As Adam and everyone disembarked from the APC a bunch of the people who were working on a new building nearby walked over.
"Good to see you everyone." Adam smiled and then stopped to admire the new fortification that protected the entrance to the Vault. "I gotta say I'm impressed, this is some really impressive work. Especially since I was only gone for a few days."
"Everyone worked on it." Eric said as he too walked over. "We all felt it was a good way of giving back and helping ensure our own safety by getting this done before you got home. The trickiest part was the door but uh… I did that." Eric said, a bit sheepish. Adam smiled at him.
"Well I'm impressed, again." He chuckled.
"We also worked out a system." The Guard on the lookout position said from behind the rampart of the wall. "We decided to always have at least one person on guard at all times, just like back at Naper, and the communal pip-boy is kept very safe during the working hours so that no one can steal it and get inside.
"You guys arranged all this while I was gone?" Adam asked, surprised.
"Well there were a lot of us that felt like we were freeloading. This is our home too now so we want to help protect it and make it better." One of the people from the crowd spoke up.
This was not what Adam had expected when he got back to the Vault, he knew they were working on the wall but to think they made this much progress so quickly they must have worked hard. Regardless if Rivet was working 24/7 or not, this was an incredible amount of progress.
This did begin to turn some gears in Adam's head, however. If this was to become more permanently stationed with manpower having a guard rotation duty might not be bad. And if they were entrusted with Guard duties they would need to be trained. More than that if he was to do this he would probably be better off stationing the robots outside to patrol the immediate area to help in case of an attack. It was not something he had thought too much about since his only goal was the wall. But now that it was built he was thinking even further. Still he wanted to keep Sgt. Fyre and Hades hidden until the battle. They were powerful allies afterall, no sense letting the secret get out yet to Pestilence if they had eyes on the area. But Buddy could do the job easily in the meantime.
"What about that over there?" Adam asked, curious, as he pointed to the foundation of a building that was so unconstructed that he could not even begin to guess what it was supposed to be.
"That is going to be the garage." Eric smiled. Adam went wide eyed and then smiled too. "Which reminds me, now that you are back, I need the measurements of the APC to make sure that we build the garage high enough to accommodate." Adam nodded.
"I can help you take the measurements but I'm not staying, we actually only came back to drop some stuff off, maybe take a quick break, and then head out looting. I need to earn some caps in the next few days in order to pay all the people I'm about to hire."
"Alright, well we can help you unload." One of the residents said with a smile.
"Awesome. I'll leave it to you guys." Adam said as he gestured to the back of the APC which was full of food, Eve's things, the movie projector, the power armor frame, and a few other odds and ends.
While the group began to pull things out of the APC and bring them into the Vault, Eve going with them wanting to bring her own things inside, Adam, Eric, and Mira all stayed outside to take some measurements and work out some of the details of the garage.
Adam also got to see, firsthand, how the gate for the wall worked. It was predictably slow, something that could be sped up with extra torque and speed from additional motors but it opened smoothly and without issue so he was quite satisfied, and very impressed Eric managed to set this up. Though as he found out it was not Eric's work alone. Some of the people from Naper who helped build the original gate helped him with setting it up. Regardless, that did not diminish his achievement.
After the APC was emptied and the measurements were taken Adam stepped into the Vault for a minute to order Buddy to stand guard at the gate until ordered to do otherwise. Buddy's combat mode only worked when ordered, he did not especially have the means to determine for himself if the situation warranted combat mode or if he should cease due to the cessation of battle. Regardless, even without combat mode Buddy was still a superior protectron, Adam was confident that it would be a boon to whatever external forces were stationed outside.
Everyone took a few minutes to relax while Adam and the builders talked things over. As it turned out the wall and fortifications were not yet done, though as it was this first phase was deemed fine enough for everyone to stop pushing themselves. Adam was inclined to agree though was excited to see how it would grow. He made a mental note that he needed to find more sentry turrets to install. In fact he may luck out and find one or two at his next location.
Eventually everyone was ready to go and loaded back up into the APC. Adam once more apologized to Pearl that he needed to leave again but promised to come back to pick her up soon.
Adam left the Vault feeling good, it seemed that the residents were more than willing to do hard work to make the Vault even better. Adam had some ideas of how to improve things but it was nice he was not alone. Though the best part of the day so far was definitely seeing everyone celebrate a very sheepish Deccanus for having bought and brought a ton of food stuffs. For the people of the Vault who had no means to get new food yet, this was definitely a cause for celebration, as they had been apparently rationing food recently to make it last longer. Now with the current food stocks they wouldn't need to worry about it in any meaningful way for a while. Adam was already feeling far more optimistic than ever, however he needed to refocus himself. Where he was going next might be dangerous. Knowing his luck, it would be. After all, his next stop was the Aeronautical Research Lab in East Chicago.