Chapter 405 - Pinky And The Brain...

Deep within the laboratory of Helios One sat two men. One, a highly qualified scientist of high report secretly belonging to the Followers of the Apocolypse. And the other, well, it's best to leave that bit unsaid.

Ignacio Rivas sighs and rubs his face after going over his recent review of the various machinery contained within the facility, when he'd first arrived he'd assumed that the job would be fairly simple, all he had to do was reroute the energy from whatever it was previously going to and 'wallah' done.​​

But, he'd seemingly forgotten the Brotherhood of Steel's unwillingness to share technology. Sure, most of the machinery inside the main building was still fully functional, but that didn't matter as the Brotherhood had reactivated all security available to prevent people from accessing the mainframe.

Not only that, but the NCR were far from willing to waste more troops fighting their way through all the robots currently down there... A single Sentryboy could wipe out a squad of unprepared troopers with relative ease, and since the NCR had no idea just how many there were down there, they were shitting bricks waiting for one to go rouge to break loose and decimate their forces.

Ignacio gives a deep sigh and rests his head against the control panel at the bathroom door opens to reveal his 'colleague'... Fantastic he calls himself, now Dr. Fantastic, though Ignacio still hadn't seen what Doctorate the man supposedly had.

Fantastic stumbles out of the bathroom with a pale face and heavily dilated eyes signifying he'd just taken some sort of chem... "Urgh, where did the NCR find you? Passed out in a Freeside alley?" Ignacio mutters to himself.

"H-hey dude, just had to take a piss-break. How're you gettin' on with all that science stuff?" Fantastic asks, his voice as annoying as his dopey face. He was lucky he had tinted glasses to conceal the redness in his eyes that he no doubt had.

"Oh? And what 'Science-Stuff' would you expect me to be doing? Specifically." Ignacio asks, wanting to catch the idiot out on his lies.

Of course, Fantastic does just as you'd expect. "Er, well... Youknow, connectin' the thingamabob with the doohickey to make it go *Ping!... Right?"

...

Ignacio just rubs the bridge of his nose, wondering how he'd gotten into this mess. By now the NCR had already realised what a moron they'd hired, but they'd already signed a contract with him, preventing him from being let go without paying for the rest of his contracted time... So, instead of removing the obstacle, they elected to keep him here, to see if the idiot stumbled onto a solution...

Ignacio kept asking Fantastic various questions, eventually finishing with the most important. "Do you even know what we're supposed to be doing here?"

Fantastic nods, "Yeah, broo. We gotta fix up this place, make it shiny and activate those mirror things outside..."

Ignacio crosses his arms, "And once done, divide the energy between Freeside."

Fantastic shakes his head, "That's not what I heard. That lady wanted all the energy to go to Camp McCarren or whatever, right?"

Ignacio just stays silent. Yes, that is what they were 'hired' to do, but as a Follower of the Apocalypse, his goal was to spread peace and prosperity to as many people as possible... Altering the energy output slightly wouldn't harm the NCR anyway, especially since they control the dam.

Fortunately for the over and underworked duo, neither noticed the invisible shimmering silhouette who'd been listening in on their conversation thus far.

Afton grins at what he'd just learned as he sneaks away. Apparently, the NCR was more incompetent than he'd initially thought, hiring only two scientists to operate the facility... It'd taken almost everyone Scribe the Brotherhood had at its disposal to figure out, repair, and operate this place. What hope did they have with a scientist and a retard?

Sure, the place was mostly operational, but you'd still need someone to reactivate it. Which would be very, very difficult for the duo the NCR had just hired... Fortunately, Afton intended to activate the facility under their noses, distributing the energy where it needed to go, while hiding a secret function that no one would notice without a significant amount of snooping around.

Afton snuck out of the laboratory and back into the wasteland, he was currently right under the central array that would collect the energy from the solar panels... Only that it was currently misaligned, making it incredibly inefficient.

He sneaks over towards the basement entrance and lets himself inside, none of the robots notice him as he walks past them, though, he doesn't have much time left on his Stealthboy. Which is fine as all he needed to do was reach a terminal and designate himself as Brotherhood of Steel personnel.

Once he was registered, he could go through the facility unmolested. And he did just that, strolling through until he reached the mainframe. However, somehow the cable powering it had become frayed, but this was easily fixed with some DIY tricks. Once done, he logs onto the mainframe and starts playing around with the settings.

He remembered being here all those years ago when Elder Elijah had abandoned them... Now, he finally had the opportunity to put the shit he knew into action.

First, he designates energy distribution to go to Freeside, Westside, CampMcCarren, and New Vegas. Second, he makes it seems as if there is a tiny leak on the energy, though, its true purpose is to power the Orbital Laser.

It should, if everything went well, grant him an Orbital Charge once every two weeks. This wasn't to say he could store it up however, no it didn't work like that. All it meant was that he'd have to wait two weeks after each shot before it was ready again.

"I've done what you could not, Elijah, you crazy bastard." Afton mutters as he leaves the terminal.