"Yeeeees…" Adam said after a moment, slowly, trying to think of a way out of this. He had not meant to out himself like this.
"What were you talking about?" Eric asked, still confused.
"I… um…" Adam said, trying to figure out a good response. After a few moments of silence he sighed and decided the only real option now was to tell the truth. "Yes, I meant what I said, I served under the Alaskan Command… in the Great War…" Adam said to Eric as he simply stared back at him.
"I think you should start at the beginning." Eric said, slowly himself now.
Adam then spent the next few minutes telling Eric about the truth about his birth, the memories he carried, and his experience as a person new to this post-nuclear fallout world.
"I always knew you were… different…" Eric said slowly, trying to process everything Adam had just told him. "I figured it was because you came from a Vault. Though I guess when I got here I saw that this place could not have been where you grew up, too many things were not right but I never figured…" Eric slowly put a hand over his mouth while he seemed lost in thought.
"I'm sorry Eric, I didn't mean to hide it from you. But me being a clone is not something everyone can understand, it makes me different. If I add in the fact that I have memories from pre-war it's something I usually keep hidden." Adam said this slightly somberly, still unsure what Eric's reaction would be. He had told Mandy, his sister, but she had taken it in stride and showed she didn't care, Eric seemed to be thinking it over though.
"I just…" Eric took a long pause and then sighed loudly. "I don't think it matters?' Eric said, not even sounding too sure himself. "I mean does it make a difference if you were not born like a normal human?"
"I don't know. I don't think so." Adam replied softly. Eric shook his head.
"I can't say that I'm happy this was kept a secret, I mean I feel like it was something pretty important but…" He paused again and then looked into Adam's eyes. "I guess if it weren't for you I would have never found the thing I wanted to do. Fix cars. Without you I would still likely be living in my sister's shadow miserable at the Inn. Sure you might be a man with memories from 200 years ago but because of that I was able to find a new direction to take in life… or… because of that? I don't know. The point is, I guess I don't really care? I just was very caught off guard for a bit there. So just ignore me. We have a robot to fix." Eric said before turning back to the sentry bot, however Adam kept looking at Eric.
"Are you sure you don't-" Adam began before Eric cut him off.
"Nah man, I really couldn't care less, you could be a Wendigo for all I care. That shit doesn't matter to me. As long as you will still teach me how to fix things like you then it doesn't matter in the slightest." Adam chuckled and shook his head with a smile. He didn't care. Like sister, like brother.
"How transactional of you." He traded.
"Yeah well, I'm learning from a scaver, I have to play the part." Eric flashed a quick grin in Adam's direction before letting it disappear as quickly as it came.
"Alright, well then let's get to work on this guy. If we can get him ship-shape today he will be an incredible help for the battle to come." Eric nodded and then walked over to help Adam finish the repairs.
Adam had a lot of coding work to do. Polar opposite of the Mr. Gutsy which was physically damaged but required no programming work, this sentry bot had a mess of Coding and very little physical damage. Adam set Eric on the task of doing all the physical work on the Sentry bot. Which really just meant a very deep cleaning, something Eric was already very good at. With the arms detached it was even easier to get everything clean and oiled. Meanwhile Adam got to work on detangling the mess of coding.
The coding was… strange. It was both coherent and it wasn't. He recognized the pathways meant to be used by the sentry bot set up by the manufacturer and then the extra code set up by the engineer corps in the US Army. However then there was a third set of code that stood out from the rest. It was strange, as if a programming student in college was using this sentry bot to practice. There were lines of code that were redundant, some that were dead ends, some that made no sense, but then there were a few that actually affected the behavioral subroutines. It was like… whoever was messing with the programming tried to give this sentry bot a personality? Or.. no… It's like they were augmenting the one that existed for communication purposes? It was incredibly strange.
One thing was certain, however, all this excess code had created multiple feedback loops and errors inside the Sentry bot. Its 'personality' now was one that saw any organic being as an enemy. However, untangling the extra coding and leaving the important stuff would take a while. It would almost be easier to start fresh but considering he was on a timetable with the impending eventual victory of Pestilence outside the Vault he couldn't afford the slower meticulous route. Instead Adam took the proverbial shears to the coding and cut out anything that seemed unnecessary and fixed it up enough that it would work fine under his orders. There was still some anomalous coding but considering how much time it already took to just use shears he simply couldn't be bothered. He was confident the anomalous code wouldn't do anything bad, however it was curious. Still by the time Adam had finished it was time for dinner and almost the entire day had already been spent on making the sentry bot work. He was fine to call it done.
Adam had Eric step back and then slowly took off the cloth covering the sentry bot's eyes.
"Recognize Adam Baxter." Adam said commandingly.
"Recognized." The sentry bot said back, mechanically. Adam was satisfied.
"Run a complete diagnostic check on your software and programming and correct for any anomalies."
"Running, as ordered." The sentry bot said as its eyes flashed red for a moment and began its diagnostic. Adam let it run for a minute before it spoke back up again.
"All programs have returned green, system's check complete, 33 errors cleared, all systems running optimally." It said back. Adam was satisfied.
"Eric, before we get dinner, let's get this guy's arms back on." Eric hesitated.
"Are you sure it's going to be okay?" Eric asked, slowly.
"Yeah." Adam said back, reassuringly. "I have admin controls, it won't go off the rails again." Eric nodded slowly and then cautiously moved back towards the arms he had cleaned earlier and, with Adam's help, helped to reassemble the sentry bot.
"Sentry bot, your designation is now Hades." Adam said with a small chuckle to himself. Finding the idea of giving it the name of the god of the underworld very funny. After all, it was armed to the teeth and designed to kill, so somehow it fit. But it did need a name, and he was not really the best at coming up with names. So this seemed fine enough.
"Accepted, this unit is now Hades. Orders, sir?"
"None for the moment, please wait on standby alongside the Mr. Gutsy in the corner, we will have orders for you soon." Adam said as he unwrapped the chain from around its legs.
"Understood." It said as it began its slow, heavy walk across the room to its ordered station. Adam was impressed. They had not only fixed up the Mr. Gutsy, but the Sentry bot too. With just those two robots their fighting force had increased explosively. The sentry bot went without saying, but a Mr. Gutsy had an experimental Plasma launcher, new tech, at least for when Adam left the army, so it would pack quite a punch.
When Adam had left the Army he had heard that plasma weaponry was being experimented with outside of the Mr. Gutsy models but he had never used or seen one, in fact by the time the world ended he didn't think they made it to production, only prototyping. Other than the plasma caster, which was too bulky to be used outside of power armor. Shame. A Plasma rifle sounded cool. Lasers were still better though, obviously. After all, nothing beats the feeling of a laser rifle in your hands.
With their tasks done Adam and Eric headed to the cafeteria to eat some food and enjoy a well earned break.