Time quickly passes after the Tunneler Extermination Expedition but unfortunately for Afton, his work never seems to be over... Despite having to lead the expedition, fighting on the front lines, and putting his own life at stake to make sure Big Mt would be safe, he still had to prepare for the incoming NCR attack on the booby-trapped Brotherhood base.

It wasn't just preparing for the attack that took most of his time however, that honour would belong to the ungodly information gathering and manipulation it took to keep the NCR unaware of his plans. ​​

The eradication of the Black Mountain Super Mutants alone would be enough to draw attention, but he'd stupidly let his irrational and impulsive side act while he was there... If the NCR wasn't aware of his role in the mutants extermination before, they'd know as soon as they heard him singing over the radio...

Yeah, not one of his proudest moments... Despite that though, his pride forbade him from removing it after the fact. Regardless of how stupid and short-sighted it was, it was too late to avoid attracting attention... That, and he still thought it was very funny.

So nowadays most of his effort went into three main things; The first being manipulating the NCR and their information to make it look like the Brotherhood was still operational in the region. The NCR still thought he was 'allied' in some way with them, this was especially the case after the failed debate between him and Crocker, in which he'd made known his care for the Chapter.

His presence near them should not immediately mean the Chapter had been destroyed, and with a light sprinkling of laser fire at their scouts, along with prerecorded messages shouting 'For the Brotherhood!', and 'I die by the Codex!', the NCR would be caught completely unawares.

Funnily enough, his blunder in Black Mountain had actually improved his plan in some ways... With the NCR now sure he was working with the Brotherhood, they'd be bringing far more troops with heavy ordinance with the convoy. Once this group was eliminated and the Legion 'got word' of it, the Battle for Hoover Dam would be on the brink of happening at any moment.

Another thing he was working on were the various projects that hadn't been started, were left unfinished as the scientists focussed on something more important, or were nearing completion but were side aside due to time constraints.

Indeed, there were far more Projects that needed finishing than there were brains to work on them... Most of which were far too advanced for any regular scientist to even get a grasp on them. Despite how much he disliked to admit it at times, the Think Tank scientists were the best Earth had to offer.

If he wanted to recruit people into the Think Tank, he'd probably have to force them to study for thirty years straight just to get up to the basics... This wouldn't even involve the harder concepts the scientists involved themselves in, nor would it help breed 'innovation' due to how structured the education would need to be...

Add the fact neither Afton nor the scientists had the time to create an effective syllabus that would teach everything that needed to be known, the possible options for the Think Tank were little to none.

There was the possibility of creating minds like Glados, but that idea was quickly scrapped by not only Afton, but Mobius, Klein, Zero, 8, and surprisingly enough, Glados... The arguments were thus;

More incredibly intelligent and independent AI's increased the chance of one going rogue and attempting to go 'Skynet'... Not that the scientists knew was Skynet was, but they got the jist.

Creating said AI's was incredibly difficult, time-consuming, and perhaps even impossible considering how hard it was for Afton to create Glados... He'd needed the assistance of his Perk [Eureka!] to even properly finish it, without it the Project might've taken years at the least.

There was also the fact that AI's created in such a manner would think in similar ways, making innovation difficult, if not impossible... It would essentially be like building railways as opposed to cars... Sure, the trains might be faster, but they were limited in their movement and would only reach a few destinations, or 'conclusions'.

Last but not least was Glados assistance that there be no more AI's like her... Afton was sure she was exhibiting jealousy, pride, and other emotions, but when questioned on it she rejected such a notion as 'So stupid that my creator could not have possibly come up with it'. Yeah, that put an end to that conversation.

The Project Afton had actually been working on in the meantime were combat-ready miniaturized shielding... Specifically in the application of Power Armour. It was basically already complete, all it needed now was to be integrated into the armour...

The third thing that demanded a good portion of his time was creating another edition of the 'Dirt-Vehicle' family. His robots had scavenged the remnants of it from the Sierra Madre, so his [Mechanicus] Perk was getting to work repairing those ruined parts, but in the meantime, he was working on ways to improve it for the coming battle.

Obviously, he couldn't go the route he had with Dirt-Hog by slapping thick saturenite plating on it, the thing had to fly after all, and he sincerely doubted their ability to defy the laws of physics... At least, in that regard.

Thus, he had his new Head Engineer helping out with it... Raul wasn't the best, but he could certainly learn. The Ghoul had scattered knowledge, most of it centring on pre-war cars, trucks, and road vehicles. After the Great War he dabbled in scavenging from what Afton knew, learning bits and pieces here and there.

Raul would help him work on improving the Vertibird while Glados compiled the schematics Big Mt had on vehicles, engineering, and some bits on electronics. Josie was also assisting him with this, but she was another problem entirely...