Finally, Adam was making his return trip to Midway. It felt like he had been away from the city for so long, he was living there for a while after all. However the time had been short, he had just been busy filling his days with something important without much time for rest. Between the battle with Famine, infiltrating the Cult of Pestilence, fixing up the Vault, getting his new Sentry Bot, helping the ghouls set up a new home at the FRS he had done a lot in a short span of time. Before he would never have thought about going this long without offloading goods from a scavenging trip, but now, with no rent to pay, he could afford to make these trips less frequent. Still, it was nice to be heading back.
The trip was mostly peaceful, during which, just like last trip, Adam spent some time teaching Mira how to drive the APC. She seemed to pick up on it extraordinarily fast, giving Adam hope that the time might come where he might be able to play passenger princess for once. But for the moment he was content to play chauffeur.
Arriving at Midway Adam rolled up with his APC and started to unbuckle himself to pop out to speak with the guards, hear their speech, and then be let in, but to his surprise as soon as he arrived the gate began to open. The Guard on the left side of the gate waved him inside without even so much of a word of warning. He had never gotten into Midway without hearing the whole 'don't cause trouble' speech before. This was strange. Though Adam was happy to skip the formalities. Though as he passed the gate he did notice one of the guards on the inside speaking into a radio. He paid it no mind though.
He arrived at the front of Midway like last time and began to let everyone out. He was once more attracting onlookers but he ignored them, focusing on what he needed to get done here.
"Rae, I want you to stay behind and protect the APC, use nonlethal force to subdue anyone attempting to sabotage or enter the APC. Use lethal force if they are endangering you or others.
"Roger, Sergeant!" Rae said with a salute as everyone else began to grab the bags from the back, ready to make multiple trips to offload the goods from the back. However just as Adam entered Midway he was immediately beset upon by a crowd of people.
Some of these people were holding microphones, some tape records, some still papers and pens. A few even had cameras. They were all speaking at once so it was hard to parse out what they were saying but one thing was clear, they were excited to see him.
"Sir sir! You are Adam Baxter, yes?" A man in a stained blue suit said as he held a microphone near Adam's face, his voice cutting through the crowd and the others quieting down in turn.
"Uhhh… yes?" Adam asked, confused. The crowd seemed to get even more excited by his answer.
"Tell me, Mr. Baxter, what was it like fighting on the front lines against the evil Famine?" Another man, holding a notepad and pen asked.
"It was… brutal… What is this?" Adam responded, confused by all the attention.
"Will you please answer my question Mr. Adam? I represent the Midway Times! I'd love to get a first hand account of the battle!" Another man, in the back, standing on his toes clearly trying to speak over the crowd asked. Oh… these were reporters, they were paparazzi. Wait… was he being interviewed?
"Tell us Mr. Baxter what was your impression of War?" Another man asked.
"I heard you worked alongside the notorious mercenary company The Gunners, what were your thoughts on their skills?" Yet another reporter chimed in.
"There are reports you are a former Brotherhood of Steel Paladin. Care to corroborate?"
"What is your body count?" The voices were once more getting louder and louder speaking on top of each other, Adam's head was spinning, he came here to conduct business, not to be ambushed by reporters. Adam briefly looked around for his companions only to find Mira and Deccanus already having slipped out of the crowd and a decent distance away, unbothered by reporters like he was.
Mira looked at Adam with a teasing grin enjoying his plight and Deccanus looked stoic as ever… very far away. Though likely the reason Deccanus had fled was the same reason he fled parties, he was claustrophobic. But that meant Adam was alone to combat these reporters in a battlefield he had never once stepped foot on.
"Okay okay!" Adam yelled over top of the voices to get them to quiet down. "I guess I can answer some questions, just do it one at a time, no shouting." Adam said, which the reporters all seemed to somewhat respect as they stopped yelling over each other and looked at each other, perhaps for permission to ask a question. Eventually one of the men in the middle of the group spoke up.
"We heard that you took on a wave of feral's on your own with nothing but a suit of dated power armor. Can you give more details?" He asked, with a slightly more normal volume. Adam sighed slowly and then nodded.
"After we had dragged the horde towards the battlefield my APC got bogged down and encircled by the horde. We were close to the rest of the forces but not close enough to be danger free. My partner had a means of escape but I did not, I told her to go and, in order to buy her time, I hopped into my power armor and grabbed my minigun. As I mowed down the ferals who rushed at me she was able to get away. I'll be honest, I thought I was going to die, but it was actually thanks to the Gunners that I survived. They brought a Vertibird and with it they managed to clear the area around me enough to get free. I dropped my still active fusion core, hopped out of the power armor, and ran. It really was sheer luck." Adam explained and then turned to one of the men who he thought asked a question earlier. "And to answer an earlier question I respect the Gunners, they are skilled and efficient. I've heard that they aren't the most noble bunch but at least on the battlefield they do good work and I would gladly work with them in the future." He said with a firm tone.
"Sir! Sir! If I may!" Another man called out, probably the youngest in the crowd.
"Go ahead." Adam said, gesturing to him.
"Everyone has heard the tales of 'Adam's Army'. Is it true you are setting up a mercenary company in Midway? How would one go about hiring you?" He asked.
"No, no." Adam said, waving him off. "We are not mercenaries. We are a salvage company… mostly. But we do not mind taking on requests from the people of Chicago from time to time. But we are not a private army. We do not fight wars for caps. Right now if anything we are a.. Um… private enterprise."
"What do you say to the accusations that you are making use of the Famine situation to raise your own standing among the people in Chicago?" Another man asked, cutting in and speaking with a slightly accusatory tone, which annoyed Adam.
"Okay look, I don't give a damn what any of you think of me. I'm just doing what I can to help people, if you want to hate me for that go right ahead, I'm going to keep doing what I think is right. And that's that." Adam said, annoyed, and with a tone of finality.
"What do you like to do on your off hours? Have you been to Teegan's Batting Cage on the third floor?" Another woman asked, weirdly speaking in a tone that indicated to Adam that she was doing an advertisement mid question. But he did have an answer for her. Though Adam felt they were already getting further and further away from the questions about the battle with Famine, which he assumed was the whole point of this. Why were they getting personal?
"Um.." Adam hesitated, trying to shift his thoughts from the annoyance and battle with Famine to more personal pursuits. "I enjoy reading and movies… mostly. Though I enjoy programming too, it can be therapeutic at times. And yes I have been to the batting cage. It was a fun time." He added.
"Another question for you sir!" Another man to the right asked. Adam turned to look at him as he continued. "What is your relationship status? Are you seeing anyone right now?" He asked, without a shred of decency in his tone. Adam let off a heavy exhale and then shook his head.
"Alright, that's enough questions for today. I came here for work not to answer your questions, excuse me." Adam said, forcefully at the end. Even though he spoke politely, he muscled his way through the first few people before the crowd seemed to partly respect his wishes and let him through, though the shouted questions did follow him for a bit before he wandered away from the gaggle of reporters.