Rodeo shakes his head, taking a seat opposite Nina and drawing his cell phone back out of his pocket. "I got plenty evidence. I was hopin' to give you this stuff in person, you know, so you'd have it tangible-like and you could really see for yourself. I got some pictures for now, so you know I ain't bluffin'. If you're serious about this, it might be best us settin' up a place somewhere in the city-- somewhere we can keep all this stuff secure. Whatever files you wind up makin' won't be safe in the Capitol."
Rodeo puts down his phone on the table, not ready to draw up the photos he plans to show Nina quite yet. First, he has to give them context. "Now I reckon this story is best told from the beginning. See, when Sarge and I showed up in Austin, we tried gettin' into the hospital for shelter. Problem was they was givin' us the twenty questions, and I got nervous-- you know, on account of my history 'n all." He never did tell Nina how he escaped Huntsville, but he figures his sister might have or else it just seems self-explanatory. How he got out don't matter as much as the fact that he did, and that if those patrolmen admitting him to the hospital shelter kept digging they would have given him handcuffs instead of sanctuary. "The Sergeant and I got spooked and we took off 'fore they could keep pressin' us for social security numbers and IDs. Figured we was gonna have to make it out on our own. I didn't want to leave the city 'cause I reckoned that was where my baby girl would come to look for us, and considerin' I never knew where she gone while I was in lockup, her comin' to me was the only hope I had. So, needin' to stay in the city, we needed to feed ourselves too. We made a couple friends and together we started takin' what we needed from places left abandoned around town, stores and houses and whatever else. Just like the scouts do, right? But wasn't long 'fore we found ourselves in hot water. Now believe you me, at this point we was mostly just mindin' our own business. Sure, if we reckoned somebody was meanin' to do us harm we would push back, but we weren't knockin' off supply trucks or killin' pigs in the street. We was just tryin' to get by. But them patrol fucks, they showed up at a grocery store we was stockin' up from and told us what we was doin' was stealin'. That the stores and resources in this city belong to the Capitol, and it wasn't ours to take. Said if we were hungry and thirsty we could join up at one of the shelters, or we could get outta the city and try our luck elsewhere. Well, I'd sooner hang than be let into one of them shelters, and leavin' wasn't an option if I was hopin' my baby girl could ever find me. So I said fuck 'em. Let's keep doin' what we're doin'. If they wanna step to us, let 'em try."
Rodeo pauses, glancing down at the table, running his thumb along the grain of the wood. "Well, they stepped to us alright. Next time we saw 'em, they started shootin' instead of talkin'. I started to realize right then and there that whoever is in charge in this city don't care one bit for the lives of the people here. That he's monopolizing resources to control the folks who need 'em, and that it ain't long 'fore an imbalance of power like that turns to out-and-out tyranny. And I thought, well, if somebody's gotta stand up to 'em then it'll be us. Now I know folks see us as killers 'n criminals. That's what he wants them to see. What do you reckon the Colonists looked like to the Crown way back when? 'Cause it's all a matter of perspective. Fact is, we ain't killed nobody who isn't part of the system. And I don't care what anybody says, don't care if they say the people we're targeting are just doing their jobs. All soldiers are just doing their jobs, mama. That don't mean you stop fightin' the war."