Chapter 406 - Sunburned

With the target now selected, Afton moves up to the ladder and climbs all the way up the tower. He had no idea why the control panel was placed right in front of where the intense rays of sunlight shined, but there was no point over arguing about it now.

Once at the top, he walks around and finds the small lever that'd realign all the mirror, as well as give skin cancer to everyone who was currently up there... Fortunately, Afton was immune to diseases, otherwise he'd have come wrapped up in a foil blanket or something.​​

"Well, as the alien time-traveller would say, Geronimo!" he exclaims, slamming the lever down and waiting for... Nothing to happen...

"Huh... Is it broken-OH GOD MY EYES!" he shouts as all the mirrors realign at once, shooting concentrated beams of sunlight directly at him. Afton does as any self-respecting genius would do at this moment, falling to the ground while clutching his eyes.

"I HATE YOU GOD, APOLLO, WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS YOU BASTARD!" he shouts while waiting for his healing factor to fix whatever damage had occurred. Once his eyes weren't feeling like they were on fire, he opens them and spots that is entire body had gained a dark tan... Though, it was covered by a lot of peeling skin, meaning that he'd been terribly sunburned by the whole ordeal.

"Gross." he mutters, peeling off what seems like another person's weight in dead skin.

Before anything else though, he glances at the notifications that'd popped up in his peripheral.

[Take control of ARCHIMEDES in Helios One COMPLETED!]

[Quest gained! : Use the Orbital Laser!!!!]

Afton grins at the quest but is forced to stop thinking about it as he hears a commotion coming from below, yeah, the NCR probably noticed all that didn't they... Lucky they probably hadn't managed to spot Afton, not that he would be recognisable all the way up here.

Regardless, instead of leaving the tower he decides to start gathering the coordinates so he can teleport up here whenever he wants... Plus, it'd be terribly difficult to leave this place now that they know something had happened, he could see it from here already, the many NCR troopers guarding the underground entrance, stopping him from leaving that way.

He shrugs to himself, pulling out a bottle of water and laying back on the slowly warming metal surface of the overlook, might as well kick back and relax while he waits for the teleportation to be ready.

Elsewhere :

"WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Lt Haggerty exclaims, glaring straight at Fantastic with a caustic look.

"W-whaddya mean!? I fixed the thing, just like you asked, lady!" the chem'd up dope quickly says, sending pleading looks at Ignacio to ask for help.

"YOU, want me to believe that you fixed this place? After Ignacio hadn't managed for TWO YEARS?" she shouts, clearly not trusting the fraud.

"Err... Yeah?" Fantastic sheepishly says, "So, when do I get paid?"

Lt Haggerty just growls at him, "How do you explain the figure we saw on top of the facility then!?"

Ignacio raises a brow at this, opening the door and glancing up at the tower, spotting a figure who was seemingly laying down? Once he confirms its presence he goes to enter inside once more, but he takes one more glance and finds the figure gone... "What the fuck...?"

Lt Haggerty looks at Ignacio as he enters, "WELL? How do either of you explain that?"

...

"I-er... You saw a figure out there?" he asks and Haggerty nods.

"Well... It's not out there anymore..."

...

Lt Haggerty pushes past Ignacio and walks outside, glaring up at the tower where the figure should have been... It wasn't there any longer, meaning that it'd either started heading for the underground exit and would be caught, or... It didn't exist in the first place... "Men! Position yourselves at the entrance! We'll catch whoever's messing with our shit!... THAT'S AN ORDER!" she exclaims upon seeing her troopers still standing around with dumb looks.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the 'figure' had completely disappeared, leaving the troopers sat with guns ready in front of the underground entrance for two months before they were finally allowed to leave it...

In the end, it was explained away as a 'trick of the eyes' due to the activation of the solar panels. Due to the facility seemingly working at full capacity, there wasn't any reason to investigate anymore either, especially since there was no point in destroying the robot security now that it was working how they wanted. The NCR just considered them an extra layer of protection and left it as is.

Of course, Ignacio was disgraced as less competent than a moron, and Fantastic was offered a promotion, allowing him to work in the OSI... At least, until they discovered how stupid the man is.

Back to Afton, he'd just teleported back to Novac and waited until midnight. Once he was sure most of the NCR in Helios One was asleep, he headed to where the Brotherhood and NCR had fought and started looking around.

He hoped to find some buried suits of Powerarmour or perhaps some weaponry the NCR had missed, but as he'd expected, the place was stripped clean... Even shards of metal blown from Powerarmour had been taken, most likely so the NCR could synthesize the material again.

There was one thing Afton noticed however... The canyon where he'd been forced to leave his father was relatively untouched by dust. Sure, there was a small layer of sand, just like the rest of the wasteland, but he was particularly interested in the place his father was last seen,

Despite the layer of dust, he could see drag marks left from all those years ago, as if a large truck as driven past. Afton knew it wasn't a vehicle though, it was likely the NCR dragging his father with his Powerarmour out... There weren't any bones or any sign of a corpse, which meant they either took his body with the suit, or, something else had happened...

Afton rubs his forehead, ignoring the cold sweat that was greasing his palm. Yeah, he didn't know what to hope for... To hop for a clean death for his father, or to hope he was still alive and imprisoned?...

Whatever the case, he didn't know where to even start... Perhaps once he'd antagonised the NCR enough and gained access to their databases he'd find something, but, for now, he had other matters to attend to. Regardless of the notification that'd popped up in his peripheral.

[Quest gained! : Find out what happened to your father]