[color=00aeef][u]Chez Nathan -- Freeside, New Vegas[/u][/color]

Chez and Ronnie charged into the alley. In the gloom, they barely made out several dim figures, standing around a man who lay prone on the ground. The acrid taste of gunsmoke was thick in the air, overpowering even the stench of the Freeside gutters.

“I’m with the Followers!” Chez shouted. The name carried less power than it once had. But it still had some protective effect, when most other words in Freeside had lost their meaning: republic, freedom, rule of law. 

The attackers hesitated. When Ronnie swung his submachine gun into view, with his unmistakeable quiff and Kings jacket silhouetted against the alley walls, the men turned and ran. 

Ronnie started after them, then stopped. 

“Go,” said Chez. “We need to know who they are!”

As Ronnie disappeared after the gunmen, Chez rushed to the side of the victim and swung his satchel to the ground. He got his portable lamp out and flicked it on. 

The young man lay on his back, his blood pooling redly in the harsh orange lamplight. A cowboy hat had slipped from his head. Judging by his clothes, he was a Freesider, but one who was proud of his rancher origins. 

The victim stirred, his eyes fluttering, his face locked into a grimace.

"Can you hear me?" Chez said. "My name is Chez. I'm with the Followers. I'm here to help."

There was a dark stain on the man's right side. Chez carefully unbuttoned the man's shirt and pushed the fabric aside. Blood seeped slowly from the wound, too slowly to have come from a perforation in a major vessel. That was good. Chez unwrapped some of his precious sterile bandages and wiped the site clean. He saw a round hole about the size of a bottle cap, located between ribs number six and seven.

"Looks to me like you've taken a single shot," Chez said. "Oughtta thank the man who gave it to you. Nice and clean, shouldn't be a problem for us to extract the slug back at the clinic. I don't think it's gone too deep. I'm gonna patch you up now. But I need you tell me if you've been hit anywhere else."

"Chez Nathan?" said the man, through gritted teeth. "You son of a bitch. 'Course it'd be you."

Chez did a double take, examining the man's face more closely in the lamplight. "Jace?"

"Yep. Long time no see."

"Howdy. Fancy seeing you here." Chez strapped a sterile dressing onto the bullet’s entry site. "I need you to apply pressure on this for me. I'm gonna wrap you up a little. Can you sit up?"

"Can a Texan give his sister a seein'-to?"

Together they managed to get Jace sitting upright. Chez unrolled more bandages and began strapping the wound.

Jace watched Chez's face, his eyes glittering. "You sure you should be helpin' me?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"You know I'm an NCR man, through and through."

"We all bleed just the same. Your blood don't look any different to me."

"Speakin’ of blood, I hear your folks have been sheddin’ a fair bit thanks to the NCR. Ain't that mean nothin' to you?"

"The day the Followers let a man bleed out 'cos they don't like his politics is the day the NCR will have finally destroyed what we are, Jace."

"That's a very high-minded attitude."

"Did you see who did this to you?"

"Didn't have to. Some thugs workin' for the Omertas."

"What did you do to offend them?"

"What didn't I do? They came by my Ma's place a few weeks ago, askin’ for protection money. I told ‘em to stick their fedoras where the sun don’t shine. They objected to that some. Damn wops have their greasy paws on everythin’ in Freeside these days.”

“Maybe if your pal Denver had left a few more of the Kings and Followers alive, we could’ve kept the Omertas outta Freeside. Power abhors a vacuum.”

Jace’s face darkened. “I ain’t agree with all of Denver’s actions, but the Mojave is a hard place. It takes a hard man to keep it in line.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself as much as me. I commend your loyalty, Jace, but there’s a point where it becomes suicidal.” 

“Speakin’ of suicidal, how many of the NCR boys that you patched up done got right back up and put more bullets in your comrades? I don’t know nothin’ about politics, but I know that a man’s gotta stand for somethin’. My folks were NCR, I was born NCR and I’ll die NCR. You reckon you Followers are the only ones who can die for a lost cause?”

“Hell no, Jace. The Old World was built by men fighting for lost causes. Lord, look at the Wasteland now. The world ended in fire and we’re still scrabbling in the ashes like radroaches. I guess we don’t have the sense we were born with. Well, I got you bandaged up good as I can. Stand up for me now. I’ll help you.”

Jace clambered slowly to his feet, leaning on Chez’s shoulder for support.

“It’s not far to the clinic,” Chez said. “Dr Usanagi’s on night shift, she’s the best we have. I thank God every day we didn’t lose her to the Green.”

As they made their way slowly down the street, Jace said, “You’re a good’un, Chez. It’s too bad things went down the way they did. I wish it could be different somehow… ”

Chez forced a smile. “Hey, this is Vegas, baby! Your luck can change in an instant. We haven't come to the final round, not by a long shot.”