It took me another thirty minutes of flailing about before the armor calibrated finally. When it did though the difference was obvious. I could move faster and had a lot more force behind anything I did. Literal tons of it in fact, I knew this because I could curl the tiger bots that according to Adam weighed over two thousand pounds each. I officially decided on the spot that I'd never take the armor off without damned good reason.-
"You forgot to mention that you were literally in the suit." I said feeling a twitch in my eyebrow as I left the vault with a bag of loot.
"To be fair you never asked. Not to worry though I promise to be as unintrusive as possible." Adam said cheerfully.
"Not like I can stop you without putting the armor back anyways. If we are doing this I'm laying out some ground rules." I said with no room for negotiation.
"I expected as much. So long as they do not infringe on my core purposes I see no reason to disagree." Adam said calmly.
"First you are going to see some REALLY unscientific and/or straight up magical stuff so tell NOBODY. I'm dead serious here man this shit is the sort of stuff that would get me all sorts of attention I'd prefer avoiding at the moment." I said seriously.
"What sort of stuff exactly? Just so I know." Adam said and I chuckled.
"Believe me, you'll know immediately. Next rule. We handle any situation my way. I don't mind you giving suggestions or advice but the final say is mine, got it?" I asked and the A.I went silent for a moment.
"Are you a bad person?" Adam eventually asked quietly.
"That's a bit subjective but on the whole I'd say probably not too much. Don't get me wrong I'm no fucking saint but like if I think I can get away with helping people without losing out I will. That said I have lines I don't forgive being crossed. Anyone crosses them in front of me and I am pretty much killing them on the spot." I said bluntly.
"What are these lines?" Adam asked curiously.
"Eh pretty usual bottom line stuff like rape or perving on kids. Not a fan of slavery or human experimentation either for that matter. Surprisingly okay with cannibalism so long as the meat is from raiders or the like. I won't partake mind you but I'm not going to tell someone else how to get their food in this literal apocalyptical world." I said with a shrug.
"So you are a good person then." Adam said more statement than question.
"Eh, like I said on the whole more or less." I said shrugging again.
"Also what's a raider? My dictionary says one thing but that makes little sense, humanity moved beyond that stage of history." Adam asked curiously.
"Oh boy, I guess you wouldn't know but I'll try my best to cover everything." I said before doing exactly that.
I told Adam about how the surface was mostly barren and covered in radiation and mutated creatures. How humanity had been reduced to tribes, communities and small groups mostly as far as society went. I talked about raiders, slavers, the legion, the NCR, the Brotherhood, the institute and the Enclave. I talked about the church of atom, the Master and the followers of the apocalypse. I talked about the barter and bottle cap currency system. Adam remained mostly silent as I spoke but asked questions when it didn't understand something.-
"So humanity is in a situation not unlike the bronze era." Adam said finally.
I thought about it for a moment "As far as I can tell you are not wrong. Though that might just be in most of the advanced countries of the world. It's possible from what I know that some small countries were entirely passed over for any nukes and might be roughly at the same stage of civilization as they were before the war. For obvious reasons the knowledge of where all got nuked isn't publicly known." I said with a shrug.
"You could make an empire, try to civilize everything again." Adam suggested.
"It's been attempted, theres always some sort of problem though. The NCR basically passive aggressively bullies compliance and the Legion straight up murders, rapes and enslaves anyone who resists them. The Enclave basically just fucks off and does it's own thing most of the time while stepping on everyone else and the Brotherhood is only minorly different in that they are more open about the fucking over of other people. Honestly the NCR is the closest to pre war political society as you'll find. Personally I'm too lazy to try and do the whole empire thing. Seems like such a thankless hassle." I said with a chuckle.
"Then why not help whichever faction is already trying to do it?" Adam asked curiously.
"Because then I'd just be a tool, at BEST mind you. More likely than not I'd get labeled "kill at all costs" and have to deal with that all the time." I said as I lazily stretched out on the chair in the station after sending my orcs to kill everything in every direction that wasn't human or robotic.
I'd already resealed the vault and covered it up again until such time I decided to come back for more stuff.
"So you just plan to drift about for the rest of your life?" Adam asked.
"That is as far as I have planned ahead yes. It might change, it might not. Who can say?" I said noncommittally.
We just sat there for the rest of the day chatting. It didn't say it but I was pretty sure Adam was just happy to no longer be alone. Relatable honestly. I never really needed company to be fine but them again I was also perhaps not the most mentally stable of people so there was that. I eventually slipped off the armor to use the bathroom and then headed for bed.-
"That odd card you had just vanished and those odd things on the shelf started glowing." Adam reported as the day turned over.
"Yeah, you'll get used to it." I muttered before going back to sleep.
I slept in until ten o'clock and only that early because Adam insisted that I get up at "a reasonable" hour. I grumbled about it a bit but got up all the same and drank some water before grabbing a quick scrub using a little stored water and soap from the vault. I decided to rip the bandage off and expose Adam to some of my card shenanigans immediately.-
I tapped the laser screwdriver, talisman of conviction and one pristine talisman for a total of three mana that I used to summon the Phial of Galadriel. I could practically feel the A.I's confusion when I pulled a card out of a binder that popped up from thin air and then proceeded to summon the item depicted on the card, a small exquisitely crafted crystal phial with glowing silver blue light liquid in it.
"Are you real?" Adam eventually asked.