"Let's change the subject. What's next for you?"
She squatted beside him and lowered her voice, even though there was no one to overhear them but the grasshoppers. "I'm joining up".
"Joining what?"
Her eyes brightened. "The resistance. There's a big army up here, out in the mountains to the west. The flyboys tell me they're tearing assholes out of the KO. I'm gonna join them. I didn't tell you before because ... because I didn't want you to be an accessory. Just in case they picked me up or something".
"Or in case I was some kind of informer".
She shrugged. "I suppose anything's possible".
"How do you know they'll take you?"
"Can I fire off a couple from your gun?"
"Help me get this thing ready first. I want to be able to take off quickly if we need to".
She helped him stow their gear intelligently enough. "You keeping this thing, or you going to trade it?"
Valentine sat down and tested the simple cable controls. "I'm wondering how easy it'll be to find fuel. I'm more of a horse-and-pack-mule person, most of the time".
"Thought you were a biker, with those leathers".
Load balanced in the little cargo spaces to either side of the chutelike cabin, they were ready to go. "I think it's time to come clean with you, Gide. I'm aiming on the resistance up here too. I just had a few hundred more miles to come".
"Fuckin'-A!"
"If you like, I'll give you a lift to the mountains. Safer for two to travel together".
"You're this gal's knight in shining armor, Max".
"With a motorcycle engine attached to an oversized food processor as a mount".
"So how were you going to get all the way up here without the flyboys?" she asked.
"I've had some experience with ships and boats. Thought I'd get to LA by hiring on with a convoy, then work north up the coast. But an opportunity presented itself, and I always wanted to know more about the Circus".
"Seen them buzzing around?"
"Something like that".
"I'd still like to try that gun. I've only ever shot over open sights since I was little".
Valentine showed her the points of the rifle. "You cock the first with the bolt. Crosshairs are zeroed for one hundred yards".
"Regular 7.62?"
Valentine nodded. She sighted on an old wooden post perhaps seventy yards away, peeping like an owl from a patch of brush next to the road, and fired. They walked over and inspected her shot. She'd almost centered the post.
"Again?"
Valentine decided that ammunition used in practice wasn't really wasted, and he wanted to test the stuff he'd picked up in Yuma anyway.
He fashioned targets by inking a couple of pieces of toilet tissue and fixed them to a tree trunk back toward the autogyro. She was an even better shot than he was at two hundred yards, using the stabilizing built-in bipod.
The only thing they disturbed with the gunfire was the birds.
"I'm convinced", he said.