The Scarlet Lady

Collected together for the first time are "Devil Car" and "Last of the Wild Ones." Set in a near future where smart cars have rebelled against their human owners and gone rogue. They rove the countryside in herds raiding human settlements for gas and parts. While they roam no one is safe.

Ten years ago the Devil Car, the leader of the Wild Cars, killed Merdock's brother in a raid on his Gas Fortress, and Murdock has been hunting that black Caddy ever since. He searched for it from the air and searched for it on foot. He used other cars. He used heat trackers, missiles, and land mines. But always it was too fast or too smart or too strong for him. Then he built Jenny, his Scarlet Lady.

Jenny was made to look like a carefree Swinger sedan: bright red, gaudy, fast. But there were rockets under the bulges of her hood, and two fifty-caliber muzzles lurked just out of sight in the recesses beneath her headlamps; she wore a belt of five and ten-second timed grenades across her belly; and in her trunk was a spray-tank containing a highly volatile naphthalic.