You’d proceed to abuse the institutes teleporter to visit the Castle next to get word out to the minute men before morning patrols went out. Afterall other then yourself they were the organization most likely to respond to requests for aid from settlements. Admittedly you really needed to work on a system so it wasn’t simply a generic bat signal when they needed help but that could wait.
Each settlement took at least thirty or so minutes between casual talk, bartering for services and distribution of bounty forms and arranging a bureaucratic representative to handle payment of bounties. Not to mention tasking a qualified engineer if there was one on site to construct an eyebot pod system for scouting. If there wasn’t someone qualified that was an extra half hour you’d need to hammer one out.
With that accomplished you proceeded in a circle around diamond city saving it for last as the heart of the commonwealth. You provided piper with a scoop and an interview on your current bounty on the strange new creatures that had appeared in the commonwealth. While you did your best not to reveal their origins piper had her ways of making you arrive to her conclusions when you read and assumed rumors that the tiny horses were an institute plot would get out. But given the fact that Diamond city was occupied by synths and more settlements were inquiring for their own for security, anti synth bias had started to move underground. Likely fearing they’d be replaced… ~sigh~
Your gaze shifted to your pet project in the stands beyond second base. Diamond city savings and loan.
You reinforced the stands and outfield to create a proper vault and kept the green monster as a front with a small endowment for its preservation and maintenance. Yes the green monster had never looked so pristine. While specializing in micro loans of 200 caps or less, all loans required a clear demonstration of employment, means of repayment, collateral etc. Amounts above 200 required a fashionable collar used to track ones location as well as help indicate who did and did not do business with the Institute. Alternatively, those who volunteer for an implant receive a 0% interest rate on their loan with their biometric data, appearance and potential identity as collateral should they fail to repay the loan by the specified date but so few people read past the 0% interest. Between collars and implants at least a third of diamond city was in your pocket now and 2/3rd if you consider those using micro loans. Regardless this had spurred an influx of renovations making diamond city look a little less shanty each day, not to mention the various business startups that would hopefully bear caps with time. Most of your business investments did.
You paused while walking past the brahmin pens and approached to observe. Sifting around the food troughs between the brahmins hooves to catch what fell was a leather/Brahmin colored fluffy. As your eyes met you had a bit of a chuckle as apparently they were trying to ‘act natural’. They moved closer to another calf, their eyes shifting back to you as you stared at them and even took a turn drinking from the teat.
“Mooo?” The lone fluffy added with mild confusion or a lack of confidence while watching over their shoulder to see if you simply accepted the act and went away. You did not.
“Pspspspspsp…” You add attempting to get the fluffies attention as if it were a cat as you leaned forward on the fence. A few of the Brahmin headed over first as most domesticated Brahmin were very social and curious. There was something endearing about scratching a chin in each hand and both belonging to the same creature. The fluffy kept its head down and approached but stayed out of reach.
“You realize your disguise will fail eventually since you only have one head, right?” You say casually, not particularly directed at the fluffy.
“Bwahmin nu know wha mistah~ … Mooo~” The fluffy adds catching themselves too late.
“Just between us, you hiding from anyone in particular?” You add reaching into your pocket for a cling wrapped fancy lad snack cake. The things were dry but when you needed a sugar hit they did the job. You withdraw your hand to prevent the brahmin from going after the snack cake as they begin to disperse slighty as you’re not doing anything particularly interesting now.
“Meanie gwab Bwahmin when gwazing wif moo fwiends. Teww fwuffy that Bwahmin no tawk and hab head huwties from smewwy wawa’s. Fwuffy twy not get in twouble. . . Walk many fowebahs till get hewe. Bwahhmin miss famiwy, moo fwiends no gib huggies.” The fluffy added with a sniffle.
“I don’t know if it helps~ but I like giving hugs.” You add with a hint of a smile as you break your snack in half and share with the fluffy that had barely been getting by to this point due to their short stature making it hard to get feed.
After finishing their portion they looked up with hope and entered the upsies pose and you leant in and picked them up for a gentle hug.
“Hey, no hugging the calves without permission.” Someone added approaching.
“Apologies, just examining this deformed specimen. Other then the lack of head it seems in decent condition, are they available for purchase?” You inquire while turning around.
“That one creeps me out. Twenty caps?”
“Done and done.” You add reaching into your pocket and producing payment before walking away.
As you’re walking back to your residence Brahmin catches the scent of something in the air. “Sketties?”
“Sure lets get some noodles.” You add with a smirk as you head to power noodles and order a bowl. You take the bowl back with you to your residence and bring the fluffy inside. Your residence was furnished but you barely used it for much other then storage. You dug out a plate and took the noodles out of the soup and sipped the broth while serving the noodles to Brahmin.
“So Brahmin was it?” You add with a chuckle at how the fluffy had adopted the name. “Were you with any other fluffies before the mean man picked you up while you were grazing?” As you say this you drug your trash bin over to the fridge and open it to check if you needed to throw away any perishables.
“Nu see famiwy and fwiends since white pwace.” Brahmin adds with ha short pause halfway through the noodles. “Nu know why weave, no wemember go.” They pause with a sniffle as a single tear landed on the remaining pasta. “Am bad fwuffy?”
You close the fridge door. “Oh Brahmin no. Well probably not, I’ve met less then ten so I don’t know how certain I can be. But I’ve certainly met a few naughty ones and you don’t seem to be bad.”
Brahmin sniffs before giving a sarcastic “Tanks.” As they return to finishing their noodles.
“Careful with that back sass, not everyone is as nice as me.” You chuckle. “So, do you want to go back to the institute then to see if your family and friends are there? Or would you like to go home with me?”
Brahmin took a moment to consider. “Institute pwease.”
“Very well.” You add taking out a synth relay grenade and tossing it to an open space on the floor as a gen 2 appeared and Brahmin released a nervous fart from the unexpected light and sound. “Please return this unit to synth retention.” You add leaning down, picking up brahmin and passing it off to the synth.
“Acknowledged.” Was the response as it loosely held the fluffy before vanishing.
The robots would have fed the fluffies lunch by now so you would have some time before needing to be home. “Guess we’ll check out those body locations.” You add before locking the house from the inside and disappearing.