Chapter 372 - Vehicular Man, Woman, And Children Slaughter.

Afton and Josie slowly back the Winch truck against the Fire Engine of their choice and begin hook it up. Without the water storage, the Fire Engine is significantly lighter, and the Winch barely managed to lift the front end of it... Though, Afton could tell it was only a couple hundred kilograms away from flipping the Winch truck... A scary thought.

Still, they raise the front of the Fire Engine so the back of its metal chassis is touching the floor... WIthout tires, they'll simply have to drag it all the way to Novac like this... Afton couldn't really think of a solution to the problem... It wasn't as if they could attach a sled or something to it... Wait a second.​​

Afton gets Josie to lower the Winch as he approaches the back, after checking it over a couple times and taker measurements, he jogs around Camp Searchlight looking for scrap metal, eventually finding some abandoned cars that'd do the trick. Using his Proton axe he cleanly slices what he needs and gathers it all up.

One he get back to the Fire Engine he bends the metal to a suitable shape and lifts the back of the truck... Yeah, it's heavy but Afton's able to lift one corner enough to slide the makeshift sled in. He checks it a couple more time before eventually nodding, it'd at least make it back to Novac... Hopefully.

So, with that done, he hops back into the Winch truck and allows josie to start driving, making sure she's cautious when going or rough parts of the highway. Behind them, the makeshift sled was releasing a crazy amount of sparks as it's dragged across the road, but Afton'd expected that... At least it isn't the FIre Engine that's sparking and grinding down its chassis.

"I can't wait to drive that thing." Josie mutters, glancing at the wing mirror at the Fire Engine.

Afton chuckles, "It'll be a while before we get it in a drivable condition... It definitely won't look the same once we're done with it."

They continue to drag the sparking cargo all the way back to Novac, luckily not encountering any Legionaries on the way. Most people who notice them coming back gape with wide eyes at the Fire Engine, wondering how they were going to fix it.

The duo didn't mind the attention they were gathering though and simply drove towards the garage, cautiously backing the Fire Engine into it before disconnecting the Winch.

Daisy had already been waiting in the garage so she immediately got to work looking the vehicle over as Afton and Josie got out of the truck and stepped inside the garage.

Unlike the previous times however, Afton knew exactly what he wanted to do with it... The Fire Engine itself didn't look like a modern-day one from his old world, no, instead, it just looked like a larger version of a regular truck, with the exception of the completely sealed water container on the back.

Fire things first though, he tested it for radioactive material... And found that it was indeed slightly radioactive. This meant nothing to him personally, but for Josie and Daisy, they'd likely get sick over a long period of working on it.

So, he was forced to scrub it clean... As they were in the Mojave, water wasn't exactly a luxury, so he was forced to use as little as possible while cleaning it. The outside, the interior, and even the water container once he'd opened it up.

It takes at least two weeks for him to finally get the radioactivity to an acceptable level... Once done however he lets the other two know his plans for the Fire Engine. The looks on Josie and Daisy's face when he told them his plans were amusing, to say the least...

"Are you sure you should be placing a turret on the roof? Seems overkill to me..." Daisy mutters.

Afton just shakes his head, "For what we're planning, I think just a turret is not enough, but we'll work with it."

One month later :

Afton and the other had been working almost nonstop on the Fire Engine. First, they completely modified the chassis and altered the water container. Before the truck and the container had been disconnected, but now you could go from the container to the driver seat without issue.

This was important as getting out of the container mid-battle to try and drive the vehicle would be a death sentence. After that Afton took the liberty to begin plating the underside of the vehicle, this stops any mines or explosives underneath the truck from completely destroying it... Though, the added weight would slow its acceleration substantially.

Additionally, Afton had sent a couple of notes to the Think Tank requesting some Saturnite alloy and reinforced glass in a variety of shapes. Glados had apparently been making good progress as not long after the materials he requested were right in front of the garage...

With that, he plated the outside of the truck with the alloy, and installed the reinforced glass, making the vehicle incredibly durable. The properties of the alloy when all but render it immune from small arms fire, as well as heat-based weaponry.

Not only that, but Afton'd managed to install the K9000 Machine gun as an automatic turret.. This came with a number of benefits... The first and most obvious being that it'd fight off hostiles without anyone else having to do anything, the second was far more impressive though...

Due to the K9000 having detection abilities, he'd managed to hook it up to a makeshift radar, showing the direction that potential hostile may be in... That wasn't all the offensive tools the vehicle had however, Afton had also installed a manual turret that could be accessed from the cargo where the water containment had been, it was a .308 machinegun that'd fire a ridiculous amount of bullets at a time.