Chapter 10 - 10

Adam headed, key in hand, to the place indicated by Mandy to be his room for the night. Upon entering, he found it to be an average sized room, about the size of a smaller hotel room. It had a bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a headboard with a stand, and an attached bathroom with a toilet, sink, and a shower tub with a plastic curtain screen. All the furniture in the room looked worn and used, but not dirty. Nothing better encapsulated this than the bedding on the bed. It was worn, the stitching was even frayed in one or two places and the coloring on the bedding was faded, but it was very much not dirty, it was very clearly washed thoroughly before it was put down, even the very faded coffee stain on the bottom right, near the foot of the bed, indicated it had been used for a long time. The entire room felt more like a home than a hotel, which actually made it feel more comfortable. The pristine sterile nature of a hotel was replaced with the human touches of people actually living their lives. A hotel might have been nicer but this was certainly more welcoming. He walked over to the window that sat over his dresser and looked outside. It was nighttime, or, at least, it was starting to get dark. He had managed to spend an entire day since he had first woken up in the vault, or maybe he had woken up halfway through the day? Truthfully he was unsure, he didn't stop to check the time when he first got out, too many things happening at once for him to care. Regardless of whether his pip-boy had a built in clock or not, which it did. The lights were starting to turn on in some of the houses he could see from his window. Which was very few, since his window overlooked nothing of importance and the Inn itself was almost tucked to the corner of the settlement near the northern wall. There were only 3 buildings between the Inn and the wall as far as he could tell. Not that it mattered, but again, it just meant the view was unremarkable. He turned to head to the bathroom, intending to clean up, before pausing. In theory any water would have to be sourced locally, likely from the pond or the river, the same pond and river that the "bucket" water came from. The same water that needed to be purified to be considered "clean". In effect, if he cleaned himself with it, would he not just be using dirty rad filled water? Wouldn't that be a recipe for sickness? But he stopped himself. He realized, sooner or later no matter how hard he tried, he was going to get irradiated. Whether that be from drinking bucket water like he did earlier or from bathing in the same water, exploring old ruins, or just some happenstance there was simply no avoiding it anymore. That shouldnt mean he should become lax, but getting uptight about the water from the tub or sink was only going to drive him mad. Assumedly Mandy, Chuck, and virtually every other person in this town lived like this. Getting irradiated was a daily part of their lives and they seemed fine. That isn't to say Mandy looked like the healthiest person he had ever seen but she was healthy enough, the radiation wouldn't kill him. In addition to all of that he knew, from his previous line of work, that radiation was more prevalent in the old world than people thought to begin with. The cars, the power plants, the fatmen deployed by the US military, and a ton more. It was never truly radiation free. He had even heard rumors that Nuka Cola had developed Nuka Cola Quantum by mixing the amazing taste of the original Nuka Cola with nuclear waste. Though he was sure that was just some Vimm slander on the brand, no way Nuka Cola would do that to its customers. All this to say avoiding any amount of radiation like the plague was not going to be feasible or wise, so if he was dirty, like he was, and he needed a bath, like he did, and had to use water from a lake with a little bit of radiation he wasn't going to stress himself over it. Especially since what he planned on doing from now would ensure he was getting dirty as he explored old ruins and probably exposed himself to even more radiation. So, with his mind made up, he finally took a bath. After emerging from the bath, refreshed, and feeling more comfortable, he headed straight for bed. Not like he could watch TV or anything anyway. But sleep did not come to him quickly, he found himself wide awake, staring at the ceiling as he thought about everything he had been through up to this point. The vault, the Deathclaw, arriving in Naper. It was a lot. But even if his mind wasn't cluttered, the various anxieties, excitement, worries and fears all mixed inside him kept him firmly awake. He couldn't feel settled at all. So after some time unsuccessfully trying to sleep he got up and headed out of his room, leaving his bag and bulletproof vest on his bed and taking the key he was given to his room with him. As he left his room he saw the Inn mostly empty of customers, he did notice two who seemed to be more of the night types as they sat in the back playing cards together, some strange game that didn't use a full deck, and Mandy herself was still around, though it seemed like she was cleaning up for the night, wiping down tables and getting things wrapped up, something he was sure of due to the bucket of soapy water and rag that was placed on an empty table. But Mandy herself seemed to be wrestling with an old Jukebox that was shoved in the back left