[color=00aeef][u]Chez Nathan -- New Vegas Medical Clinic[/u][/color]

They sat across from each other at Dr Usanagi’s desk. Lettie fixed Chez with her steely blue eyes. She had always unnerved him with her intensity. 

“How goes your work in New Vegas?” she asked. 

“As if you don’t know,” Chez said. “You have informants everywhere. I reckon you know my business better than I do.”

“I probably do. And that should embarrass you. You’re supposed to be one of our senior members, remember? Much as you pretend to hate responsibility, you seem happy to invoke your father’s memory and your long history with the Followers when it comes to opposing me. But tell me, in your words, what you’re achieving here. I want to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“What is this, a performance review? You’re not my supervisor, Lettie. If you want inferiors to lick your boots, join the NCR or the Brotherhood. You seem to be an admirer of their ethos.”

“The NCR and the Brotherhood have a hierarchy, which at its worst devolves into tyranny. At its best, it prevents them from being overwhelmed by the inaction and short-sightedness of their least competent members. I’m beginning to suspect they will outlive us in the Mojave for that reason. We are not at our full strength here, Chez. We are one of the weakest players and the softest targets in this godforsaken desert - and that was before the NCR brought the Greenlung to infest the heart and soul of our organisation. We cannot afford to play the naive peaceniks here. [i]You [/i]may want to roam around Freeside wearing flowers in your hair and kissing bighorn ranchers’ stubbed toes better-”

“Listen to yourself,” snapped Chez. “You’re mocking one of the oldest and most sacred missions of the Followers. [i]‘Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of men and women, bond or free. I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses-”[/i]

“And have you forgotten the other core mission of the Followers? The Green is spreading. It’s driven countless refugees into our heartland - or at least whatever of our heartland is left, after Denver and the Greenlung finished with it. People say the plants are dangerous. No merc or prospector has gone into an area with substantial growth and survived. But on the outskirts, in its initial stages, the Green… is [i]fertile.[/i] It’s almost like a rebound effect from the five years of drought. The desert is [i]blooming,[/i] in the midst of radiation, without human toil or effort. Do you know what that means? 

“Nowhere in the Mojave was fruitful without human labour or technology, not even before the War! [i]‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground…’[/i]”  

“What do you want me to do, Lettie? The Greenlung took down Camp McCarran [i]and[/i] the Mormon Fort. It gutted the NCR’s forces here, [i]and[/i] took our most senior members. And we weren’t even looking for it, researching it - we were trying to treat its victims! Don’t make this my problem. You haven’t convinced any of the others that we can divert manpower to this.”

“Pedro is still doing his research in Westside.”

“Good for him. Why don’t you go ask [i]him[/i] how much progress he’s made in studying the Green. That is if it hasn’t killed him yet. I’m not sending any of my students or the new recruits we’ve made here to that death-trap. I’m in the business of saving lives, not throwing them away. Hell, why don’t you and [i]your [/i]men go study the Green.”

“Because my people and I have another mission, one that’s equally important. We’re monitoring the political situation here in Freeside. You know, the district that you’re supposed to be in charge of? Have you reached out to our new ambassador? Have you gathered any intel on him? You’re a [i]de facto[/i] leader of the pro-NCR appeasement Followers. Did you know that, before the ambassador got to the Strip, one of his CSF goons blew off a mercenary’s head? Did you know that he made a pitstop in the NCR enclave in Freeside, and made some noises about how the annexation is coming? He said this in front of a ragged mob of NCR folks - in [i]Freeside!”[/i]

Chez averted his eyes. Goddamit, he [i]had [/i]been lax in his duty. He had never wanted to be in a leadership position in the Followers. He had just wanted to live a quiet life, do some good, and enjoy the bright lights and chaos of Vegas. It was a magic city. Time never passed here. Outside in the Mojave, bombs fell, presidents got elected, armies grew and shrank -- while in Vegas, the showgirls danced, the mobsters flaunted their wealth, the high rollers spent their caps, and everyone forgot their troubles. And then one day you looked up, and the storm was upon you, and you couldn’t ignore it any more. 

“You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about,” said Chez. He had never wished for this. One day, they'd lost the Old Mormon Fort, and their leadership was decimated. And suddenly, people like Lettie were talking about abandoning civilians in the Mojave, stopping their humanitarian work, and going underground. And Chez had spoken up, and he was one of the few remnants of the old guard who still believed in the Followers’ original mission. He wasn’t more competent than anyone else - he’d just survived, when so many better men and women had died. And suddenly he was responsible for a whole lot of people – when he felt like a boy who couldn’t even run his [i]own [/i]goddamned life. 

“Yeah?” said Lettie. “Well, here’s something else to think about. Someone on night shift picked up a radio transmission. You’re going to want to hear this. The whole town will know about it soon - nothing moves faster in the Mojave than hearsay.”