With all the new hustle and bustle inside the Vault Adam was happy to see that more and more of the space was being utilized. The general store itself was also exciting for him because it meant he had a place, at home, that he could sell his scavenged goods. Of course by now he always gathered too many things to be able to sell them all at the general store thanks to his APC. But being able to bring things back home to then be distributed through the general store not only gave him a source of income right in his home, but also took the issue of how to fairly distribute items out of his hands. There was still the issue of how people would make new caps down here, but it seemed like people were already starting to figure it out. Though more and more people were coming to him for answers about how to set things up. He was unsure why but at this point it was hard to deny that they were looking to him as some sort of leader.
He couldn't deny that he was filling the role already but he never saw himself as that sort of person, still, not a day went by that someone didn't have a question for him. Whether it be about converting usable space, about the restriction of weapons to non-guardsmen, about guard shift rotations, about food rationing, or even the most comfortable way to sleep. That last one was asked by the eldest child brought here from the Cult. Adam was a side sleeper so he was happy to indulge the question.
Still, the things that needed managing down here were starting to pile up. He was lucky he had a pip-boy to catalogue all of it in notes otherwise he might lose track. Besides all that he was starting to itch to return to scavenging again. It had been a week since he had last gone, after all. Up until he moved into the Vault he had been living day to day, paycheck to paycheck. Then, when he moved into the Vault he had other threats on the horizon that needed his attention. Famine, War, Pestilence. They all were looming threats and he was not about to sit on his hands and let them have their way. So until now he had never really taken a break. Though spending a week repairing robots might not be considered a break by some. Adam, however, would disagree.
He was more or less healed up. It only took 1 week for his body to repair itself. He still felt a bit sore, maybe a bit stiff, but he had no issue exerting his full strength again, which was a godsend. Adam was ready to get back out there.
However, before he went off scaving again he decided on his next destinations, the two settlements he knew about but had never been to; The Raft, and The Highrise. He would go scavenging again, for sure, but Chicago still had places left to see and he was eager to see them.
Before he could leave, however, he wanted to make sure everything was wrapped up here. Starting with a piece of technology that he had been putting off cleaning for a while. His power armor. Truly, had he had the power armor ready when he stormed the cult base the fight would have been less bloody for him, however the power armor pieces were just so gross and possibly in need of repair he couldn't bring himself to wear them without a thorough cleaning and inspection. So that is what he did. After a nice long breakfast, the rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning all the power armor pieces until they shined. Ensuring no smell, no debris, nor anything else dubious remained so he could wear it with peace of mind.
By the time late afternoon rolled around Adam decided to check on a few things before he started making his plans. For starters he stopped in at the Medbay to see Dr. Tott how he was coming along. As it turned out he had fully set up his medbay now, and was actually in the middle of giving a checkup to one of the little kids who had a cold. Adam chose not to disturb him but it was nice to see that he was established enough that, at least to Adam, it felt like a real doctor's office. Though the chemistry station running in the corner with bubbles and steam coming out of the various tubes did make him raise an eyebrow, he was sure Dr. Tott was just making things like stimpacks and the like. After all, he said he would.
After Adam had left the doctor's office he felt it was a good time to go check on Paxton and the Vault Guard who were in the middle of training outside.
Adam was met with a sight that reminded him very much of boot camp back in the US Army. Paxton was drilling the men and women hard, some were crawling on the ground under barbed wire, some were beating a makeshift dummy with rifles and sticks, some were doing target practice, and more. They were clearly doing training in sections. And they all looked like they were taking it seriously, which was good. Though Adam did have some serious safety concerns that there were live fire exercises being carried out while the instructor's attention was split. But then again, this was not the US Army. He couldn't expect that level of diligence. After all, the instructor was a Gunner. So long as there were no friendly fire incidents he was fine to pretend it didn't bother him.
When Paxton saw Adam approaching he called out to the Vault Guard.
"Alright! Cease fire! Take 5!" He shouted out to the group, observing to make sure that everyone was finished and no longer creating safety hazards and then turned to look at Adam.
"Mr. Baxter." He said politely.
"Hello, Paxton, how goes the training?"
"Well, but slow." He said as he glanced around at the resting Vault Guard. While he did, Adam did too.
At Paxton's suggestion, the Vault Guard had taken up some sort of uniform. Everyone was wearing a Vault Suit, however the Vault Suit was dyed a shade of dark gray, bordering on black, so that they would not be bright blue targets like Adam was before he started to wear the combat armor. Now that he was in combat armor he was mostly covering up the bright blue but it was still something he thought about from time to time. He was considering dying his vault suit just like them. But he had grown attached to the color so he may never do it.
Besides the black vault suits they wore the full set of Vault Security armor they found, in moderate abundance, in the Vault. The Vault-Tec body armor covered the torso down to the center of the legs and included a security helmet with retractable bullet-proof visor. They also found detachable shoulder pauldrons that could snap onto the Vault-Tec body armor as well as heavy boots and leg guards also meant for security. Adam had wished he had found those when he was first starting out but then again he had left the Vault as soon as he could so he did not even bother trying to explore.
On top of the armor each man was issued weapons. Adam had, at Paxton's request, opened up the armory to the Vault Guard. Allowing everyone to arm themselves properly and have access to the stockpile of ammo Adam had begun to collect. Adam was hesitant, of course, after all the Armory was one of the few spaces he considered his. He kept everything of value there. But ultimately a lot of the guns he had collected would just collect dust if kept there. This way the men and women who stepped up to protect the Vault would be more well armed than whatever sort of pipe weapons they had on hand.
However he was still being careful about the Pip-Boys. Even with well trained guards the issues from before still persisted so while he did leave the power armor inside the Armory, he took the time to move all the pip-boys to an unused room and turned it into a storage room for Pip-Boys. Locking it up like he had with the armory.
All in all with all the gear on hand the Vault Guard were now a uniformed group with matching outfits, decent protection, and moderately well armed. A lot could be done to improve them, of course. But Adam was happy to see them looking so much more professional than before. It seemed like Paxton had, already, done a great job getting them set up. And this was only the beginning.