Chapter 64 - 64

Words : 1324 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Adam once more plugged his pip-boy into Mr Handy and began the process of pulling up its coding. Meanwhile he pulled a chair over to the Mr. Handy and sat down in it. Using the Pip-boy to recode a robot was not his idea of convenience. It was convenient that it could work, sure. But he'd much rather have a computer. Typing on his pip-boy was slow and with the amount of work he had to do it would take that much longer. However, regret was for people who had caps to their name. So he worked. The time was spent uninterestingly, hunched over the back of the Mr Handy doing work on both his pip-boy and on the wiring on the inside of the Mr. Handy. A ton of work was needed. There were a lot of lines of code that lead to feedback loops, some that created dead ends, and some that were just bloating up the code and slowing down processes. On the inside it also needed a bit of cleaning, some sensors were dirty, the wires were off, and some panels were on the verge of falling off so he needed to tighten a few things. However, with a concentrated effort, after many hours of non-stop work he had finished making his adjustments. The stuttering would never occur again, the Mr. Handy's recognition software had been reset and improved, and Adam had even tweaked its fuel efficiency. Not that it especially needed it, Mr. Handys were very fuel efficient, but it was a small addition and he wanted to prove both to Lune as well as himself he was as good as he said he was. Adam had also snuck in his calling card to the command sub processors too. If he ever needed to he simply needed to call out to the Mr. Handy "Recognize: Adam Baxter" and it would cease hostilities and prioritize his orders above all others. It may have been a bit underhanded for him to do this but it was a safety measure. In case he was wrong and his code didn't work, the Mr. Handy could try to kill him, it was always smart to have a backup plan. Unless someone else took a look in the code no one would ever know he put it in, so it really was more an easter egg than anything. Sold like that he enjoyed hiding it in the code. His work finished he powered up the Mr. Handy and watched as it sprung to life. "Good morning sir!' Mr. Handy responded enthusiastically. "How may I be of service today?" "Run an internal diagnostic of all subroutines." "I apologize sir, only the one registered as my owner may make administrator requests of me." Adam rolled his eyes. This is why you always needed a backup plan. "Recognize: Adam Baxter." He said firmly. "Recognized. What may I do for you sir?" "Run an internal diagnostic of all subroutines." Adam repeated. 'Right away sir." Mr. Handy said before he went silent, checking all his programming. This was why you made sure you could have total control of the robotic unit in a pinch, you simply never knew when you might need administrator privileges. In a world where the robotic hunk of metal could tear a man in half it didn't hurt to be careful. "Diagnostic run." Mr. Handy said after a few minutes. "No errors found, unit is functioning properly." He reported happily. "Is there something else I can do for you sir?" "No." Adam said as he let off a long sigh, relieved to be done working and stood up. "Revoke my temporary administrator privileges and return to your last directive." "Certainly sir!" He said before he paused for a moment, just hovering there in the room like he hadn't heard Adam at all and then it began to leave the room, returning to the shop floor. Adam watched as it went until it finally left the room, he followed after it, observing as he did, watching it begin to organize the otherwise heavily disorganized shop. "Hey rust bucket, you fixed?" Lune asked as she saw the Mr. Handy appear from the back. "I can happily report I am showing no internal errors! I am running at 98% efficiency." Adam chuckled and walked up. "The 2% missing efficiency is because its leftmost eye server is a bit out of alignment, nothing i could really do to fix it unless i found a replacement part, but I did everything else." He said as he walked up to Lune. "Well… I mean I'll be honest I didn't think you would manage to do it." She said impressed. "So this guy will just… work now?" "Yup." Adam reported happily. "There are no more coding issues and the mechanical issues were worked out to the best of my ability without replacement parts, as I said. If nothing changes he should be good to work for another 200 years without issue." She nodded and then reached into a saddlebag she had at her hip and pulled out slips worth 300 caps. "Then you earned this." She said with a small grin handing it over. "Thank you." Adam said as he took them. "No, thank you." She said as she turned to the robot now. "Haven't seen him work so well since the day I bought him from that con artist, it will be nice to finally have a little help around here." She then turned back to Adam. "With him I can now have my shop open 24 hours, even on weekends, I don't need to give him time off after all." She paused and then looked Adam over. "What do you do for a living? You a mechanic?" Adam chuckled. "Somedays, sure." He smiled. "But I'm a Scaver, that's how I usually make my living." "Oh!" She smiled too now. "Well then in that case I believe we will have a good working relationship in the future." She offered her hand this time. "Scavers usually end up in my shop at one point or another." Adam took her hand and shook it. "That's actually the reason I came yesterday, to know where your shop was so I knew where to offload my goods." 'Well glad to know you know where the best spot in town is." She grinned. "I'm not going to say I will cut you a deal, but I'll make sure to throw you a bone if you bring me some goodies." "That's already more than I can ask." Adam chuckled. "I've got to get going but let me know if the Mr. Handy starts to act up again, It shouldn't but in case it does I can take another look." "Oh, even after care service too? I might be falling for you." She said with a joking tone. Adam laughed, waving her off a bit. "Have a good day Adam, I look forward to the next time you come by." "Me too." He said before turning to leave. "Wait." She said catching Adam before he left through the front. "Catch." She tossed something small to Adam which he caught in his hand. Adam looked down and saw that it was a Vault-Tec branded pin, the kind someone would wear on their lapel. Probably belonging to a corporate type from vault-Tec prewar. "Keep it. It's a gift." She said as Adam looked it over. "You got this whole Vaulty aesthetic about you, so it fits. Consider it a bonus for your work." Adam chuckled and then took a moment to pin it to his suit. He probably wouldn't wear it when he went out, maybe on the body armor, but it was a kind gesture and it was funny. "Thank you." He said after he pinned it to his chest.

Chapter 64 - 64

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