The walk to the 'junk shop' took a bit longer than the trip between the weapon and armor shop, but it was all within the same area. It seemed the staple Midway businesses were all centered in this mall like area. It was certainly convenient, which is probably why it was set up this way. Once Derek had led him to the shop it was very much as he described, a junk shop.
At first glance it looked like a hoarder's cave. There were tin cans dangling from string attached to the ceiling, random objects scattered about the store, some on tables, some on the ground, weapons and armor haphazardly thrown about without regard for safety or proper handling, boxes and chests thrown open with various clothing inside. There were even a few weird oddities like a snowglobe, a brain in a jar, and schematic for a laser rifle, looking to be taken right from a military research base.
The shop also looked to be notably bigger than the other shops he had visited so far, it was about double the size, so the amount of stuff strewn about was tremendous.
"See? Junk shop." Derek said as he crossed his arms and looked inside the store without entering. Adam did. As soon as he got inside he was met with a familiar British voice.
"Hello sir or Madam! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-how can I be of service to-to-to-to-to-to-to-to-" The Mr Handy began before being caught repeating the same vowel over and over. It seemed, at a glance, to be stuck in a logic loop if he were to guess, something must've shorted out inside.
Mr. Handy were very different from the robots made by RobCo. RobCo's robots had distinct features that made them easy to tell apart from General Atomics, at least to a mechanic. But the Mr. Handy was a standout. It flew.
Mr Handy was effectively a giant ball full of fuel that used a thruster to stay airborne. With its three jointed eyes and three jointed and changeable arms it proved to be a popular robot. Many people had a Mr. Handy in their home, they were great home makers, much the opposite of RobCo who practically only made robots for labor or combat. Mr. Handy was perfectly suited for keeping a home in order. It was so popular that there were other variants made. Ms. Nanny, and Mr. Gutsy. The female variant had special subroutines in it that allowed it to handle childcare tasks as well as the standard tasks that Mr. Handy could handle too. Mr. Gutsy on the other hand was an entirely different beast. Completely separated from the domestic models, the Mr. Gutsy was ordered for the US military and was equipped with weapons instead of tools. He had even had one deployed to his unit back in the war. The damn thing swore more than anyone else in his unit.
All of this to say it was not surprising to see a Mr. Handy to Adam, but it was surprising to see one here, now. It felt random. And worst of all it seemed to be glitching, he almost felt bad. Especially since Mr. Handys were rumored to sometimes imitate levels of sentience that other robots never achieved. Must be hell for the guy to be stuck sputtering like that.
But while Adam was lost in his thoughts pitying the robot, a woman in raggedy, but not worn or torn, clothing came out of a backroom door that Adam had not seen due to the sheer volume of things before him.
"Would you shut up already you stupid piece of junk!" She said as she threw a shoe from a table next to her right at the Mr. Handy hitting it and successfully stopping it repeating the syllable over and over. Instead it just seemed to go silent and then headed back to the counter.
"Sorry about that." The woman said as she scratched her head through her ratty looking long hair. She really looked like she just woke up.
"Ah, it's no problem."
"Good, I'd hate to scare away a customer because of the hunk of junk again." She sighed. "Would you believe I paid 3,000 caps for the damn thing? Passing trader sold him to him, worked for a few months and now look at him, he either doesn't talk or won't shut up." Adam looked at her and then at the Mr. Handy again before returning to her once more.
"If you'd like… I can take a look at him." Adam offered. She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"You know robots?"
"I am a licensed RobCo mechanic." Adam grinned.
"Sure you are." She said with a roll of her eyes. Adam was, of course, being serious, though he did say it in a playful way so it was easy to understand she didn't take him seriously, not least of which is because if he wasn't from the old world it would be impossible to be licensed.
"Is that a no?" Adam asked with a smile. She paused and then sighed.
"Alright, fine, if you can fix the damn thing then I guess it's worth it… How much is this going to cost me?" Adam began to walk over to the Mr. Hand as he pulled out the connection cord from the Pip-boy.
"Well let me see what is wrong first and then I can tell you." He said as he got behind the Mr. Handy, opened the panel and then plugged his pip-boy in. The amount of feedback errors he got was… insane.
Adam shook his head and whistled softly.
"With the amount of errors I'm getting from this guy I'm surprised he is functioning at all." Adam said almost impressed by how many back up subroutines were programmed into the Mr. Handy to prevent it from failing too easily. But it was clear whoever reprogrammed this robot last did a shoddy job.
"Well fuck." She said with a grunt. "Can you fix him?" Adam took a moment to look at the errors again and then nodded.
"Yeah I can, but it's going to be a decent bit of work. I thought the issue was mechanical but its software issues. Of course I'm getting some hardware issue warnings too but those are minor." He then unplugged himself from the Mr. Handy and turned to look at her now.
"How much… is this going to cost me?" She asked hesitantly again.
"Well…" Adam took a minute to pause and consider, there were a lot of factors that were going into this, but truthfully he simply didn't know what to charge for the job, Even back in the old world he was paid to do this for a living, not based on commission, he had no baseline to compare to. But after a bit of consideration he came to an answer.
"300 caps." Adam said with a small nod to himself, as if to agree with his own judgement.
"Damn, that much huh?" She sighed and then looked at the Mr. Handy just floating next to Adam, doing nothing. "Well it would be a bigger shame to let 3000 caps go down the drain, but if you don't fix him I swear to god…" Adam put his hands up in mock surrender and smiled.
"Don't worry If I can't fix him I'm not going to charge you." He interjected.
"Well… that's okay then." She said getting less defensive now.
"I can work on him tomorrow if that's okay with you. It's getting late and I'm hungry and tired from a day of travel." She nodded.
"I understand, go do what you have to do. The shop opens at 8am everyday other than saturday and sunday, though if you get this guy running that would change." She shrugged. "Just come here when you are ready to work."
"Alright sounds good." Adam said as he approached her and offered his hand. "The name is Adam Baxter by the way."
"Lune." She returned as she hesitantly shook his hand.
"Nice to meet you Lune."