corner near the entrance, kicking it a few times as Adam approached the door. She noticed Adam walking out but said nothing as her frustrations were being taken out on the poor jukebox. "Did the Jukebox hurt you in a past life or something?" Adam said, momentarily taken away from his melancholy by the amusing sight. Mandy turned to look at him, still annoyed at the infernal machine. "No I just…" She sighed and the anger dissipated a bit. "This blasted thing hasn't worked for nearly half a year. It was working fine until one day it just… stopped. I keep hoping it's gonna turn on again, but at this rate I'll be down the music forever." "Mind if I take a look?" Adam asked, casually. "You know something about machines?" Mandy returned, skeptically. "Actually yes." he said as he bent down, spun the Jukebox around, and then opened the backdoor to look at the internals. "I am a licensed RobCo mechanic after all~" He said with a smirk as he focused his attention on the wiring and connections inside. After studying it for a few moments he nodded and then looked at Mandy again. "Well you got a blown Vacuum tube in here and some faulty wiring." He informed her. "I can jury rig it if you want, but if you want it fixed properly you will need to replace both the wiring and the whole vacuum tube." "But you said you can get it to work right now?" She asked with a suspicious raise of her eyebrow. "Well sure." He said, now looking back inside the machine. "Just need to pull a few things. Won't sound as good but it would work." Mandy is quiet for a moment before she shrugged. "What the hell, why not? Go for it." She nodded. "Damn thing wasn't working anyway so what do I got to lose?" She turned around to walk off and go wipe down a table, meanwhile Adam got to work. He reached in and pulled out the broken Vacuum tube, and the faulty wiring, then put in some of the good wiring in the place of the now missing ones and bypassed the missing tube. The entire process didn't take him more than a few minutes. "Well…" Adam began as he stood up and wiped his hands. "Should work now." "What?" Mandy said with some surprise. "But you just started." She walked over to look at the Jukebox, not that she was looking at anything important just the front of it. "Well It's just a jukebox, I used to handle much crazier stuff for a living." Adam shrugged casually. Mandy wasted no more time and hit the On button and then picked a disk. As if by magic the Jukebox whirred to life and began playing music again, much to Mandy's surprise. "Now, as I said, it's just a jury rigging. It's not properly fixed. It's missing a whole vacuum tube, so from now on it's going to be prone to overheating." He informed her. "I'd suggest letting it cool off for ten minutes every other hour or for an hour after five." "Well I'll be damned." Mandy said, impressed. "You sure are handy." She smirked to which Adam just chuckled. "I'm going to take a walk, I'll be back later." He said before he casually turned to walk outside, all the while he was being stared at in disbelief by Mandy at the ease of his efforts. As soon as he was outside his mind began to cloud again, he once more found himself thinking about all his anxieties. But the night air was good for his muddled mind. It didn't help solve anything but it felt nice. He looked to the other side of the road splitting the town in half, towards the river and ponds and fields of crops and then headed that way. Once he was close the sound of the river became louder and louder, drawing him over until he stood on the edge of a sizable stream, large enough that fording it would be very difficult. Probably why there was no wall over here, just open space, as getting across to the town from this angle would be a challenge to say the least. Softly, he sat himself down, letting his legs rest next to the bank of the river, which stood a foot or two below the green grass of the field he sat on. He truly didn't know what he was going to do, he had made a plan to discover more about the vault he woke up in, or rather, why he was there, and decided to go back to Second Life HQ to learn as much as he could but he couldn't help but be intimidated. It was a dangerous world out there. Just from leaving the vault he encountered a monster, the deathclaw that nearly killed him. He was lucky it didn't. It would be a lie to say he was not scared. And not only were there deathclaws but all manner of other creatures and people out there that wouldn't care about him or where he came from, just that they wanted to see him dead. It certainly gave him pause. He was going to do this, he had to, he would never be able to live comfortably without having the answers to his questions, but that doesn't mean he was excited to throw himself in danger. A man who had never seen combat might, but he was a veteran, it meant he knew what real danger was like, and that no one should willingly throw themselves into it recklessly. But as he thought all of this he just sat there, watching the river flow, the bombs might have fallen, Chicago might be a husk of itself, he might have more questions than answers, but nature moved on, neigh nature never cared. The river flowed on as always, ignorant of the troubles he was facing. But as Adam began waxing poetic about the indifference of nature a small frown crept onto his face as he came to a sudden realization. "Shit. I should have charged for the Jukebox repair."