This might have been a touchy subject because there was a few seconds of hesitation that came before his answer did. Almost as if he thinking about how much he was going to tell her. "I visited Pittsburgh quite frequently over a year after being first elected. This was back when our network for reaching out to people had effectively collapsed and stopped pulling in attention. Someone needed to go oversee things and make sure work was getting done, and that the needs of people who were otherwise utterly neglected were being taken into consideration. Slave trade was out of control back then too, something we were in a position to fight against and kept doing until it fell over and stopped functioning district by district." A pause punctuated that part of the answer, about the same space of time as his previous hesitation, after its passing he continued speaking. "I come here to be reminded. I'm not going to try and make it sound noble, because it isn't and you're not nearly gullible enough to buy into that even if I did try to sugar coat it. But it helps when I can get perspective, really share in all the hate when I make the decisions I do. I can't be a representative otherwise." There was something personal to his response just then, something he was clearly not telling her and which made him invested in people like these. It could have been multiple reasons, or just one, even a more simplistic notion of enjoying violence of enjoying violence for the sake of some kind of goal.
They were rapidly leaving city limits, effectively going off grid, a fact which became clear when the road seemed to have disappeared from beneath them. Just an endless stretch of arid brown for as far as the eye could see, stretching out across the horizon like the fabric of a dull and poorly maintained uniform. The more they kept going, the more the city in the backdrop seemed to zoom out and away from them, soon becoming a distant series of ugly spires contrasted by the sun which was losing its prominence in the sky. It was almost as if he was searching for something, which once he had found brought them to a gradual stop.
It was a body of water, and it was left entirely to itself. A thin belt of green desperately clung to its periphery, marking the borders of where life had found space for itself. A literal oasis across the otherwise infinite stretch of dirt. Though it was thankfully not large enough to warrant much attention, if it were then it would have been a prime site for settlement. There was also every possibility that it was a spontaneous formation, left behind after heavy rain and intermittently replenished whenever water attempted to find its level.
A deft movement of his right hand put the deep thrumming of the bike's propulsion system to rest, clearly denoting that they were going to stop here for now. "Feel free to stretch your legs. I'll get things set up." It was as good a place as any to make camp, the environment hardly offering any better alternatives.
