Establishing a new society's entire economic system aside, Adam was happy to be able to step away from the role and do some more familiar things, such as selling his loot. Which he was more than happy to do.
Adam had collected a ton of guns and ammo from the Cultists in the last fight. Even though he was giving a ton over to the Vault Guard for the sake of them maintaining their own armory, he still had more than enough to sell. Far more than Chuck could buy. However, ironically, since many of the residents had been buying so much from Chuck on this trip and few were selling, Chuck was positively caps flush at the moment. Adam was keen to take advantage of that.
1647 caps later, Bessy was now full to the brim with guns that Adam had sold off. He took a bit of a loss on some of the guns, he was sure, but considering the convenience of simply handing them to Chuck rather than carting them all over Chicago it was worth it. Not to mention Chuck was a friend, helping out a friend is never a bad thing.
Eventually Chuck finished with all his trades and it was growing late. Adam led him down to the hallways, giving him a brief tour that he had not been able to give him up until now due to him being swamped with work, and then led him to the Cafeteria. However on the way Chuck seemed to show interest in seeing Jefferson who was setting up the aquaponics bay with the fish now, even having a brief friendly conversation with him about it before continuing the tour.
In the future Adam might need to figure out how to handle guests, after all, the food was for Vault Residents and the same goes for the housing, however Chuck was a friend, and Adam was not in the mood to overtax his brain again. So, for the time being, Chuck would be given the amenities of a vault resident, free food, and a free room to stay in.
Even better than that Chuck was having a great time, mingling with folks as smoothly as if he knew everyone his whole life. He even promised to come back soon, perhaps even setting up regular supply runs to the Vault, since it was closer to Naper than any other settlement. He also offered to introduce the vault to some other merchants he knew who had traveling caravans as well to help grow the Vault and connect it to the rest of Chicago. Adam had no idea how much would change just from having Chuck arrive but this was already forcing him, and the others who helped him brainstorm, to begin thinking up how to handle whatever future problems come up in their lovely home.
Eventually the night came and Adam led Chuck to a spare room for him to sleep in. Chuck was so impressed with his room that he even joked that he would move here if he could.
Once Chuck was settled in, and marveling at the ease of access to the built in movies on his room's TV, Adam headed to go speak with his friend who he had been too busy to hold a chat with up until now, Salvatore.
"Hey Salvatore." Adam said with a soft smile as he leaned on the doorframe of Salvatore's open door, as he was just relaxing on his couch, smoking a cigarette.
"Hey kid." He said, pulling his cigarette out of his mouth. "You done running yourself ragged?" He grinned.
"I hope so." Adam said with an exhausted tone as he took a seat on the chair that sat next to the couch.
"Well you did it to yourself you know." Salvatore said as he took one last puff of his cigarette and then, politely, snuffed it out in an ashtray he found before stowing the remains back in its case. "You were the one who wanted to create a whole damn settlement."
"That is not what I set out to do and you know it." Adam said back to him quickly, his tone stern but not really meaning to scold Salvatore. Salvatore seemed to get that and broke out into soft laughter.
"Sure kid, that's why you kept inviting refugees to live in the vault with you." He grinned.
"It was originally just supposed to be my base, a place for me to stash my stuff and somewhere safe for me to sleep. But I couldn't say no to the Naper refugees and things just kept spiraling." Adam sighed.
"That's your problem kid, you got too much altruism in ya. Gotta be able to say no right to someone's face."
"Well yeah, maybe." Adam admitted as he leaned back in the chair a bit. "But honestly, who would have expected all this, this completely got out of hand. I mean people are literally coming to me to ask me for advice about stuff. Asking me to make a ton of decisions I know nothing about. Who can open what store, whether we pay people here or not, what kind of drugs the Doctor should focus on, so much stuff I don't know the first thing about." Adam said, waving his arms with dramatic emphasis.
"I think anyone could have seen this coming. This is your Vault kid."
"It's not really my Vault, I was just born here."
"That's more than literally anyone else can say." Salvatore grinned. "But the truth is, you made a name for yourself. I know you didn't set out to do that but you did. You are a public figure now, and with that comes a certain level of responsibility. People know you and what you are capable of, and until you fall so low they can't find you, you will continue to be relied on."
"I'm not that great of a person, Salvatore."
"Sure, but they don't know that. Why do you think assholes like Robert House, Doyle Reed, or John-Caleb Bradberton had so much power? You think it's 'cause they were smart? Nah, they ran fucking buisnesses, made a name for themselves, and suddenly everyone and their mother thinks that those guys are hot shit. They ain't any better than you or me." Salvatore said before leaning in. "People love to idolize others. Like it or not, you are one of 'em now. People are gonna start to look for you for answers even when you don't know them because you are that kinda guy."
"That sounds… awful." Adam frowned. "How do I get them to stop?"
"You could run." Salvatore said with a shrug.
"I'm not doing that." Adam said back sternly.
"Then I think you'd better get used to people looking to you for solutions. This is your home, kid. That means you run it. Now, you can officially pass the buck to someone else if you wanna. But until you do, people will be looking for someone to ask the big questions of. If anything, I think you should count yourself lucky no one filled the power vacuum until now. Seems like everyone down here was sufficiently won over by you that no one wanted to step on your toes."
"Or they are all good people." Adam offered.
"Nah." Salvatore said back quickly, not buying that at all. "Live as long as me you learn there ain't any 'good people' anymore kid. You are the last fucking one. All the good people died when the bombs fell. What's left are hyenas, eating at the rotting carcass of the world that was left behind." Adam sighed, deciding that this conversation was going nowhere. It seemed that unless he was willing to let someone else make all the decisions like Salvatore said he might just need to embrace the role thrusted upon him. But ultimately, was that so bad? He could consider that later, after all, he did not come here for this.
"But you didn't come here to talk about your issues, did you?" Salvatore said to him, as if reading his mind.
"No…" Adam said slowly as he got more serious. "I came because when you got here you said you wanted to talk to me, man to man." Salvatore stared Adam in the eyes for a few moments and then nodded, a serious expression on his face now too.
"I did." He said as he let off a soft sigh and sat up. "I wanted to talk to you about you. Or rather the other you. I wanted to talk to you about Baxter."