his head in the direction of the Supra.

Tsuki was no longer sitting on the car, but was getting behind the wheel. Leering at him with a grin, she started the engine.

"Dude, you're about to get smoked so hard. It's $100 for a Patriarch. They don't race for pennies." As Kogami turned over the cash, the youth gestured with his hand to warn the other crew members. "Sit tight. High stakes heats get run from this end."

"Why's that?"

"So that when you lose, the road crew can show your ass to the door." The kid sadly shook his head at Kogami. "Nice knowing you. It's clear. Move back to the line."

Kogami waited as the lavender Supra pulled up beside him in the alley. The spectators cheered and screamed vehemently, but the support was all hers, not his. Sensing Tsuki's eyes on him, he resisted the urge to meet her condescending gaze. Her intent was to intimidate and belittle him, but he felt neither. With a straight face he eventually looked at her with a sideways glance and a smirk that made it clear, she was no threat. She laughed and gave him a nod.

A buxom road crew cheerleader, this one dressed in white, approached the line and stood between the two cars. With a glance at Kogami and then a glance at Tsuki, she raised her arms and dropped them to signal the start of the race. There was no wasted motion in this heat. Tires spun only briefly until they bit the asphalt and launched the cars onto the quarter mile contest.

The adept Patriarch was quick off the line. Kogami had expected the high-performance Supra to be fast, but its initial speed surprised even him at the start of the heat. Cheering for their home team heroine, the spectators had already determined the results in the first second when the Supra took the lead.

Untroubled, Kogami set his jaw with determination. A sheep was best caught from behind not from the front, as the wolf ran it down. The Porsche was barely taxed with all dials in the green as Kogami demonstrated restraint at the controls. But there was no time to admire the Patriarch's skills, nor the performance of her car, not if he expected to make his mark. He pressed down on the sensitive accelerator.

BabyGirl responded instantly without lurching or lunging forward. The Porsche's precision engine answered the call, and they swiftly gained ground, taking a slight lead. Astonished by the turn of events, the crowd went silent. Their vivacity was reignited when the Supra showed that it had more to offer as well. Tsuki once more took the lead, but only by a small margin.

Kogami grinned and pressed the accelerator to the floor. As the final second came up, the Porsche pulled ahead, leaving the Supra's nose at its rear quarter panel. The end of the heat was met with a few seconds of silence as the verdict brought stunned shock. Tsuki, the crowd favorite, came in last.

The activity on the dance floor stopped. Astonished onlookers watched the replay on a holo projected on the wall above the DJ table. Kogami braked hard. Fully under his control, BabyGirl came skidding to a halt with no fishtailing. Nodding in rapt admiration, the original huckster from the race crew handed him the prize money through the window with a measure of respect.

Tsuki, a cool scowl on her face, pulled up beside him. "Let's talk." She drove into the small lot and positioned the Supra in a row of cars on display. Leaving some distance between the Porsche and Supra, Kogami got out of the car and sat down on the front quarterpanel. He saw Tsuki giving him a nod to approach, but took his time, making it clear that he was not on her schedule or subject to her will.

Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved his cigarettes and lit one, exhaling smoke as Akane rejoined him. There was a stiff, exasperated reaction from the annoyed Patriarch when Kogami spread his legs in a wide stance and welcomed Akane into his arms with a firm slap on her ass.

Akane yelped in surprise at the blow, but then laughed to recover her composure. Grabbing the lapel of Kogami's leather jacket, she pulled herself closer to him. "You've certainly managed to stir the hornets' nest."

"Have I?"

"I've been chatting with Reese Iazzetti's old girlfriend."

Kogami's eyes narrowed with a smile of pride. "Now who's enjoying their undercover work?" He glanced at a group of admirers and gave them a stern enough glare to keep their distance from his girl and his car. "Reese had a girlfriend?"

"Several," she replied. "Evidently, he really got around after the death of Phoenix's mother. She died of a drug overdose, Kogami, just a year after Phoenix was born."

Kogami took her hand and gave the knuckles a quick kiss and a reassuring squeeze. "No time to talk about it. I'm being summoned." Still holding her hand, he pulled Akane close to him, thus making it clear to all that she was with him. Though there was a lot of activity in the area, and the races had resumed, they were being closely watched, especially as they made their way to the area that was clearly reserved for the Patriarchs.

An impressive trio of cars and their drivers were parked in a cordoned off area. From the profile, Kogami knew that the Korean man on the far left was the Patriarch known as Sung. He rode the hood of a sleek, black RX-7 with red rims. The car's undercarriage and frame had been heavily modified for air intake to keep it on the road and stable at high speeds.

"No hard feelings about cutting you off back there on the boulevard," Sung said in a soft-spoken voice.

"None," Kogami replied. "I thought that was the way all Americans said hello." His clever retort brought friendly laughter from the people standing nearby them.

Described in the files as the all-American bad boy, the Patriarch Brian, leaned up against his blue, barely street legal Nissan Skyline GT-R. While he said nothing, his piercing blue eyes saw everything. Kogami exchanged a respectful nod with him.

Patriarch Tsuki completed the high-octane trinity. She was dressed in pink leather pants and a matching bodice that hid nothing from the imagination. Leaning over her lavender Supra, she regarded Akane for only a moment, and then turned her full attention to Kogami.

"Nice ride," Sung said.

"Nice run," Brian added.

"I want my money back." Tsuki narrowed her eyes in challenge.

Kogami handed the money to Akane, who promptly shoved the small wad into her bra with a smirk. "If you want it, earn it." He took Akane by the hand and pulled her back toward their car.

"Wait!" Tsuki eyed them both defiantly. "You've got the car. Maybe the talent. But this ain't exactly the Super Bowl. The quarter mile is for amateurs. You up for a real test?"

Kogami plucked the cigarette from his lips and glared at her. Never in a rush, he took a long drag and savored the taste as he stared at the stars overhead. "Are you?" He took another drag and exhaled in her direction. "Oreno pasupōtowo miru hitsuyouaruka?"

"No," Tsuki curtly replied in English, "I don't need to see your passport. Your pink slip speaks for itself, if you're willing to risk it."

The Patriarchs behind her groaned at the challenge. They both quickly got back into their cars, started the engines, and pulled out of the area. In the lead, Sung signaled to the road crew to clear the lane for their departure.

Glancing over her shoulder, Tsuki hesitated before getting into the Supra. "Come with us. If you can keep up, you can stay for the real party."

"And if I can't."

"Pull over and hand that pink slip to someone who can. Deep pockets might have bought you the fancy horse, pretty boy. Doesn't mean you can ride it."

Kogami threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it out, his eyes fiercely set on the thorny street racer. Taking Akane by the arm, he whispered, "Get in the car."