It's been a couple weeks since they'd left the Brotherhood, and the events following were exactly as Afton had expected... Once Vulpes Inculta was aware of Afton's loyalties and his inability to control the merc, he used every form of communication available to him to air all the dirty laundry he'd found.

Afton's affiliation with the Brotherhood and the Legion, his assassination targets, even his status as a mutant was all aired. Afton heard it all over his NCR radio, each post confirming the news as well as their new orders to capture Afton or shoot him on sight if that was not possible. ​​

Shit, even Mr New Vegas himself had spoken on the subject, though, he was surprisingly on Afton's side in the whole debacle... Had he met Mr New Vegas before or something? He shakes his head, no, he would've known. Afton was a huge fan of the radio broadcaster, after all, that shit was gold.

Once they got back to Novac Afton had started fortifying the town almost immediately. He was pretty paranoid that the Legion, NCR, or both at the same time would attempt to apprehend him. Novac was basically the only safe zone now, aside from Big Mt and the New Vegas Strip.

Fortunately, whether it was because of the distance between the two factions or Afton's already significant ability, neither had deemed him important enough to attack yet. This allowed his group and the town itself to prepare themselves, Afton had even been delivering food from Big Mt to Novac so they could focus on training instead of feeding themselves... As of right now, he had a pretty 'good' militia at the ready should shit hit the fan.

Of course, people were curious at the 'strange' foods he brought, but he couldn't exactly tell them that they were the original unmutated plants from before the war. If the other factions knew he had this and most likely other prewar materials, they'd invade Novac in a couple hours...

He'd spent quite a bit of time back at Big Mt as well, getting updates by Glados on the various projects they had available while also delivering the various weaponry he'd acquired from the Brotherhood... He imagined the Thermic Lances were somewhat pointless, but the Gatling Lasers could be modified and attached to things should it be needed...

he was also looking forward to the results on the latest project he'd posted on the big whiteboard in the Think Tank... He wanted the scientists to deconstruct the AER14 prototype laser rifle, and use what they find to upgrade the Gatling Lasers they had...

The Prototype of course fires a green laser instead of the typical red, uses more ammunition per shot but does significantly more per laser. Big Mt was slowly gaining ways to create Microfusion cells more efficiently, so the ammo increase wouldn't be all that bad. Plus, it was still a Prototype, meaning that there might be ways the scientists can reduce the ammo efficiency while keeping damage the same.

Afton imagined that they'd be able to use whatever upgrades Elijah had made to the LAER, he'd gotten them to deconstruct it and get a properly functioning blueprint. It was a surprise to find that the LAER itself wasn't actually a laser weapon, but instead used lasers to heat plasma which it shot out in a beam... It was interesting, but not helpful when upgrading their Gatling Lasers.

Though, Afton could see a new age of Plasma Weaponry that weren't annoying to aim and had incredibly slow projectiles but instead unleashed a beam burst... He imagined with enough pressure, even Plasma Weaponry could fire bullet-like projectiles... But that was another project entirely.

Speaking on projects, there had been a few advancements on cloning technology and the scientists were already working on cloning dogs. Afton had seen the... 'Results' of this, and he was pretty horrified by the failed experiments.

One dog was literally inside out, its organs hung limply underneath it by whatever strands of flesh and arteries connected them, it gave horrifying-sounding pained howls, but Afton couldn't blame the thing... He quickly shot it despite the protests of the scientists, he was a dog person at heart, and seeing one like that was distasteful, to say the least.

That wasn't to say cloning didn't work, the scientists were just experimenting with the technology to see what'd happen. They could perfectly clone dogs as it is, and the good ones were sent to the Cyberdog factory where they were upgraded... It might sound cruel, but Cyberdogs lived significantly longer, were significantly stronger, and were much, much smarter.

He imagined that if he wasn't already superhuman and likely immortal, he'd have encouraged the scientists on humanoid cyborg technology. As of right now, the most they were allowed to go down that road were cybernetic implants, one's similar to what Doctor Usanagi sold.

Fortuantely, he'd taken along all the implants that his companion's bodies had rejected. They served no purpose after they were taken out, but Afton was sure the scientist could deconstruct them and upgrade their knowledge on implants with them. Of course, Meddie was very interested in this project so Glados allowed him some access to the Think Tank and the Forbidden Dome so he could discuss things with the scientists.

Now on the most important project he currently had the scientists working on... Power armour... Doctor Zero had taken it apart after 8 and Klein had completely scanned it. Afterwards, they split the components so each scientist could work on their respective fields... Dala working on how the machinery interacted with the human body, Klein and Mobius working on the programming, while Borous, Zero, Mobius, and Glados assisted in investigating the polymer materials that composed the armour.

They were wondering if it was possible to synthesize the material with the technology they currently had. Afton admitted it'd be interesting to find out as Saturnite alloy, while amazing against physical threats, was still weak to Energy and Heat-based attacks. That's not to say it'd break when stuck by them, but that the person wearing the armour would feel the after-effects of being shot. The results obviously depending on the weapon, but it almost always went like this.

Saturnite heating up by Plasma, laser, or simple flamethrower fire and cooking the person inside alive. Regular metals would usually dissipate the heat caused by these attacks relatively quickly, but Saturnite retained it so well that the armour would basically become an oven.

Afton had heard of similar devices, but they were all used for torture... That brazen bull that had a person stuffed inside and a fireplaced under it for example. Not a pleasant way to go he imagined... Huh, maybe he'd use that as an interrogation tool someday?