Adam spent the next morning a bit leisurely, putting his newly acquired items on their displays throughout his space. Once he was satisfied with that he took a nice long shower, grateful for the convenience after having traveled around the past few days. After that he enjoyed a nice breakfast with Deccanus who was up early as per usual. Then, with his entire morning routine squared away, Adam headed to see Eve, who was someone he wanted to visit yesterday before Karla's demand turned the latter half of his day upside down.
"Welcome back, handsome~ Though you certainly took your time seeing me." Eve said with the same sultry tone as ever as she opened the door in response to Adam's arrival, teasing him a bit at the end. She leaned in on the doorframe, sticking her bottom out a bit in a seductive pose. Very much on purpose.
"Sorry that I didn't come to see you yesterday, I got caught up in some business I didn't expect."
"I was just teasing, cutie~" Adam chuckled in response.
"I know, just wanted to explain myself. Anyway I love traveling and all, seeing new places is fun, but there's nothing quite like coming home." He grinned.
"I could make it an even better welcome home if you are brave enough~" She teased before Adam reached onto his back and pulled off the bag Eve's portion of the caps.
"Your portion of the profits." He said with a smile as he offered them to her.
"Oh?" She said back as she took it, standing up straighter and speaking more seriously. The bag of caps had grown so substantial it could not be carried within his own backpack. Well, not without sacrificing space for his own things, so he had found another bag to put it in and had handed the entire bag over.
"Everything that was done was split 5 ways with some set aside for the Vault itself. So these are your cut for the entire haul."
Eve opened the bag and then looked inside, after she did she walked away, deeper into her room, pulled out a sack and started to dump caps into the smaller sack.
"Well then I think I will follow the lead of our glorious leader~." She teased before tying up the sack nicely. "I will donate these to that wonderfully curt woman, Karla, soon."
"You don't need to do that." Adam said back, a bit confused by her response.
"There are not many things I need to spend caps on. Mostly just parts and guns. There is no one selling fancy new guns down here so I think it would be better served to help make our little metal cave a bit more colorful, right? Besides, I have more than enough money. What's the point of being rich if you can't splurge pointlessly after all?" She grinned and then walked past Adam out her door, gently brushing her arm up against Adam's in a clearly deliberate move before tapping the door controls on the exterior of her door and then stopping again. "I'm going to hand these caps over, stay sexy for me, won't you?" She said holding up the bag with one claw and miming blowing a kiss to Adam with the other. Then, without another word, she sauntered off.
Adam decided to spend the rest of his day doing some light maintenance to his APC, to that end he decided to invite Eric to join him since this was something that he was interested in. However, strangely, Eric was nowhere to be found in the Vault. Not that Adam had searched every nook and cranny, after all the Vault was huge, but he was nowhere Adam looked so he just headed outside by himself and found Eric almost immediately. However what he saw was not just Eric but Eric on the motorcycle, riding it.
Eric was going probably 40 miles an hour around the area, carefully avoiding the various piles of rubble that Rivet still had not yet collected and sorted himself, with a big smile on his face. Adam was blown away; the bike was already fixed. It was in good condition all things considered, but for Eric to already have fixed it showed just how much potential he actually had. He really was wasting his natural talents away by working in the Inn. But seeing him spread his wings, a bright smile, the wind blowing through his hair, his eyes shining with wonder and pure joy. It was the right decision to help him find his goal. It looked like he found it.
"Eric!' Adam waved him down. Eric turned to look at Adam and seemingly lost control for half a moment, almost tipping over, but regained control fast enough for a smooth recovery. He then drove over, carefully, to Adam and turned off the engine.
"Adam!" Eric said, his voice full of jubilation as he kicked down the kickstand and approached Adam. "I did it! The bike! It's so fast! It feels awesome!" Eric said, his excitement palpable. Adam just laughed amicably.
"I'm really impressed, Eric. I'm shocked you managed to fix it so easily. Even I don't know much about nuclear power or nuclear engines."
"Actually I've been learning from Remmington." Eric admitted sheepishly. "He isn't the best teacher, but that robot really knows his stuff about maintenance and nuclear power. I've been helping him fix up the Vault and the generator in exchange for him taking the extra time to teach me." Adam paused and studied Eric for a moment.
"Eric, do you know how to fix the nuclear generator? Do you know how to maintain the Vault's systems and health?" Adam asked skeptically.
"Uh… I mean, maybe? I've been working hard for a while now. Whenever you have been busy I make myself useful in other ways. I wouldn't say I could fix the generator without Remington but I could probably do most of the repairs on a day to day basis." Adam paused again, thinking.
"Eric, how would you like to join the council?" he asked.
"The council?!" Eric said, looking pale. "You mean the governing body of the Vault you set up yesterday? Why me?!"
"Because I am not here all the time. Sure I can do some spot repairs here and there for the Vault, but the Vault really has a lot of systems that need to be maintained, like water filtration, air purifiers and cyclers, the vault door, the generator, and a host of other things that I'm sure you know need maintenance. We need a head engineer. And we need someone to inform the people in charge what needs fixing that can't be done easily."
"Yeah but why me?" Eric said back, still quite hesitant.
"Because you are, right now, the best engineer in the vault."
"Im still learning." Adam then chuckled and placed his hand on Eric's shoulder.
"Even I was not a mechanic in the old world. I was just able to pick things up here and there, and since I've woken up I've learned more. You have a talent for this, if not you then who else?" Eric looked at Adam for a long moment and then sighed deeply.
"Okay… look…" He began, slowly. "I'll do it. Because I know part of living here means helping out. I can't just do what I want all the time. I will even join the council, if you want me to. But my real dream.. The thing I want to do…" He looked over to the motorcycle placed next to APC in the almost completed garage. "Is to open a shop to repair cars of the old world. Cars, bikes, trucks, whatever. I want to help bring these machines back to life in any way I can." Adam grinned.
"So an auto shop huh?"
"Huh?" Eric said back, confused by the terminology.
"Nevermind. But okay, I respect that. And I can almost promise you that I'm sure there will be a need for more cars in the future, so I'll hopefully be your first customer. I won't crush your dream, Eric, but for now, if you are willing to take up the mantle, that would be very much appreciated. At least until we can find someone else to take your spot so you can chase your dream." Eric let off a long sigh and then nodded, now with a more determined expression.
"If that's what you need from me, I'll do it."