The day after tomorrow...
A time when criminals rule the city.
The only weapon that can stop them needs a driver...

And Michael Payton is that driver. Out on the street at twelve and driving not long afterwards, Payton is the best driver the Outfit's ever turned out.

The Outfit, a criminal organization of unknown proportions, has infiltrated every level of law and government within the borders of Metro City - and some without. With their greedy hands on the latest and greatest technology, the metro police and the city are left with but one weapon to fight back - meet technology with technology...

VIPER

The Viper project, headed by inventor Julian Wilkes, was meant to be the latest and greatest prototype of police patrol cars. Equiped with everything a cop on the beat could possibly want - from bullet-proofing to an electronic pulse projector meant to disable a moving vehicle...

There's just one problem: who would have the reflexes and ability to multitask to drive it? They've been through everyone in the department.

As fate would have it, Payton, while evading police in a robbery gone wrong, manages to get himself in a wreck and caught... In a grim example of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one," Payton's memory is artificially wiped. He's given the best in plastic surgery... and he's given a new identity.

Michael Payton, the criminal, is now Joe Astor, the cop who quit and went vigilante when the corruption threaten to junk the Project. Joining him on his crusade are car enthusiast and Metropol Motor Pool's Records Officer Franklin X. "Frankie" Waters, and the Viper's inventor, Dr. Julian Wilkes.