Steel Waste

Adah smirks at him, "Oh? You can count? Excellent, how about you show me with these blocks?"

...​​

Wait what?... Had he done something to answer her question? This wasn't good, thoughts him of being tied to a table and dissected to see what made him tick ran through his mind...

But... Were his worries really all that founded? He'd learned much about how the Brotherhood of Steel operated, they weren't really in the territory of human experimentation, especially since the organisation was founded due to an incident involving just that.

Maybe showing some intelligence would actually benefit him, it'd allow more time for him to learn and gain skills instead of trying to placate the other potato's he'd been put with...

His hesitation was noted by Adah but he eventually came to a decision, bending down and arranging the blocks from one to ten, looking up at her once he was finished.

"That's... Right, amazing..." she eventually says after snapping out of her daze. "Can, you do it backwards?"

He does as she asks, ten to one and yet again looking at her expectantly.

"Has someone been teaching you?" she asks, the reason she'd asked him to count backwards was that sometimes children were able to memorize the sequence, while not realising the meaning of it.

Afton shakes his head, "No?"

...

"Okay, one last thing..." she says as she takes some blocks and rearranges them, what would you do to this?" she asks after placing two and three next to each other.

Afton walks over and places five next to them, causing the woman eyes to widen.

"Why did you place that?" she quickly asks, trying to restrain the excitement in her voice.

"twooo, threee, is fiiveee" he replies in the most innocent manner he could manage.

The woman after hearing this quickly picked him up and walked over to the caretaker who'd been watching her this whole time, "I need to borrow little Afton for a bit." she says as she slowly bounces him on her arm.

"For what reason?" she asks, not wishing to disappoint Zachary again... Having a Paladin resent you would make your life very difficult in the Brotherhood.

"For education purposes, if anyone asks just say that I have taken an interest in this child development and that they could find us in my office." Adah says before walking out, ignoring the woman's protest.

The duo draws some attention from various people, some of the patrols nodding at Adah as they pass them.

Their destination was further than he'd initially thought, it probably being on the other side of the base to the nursery, the area they reach looks cleaner and in better condition, patrols in Power armour becoming less apparent and instead being replaced by groups of people in scribe robes carrying various things from stacks of papers, to materials, to machinery.

When they get to Adah's office Afton could see various things of interest dotted around it, a few terminals, desks full with stacks of paper, and other miscellaneous things.

She sits him down on an arm chair and looks around for a moment, seeming to be at a loss at what to do next, clearly, she hadn't expected him to show such aptitude when she visited the nursery.

Finally a light bulb seems to light up in her head, picking him up again and placing him on one of the desks filled with paper. She grabs a ballpoint pen and sits on a chair next to him. "Okay Afton, before we can truly discover how intelligent you are, I must first teach you how to read and write... You were able to read the number blocks fairly easily, so I imagine you'll do this with flying colours." she says with the enthusiasm not befitting a mature woman such as herself.

She goes on to tutor him in how to old a pen, how to write various letters and how to speak them. Afton made it look like he had no prior knowledge of them beforehand before eventually picking them up... Three hours of this and he'd "Managed" to completely master how to write and speak half the letters in the alphabet.

Adah herself was beside herself in excitement, giving constant praises at any progress he made, almost passing out when he wrote "A" with sloppy penmanship. She was apparently determined to keep going until he'd completely mastered it, but he was slowly but surely getting tired, not just physically but mentally, due to having to act like he was relearning everything.

It was around that moment when his saviour had come to rescue him...

"Afton?" the familiar voice of his mother asks as she enters the room, glaring daggers at Adah as soon as she spots her.

"Ah-er, Misses Parker? I hope you don't mind me borrowing your son for-THRE-Ahem! Three hours." she says, apparently not realising how long she'd taken custody of him.

Verna crosses her arms with a not so friendly look, "When I heard you'd taken my son out I'd ignored it at first, one hour was fine, two was pushing it, but THREE?! He's just a child! Whatever you're doing with him can't be more important than his health!" she exclaims, furious with the woman.

"Misses Parker, I assure you I hadn't meant to keep him so long, but you so is so remarkable that I'd lost track of time."

...

Verna's expression seemed to soften as the woman complimented him, "And what could be so interesting that you'd keep him for three hours?"

Adah grabs her hand and brings her closer, gesturing towards some paper that had a few badly written letters on it.

"Now what does your horrible handwriting have to do with this?" Verna sneers.

Adah holds back a frown and shakes her head, "I didn't write this... Your son did." she says, stunning his mother into shocked silence.

...

"What!?!" she erupts after retrieving her senses.