"I am not from the institute. I am a wandering tinker. You can't feel your body because I wasn't sure you wouldn't lash out when you woke up and I don't have, like, a cell or anything to wake you up safely in. I know it sucks, I'm - sorry."

Surprising himself, he is. He's pretty sure synths are properly people by now.

"I'll connect you back up in a minute if you seem calm and lucid, okay?"

"Okay...okay...I- Thank you, I guess. I wasn't going to get out of the basement. I thought I was dead when that ghoul showed up with the bots."

"Yeah, that was us. Sorry. I give the 'bots standing orders to shoot first and ask questions later when they're in places like that. I think I fixed you up okay, though. Anywhere you want a lift to, since you're already on my ship and all?"

"That's kind. Thanks. There aren't a lot of kind people towards synths around here."

Chester thinks for a moment. "Any chance of a lift to Boston? I need to go to the Railroad. They'll be able to hide me better." He sounds sad about it.

"Well, I do admit I poked around a bit and figured out that you're actually all slaves. It's kind of appalling. I'd hoped our great nation had put that behind itself. Boston? Sure. I might be able to stop at diamond city and do some trading after, anyway. It'll be a day or two though, we're over the Carolinas right now."

"It's worse within the Institute itself. It's like...they gave you life, and a personality, and a purpose, and then told you they don't mean anything. The ones made to take over people's lives, those are worse off. They believe that they're human. The idea of that...I would shudder if I had shoulders."

Chester tries to look out a window, a hard task when you're only a head.

"Yikes. Okay. I'm Nick, by the way. I'm gonna connect you back up in a sec. Had to do some patchwork, especially on the left leg, tell me how I did maybe?"

He taps out some things on his terminal, the screen hidden, and then gets up and turns the platform a bit. There's a window, outside this crowded-but-organized workshop. It shows - sky, and clouds, and wasteland far below.

"Thanks, Nick. I'm Chester." It's hard to tell what expression Chester is feeling, with no lips and plain white orbs for eyes, but the little sigh he lets out shows what he might be feeling is relief.

Chester examines the left leg. "It...looks better than it did before, that's for sure." Almost a joke.

"I suck at skin and cosmetics, and I didn't have fancy alloys, but hopefully the motion and balance will be smooth."

He goes around back and fiddles. "Okay, just a bit at a time, so you don't jump accidentally..."

First, torso connection. Sensors and motors. Then after a few seconds, left arm. Right arm. Right leg. And finally, left leg.

Chester sparks a few times, shudders, and jerks, but the connections land and then he can feel his body again. 

“Wow...you’re really not part of the Institute?” He says incredulously. 

"Just a guy who's vain enough to think he's a world-class engineer - at least in some fields. Let's see if you can stand and walk around fine." He opens up the two braces connecting Chester to the skeletal 'chair' he's on.

“You must have some experience taking synths apart, then.” It’s not said as an accusation, more like it’s something expected. 

He steps cleanly from the chair, his mobility perfect. In fact- “It’s better than it was before. Always had trouble with the right knee,” Chester says, impressed. 

"What else am I to do when being shot at and not knowing that you were people yet? It's horrid, no denying that, maybe worse than Super Mutants. I do, at least, make good machinery, though."

“I can agree with that.” Chester bends his knees a few times. He catches sight of himself, and sighs a little. He looks like a skeleton, all exposed and frightening to look at. 

“Not many people know about our AI. At least, in the Commonwealth. I haven’t met many people in the Capital. After my skin started falling off I thought it was best to avoid people.”

"And I suck at cosmetics. And I've already spent more than a few caps on you." He shrugs. "Maybe the Railroad can make you new skin."

“That’s the hope!” Chester says. He would grin but he knows that looks unnerving. 

“Thank you. I’m sure the Railroad can reimburse you. I think.”

"Eh, what's two hundred caps here and there? I learned a lot." Not likely. He knows what those kinds of groups are like, culturally, even besides the fact they they're probably desperately scrabbling for resources.

He starts putting away tools.

"I'd appreciate if you stuck to the cargo bay for the trip. I can chat if you want, but there's always work I could be doing. Two days tops." The security robots in the corner may send a message on what would happen if he was un-appreciative.

“Oh. Yeah, sure. I’ll park myself by a window, you won’t know I’m here.”

Chester does, in fact, stand by a window and becomes almost motionless, aside from the occaisional movement like he’s testing out his joints. 

The zeppelin flies. It doesn't feel very fast from this high up, even though it's cruising at a solid fifty miles an hour or better.

Chester remains very still in a very inhuman way.

His host goes to sleep somewhere else in the ship. There's an autopilot. (There are turrets in this room, but that won't be a concern unless he steals something.)

Chester remains very still, but does at one point stretch a little, not that a robot body needs it.

The turrets don't react to that.

Some time the next morning his host comes into the workshop and starts working with various bundles of wires and other gadgets. Nothing sensitive, just overdue maintenance, mostly.

"How close to Boston are we?" Chester asks, now seated.

"Five, maybe seven more hours? I have to go around the glowing sea, you see."