With that done House cut the signal from his end leaving me standing in front of Pearl awkwardly.
"And like that my job here is done. If there's nothing else I'll get out of your hair and you can inform your people of this matter." I said casually.
"There is actually a few things that you may be able to help us with. Ants in the stockpile and solar panels needing repairs specifically. You can speak to Raquel about it for more details." she said making me sigh.
"Fine fine, be nice to your allies and all that. Who's Raquel? " I asked despite actually knowing already.
"The girl who was with me when I received you at the gate." she said with an amused expression.
"And where might I find her?" I asked.
"Usually in the command post overlooking the approach to Nellis homeland." she said calmly.
I nodded and left the cabin to head that way. As I walked I looked around for the first real time since arriving. The first thing I spotted was the sheer amount of people. This was not a population of a mere dozen people like in the game but a true community of at least two hundred individuals.-
The vast majority wore tribalized flight suits or vault suits but there were a few with more plain threaded clothes. Something that was fairly clear however was that they were all Caucasian. This wasn't a problem or anything but was curious since most vaults were populated with mixed racial groups for genetic diversity. The fact that all of the Boomers were of a single racial group made me wonder if it was purposeful on Vault-tec's part. Still I only thought it mildly interesting and ignored it after that as I sought out Raquel. -
Considering she was the only person wearing combat armor, dinged up and well worn though it was, that didn't prove hard. She was sitting in what appeared to be a lawn chair on top of a shipping container under a parasol. She was clearly waiting for me as her eyes had been locked onto me this entire time apparently.
"Pearl radioed ahead that I was to fill you in on the situation with the ants and solar panels. It's nothing complex but there's some details that are important. First is that the ants in the stockpile have eaten something flammable and explode if killed with lasers or bullets. For reasons I believe should be obvious we don't want that. You should talk to Loyal about it. He's been saying he was working on a solution. As for the solar panels, it's just wear and tear that needs fixing and Loyal is getting too old to do it." She said bluntly.
"And Loyal is who and where?" I asked ignoring her attitude.
"He's usually in the hangars fiddling with something or other. He's old, like Pearl. Grouchy too so you'll have no trouble figuring out who he is." she said before waving me off.
Obviously I knew she was right but the order of operation was just as important as the end. House and my companions being aware of my BS player knowledge was one thing but there's no way in hell i was sharing it with an NPC that wasn't important to the story at all. In truth there was only a handful of people that were truly big important characters possibly worth cozying up to. The companions and Jess were one set. House, Caesar and the Think tank of Big Mt were the others. -
Almost every other character was a throwaway after you completed their quests. In the game you didn't go back to talk to the vast majority of characters for the simple reason that there was no point. While in reality these people weren't limited to merely their original dialogues that didn't change the fact that for most of them their importance was highly limited. For example after the battle of Hoover dam I could come back here and put a round through the forehead of everyone in this base and it wouldn't cause any trouble. The opposite if anything.-
With the Boomers gone House could install his own people here and everything that made the Boomers worth anything would pass to our hands. I WOULDN'T of course but the point stands. Anyways as Raquel said the old cranky Boomer, ironically, was in the hangar working on a Mr. Gutsy unit that was powered down and had it's casing opened up to reveal the internals.-
"God damn it all! Can't you see i'm busy here!?" he cursed loudly as I walked over.
"You are messing with the wrong part." Adam spoke up.
"The hell's that supposed to mean!?" the old man demanded.
"This unit has a cracked ignition cylinder. A bit up to the left of where your hands are." Adam said calmly.
The old man looked annoyed at the information but his expression and tone softened a little as he spotted the problem Adam pointed out.
"Fine, you are right. Now what do you want?" he asked gruffly.
"Raquel told me you were the guy to talk to about the ant problem and solar panel issue." I said honestly.
"You got two personalities or something brat?" he asked warily.
"That was Adam, it's the A.i that lives in this suit of armor. He has opinions about robotics." I said with a shrug.
"That is a gross oversimplification." Adam said with a tinge of annoyance.
"But not inaccurate." I said with a chuckle.
"Right, well whatever. I've whipped up a sonic emitter that'll clear out the ants in the stockpile. Trouble is you'll need to put it into the heart of the nest so we don't miss any. Think you can do that without blowing all of us sky high?" The old man said flatly.