There was silence.
When the air cleared, he studied the screens.
They lay all over the road, their bikes upset, their bodies fuming. Several were still seated, and they held rifles and pointed them, and he shot them down.
A few still moved, spasmodically, and he was about to drive on, when he saw one rise and take a few staggering steps and fall again.
His hand hesitated on the gearshift.
It was a girl.
He thought about it for perhaps five seconds, then jumped down from the cab and ran toward her.
As he did, one man raised himself on an elbow and picked up a fallen rifle.
Tanner shot him twice and kept running, pistol in hand.
The girl was crawling toward a man whose face had been shot away. Other bodies twisted about Tanner now, there on the road, in the glare of the tail beacons. Blood and black leather, the sounds of moaning, and the stench of burned flesh were all about him.
When he got to the girl's side, she cursed him softly as he stopped.
None of the blood about her seemed to be her own.
He dragged her to her feet, and her eyes began to fill with tears.
Everyone else was dead or dying, so Tanner picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the car. He reclined the passenger seat and put her into it, moving the weapons into the rear seat, out of her reach.
Then he gunned the engine and moved forward. In the rearview screen he saw two figures rise to their feet, then fall again.
She was a tall girl, with long, uncombed hair the color of dirt. She had a strong chin and a wide mouth, and there were dark circles under her eyes. A single faint line crossed her forehead, and she had all of her teeth. The right side of her face was flushed, as if sunburned. Her left trouser leg was torn and dirty. He guessed that she'd caught the edge of his flame and fallen from her bike.
"You okay?" he asked when her sobbing had diminished to a moist sniffing sound.
"What's it to you?" she said, raising a hand to her cheek.
Tanner shrugged. "Just being friendly."
"You killed most of my gang."
"What would they have done to me?"
"They would have stomped you, mister, if it weren't for this fancy car of yours."
"It ain't really mine," he said. "It belongs to the nation of California."
"This thing don't come from California."
"The hell it don't. I drove it."
She sat up straight then and began rubbing her leg.
Tanner lit a cigarette.
"Give me a cigarette?" she said.
He passed her the one he had lighted, lit himself another. As he handed it to her, her eyes rested on his tattoo.
"What's that?"
"My name."
"Hell?"
"Hell."
"Where'd you get a name like that?"
"From my old man."
They smoked awhile, then she said, "Why'd you run the Alley?"
"Because it was the only way I could get them to turn me loose."
"From where?"
"The place with horizontal venetian blinds. I was doing time."
"They let you go? Why?"
"Because of the big sick. I'm bringing in Haffikine antiserum."
"You're Hell Tanner."
"Huh?"
"Your last name's Tanner, ain't it?"
"That's right. Who told you?"
"I heard about you. Everybody thought you died in the Big Raid."
"They were wrong."
"What was it like?"
"I dunno. I was already wearing a zebra suit. That's why I'm still around."