Leigh Vega (Eden Rising)

"I want it to stop. I want to feel like myself again. I feel so full of memories, of feelings, but I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, and it makes me feel emptier than I've ever felt before."

- Leigh, to Mr. White

Lorelei Adelynne Vega (née Weiss), commonly known simply as Leigh, is a major character in Eden Rising, introduced in the show's second season. Leigh is introduced as a strong-willed soldier stationed at the airport with the rest of her unit, recruited by Eden to keep things under control there. Leigh is the squadron's chief medical officer. She presents herself as very empathetic with Tom's group's troubles and easily befriends many of them. However it is later discovered that Leigh is not who she seems to be, she is actually the brainwashed daughter of a maniacal bio-terrorist, working against the survivors and using them to get to Eden so she can plant a dirty bomb there, to cause mass deaths via explosions and release the virus inside the walls of the bio-dome.

It is mentioned that she was the voice giving off the radio broadcasts that Ash overheard in the series' pilot episode, so upon arriving at the airport, he begins to look up to her. She represents a guardian angel for the survivors, being the voice of hope that led them this close to Eden in the first place. This hope is later destroyed with the reveal of her true nature to readers, who realize that she is actually the main villain behind many of the group's troubles in the second season.

Pre-series
Leigh's wedding day to a man named Robin Vega was interrupted by the global outbreak. Her father warned her and her family prior to the wedding to come with him and "hide", but they dismissed it as his overwhelming disapproval of Robin marrying Leigh gone too far. Leigh escaped the wedding, losing her fiance, sister, brother-in-law and nephew among many other guests in the process. She floated along a river alone, until a group of people found her and rescued her from the river.

It was revealed these people worked with her father, in a post-apocalyptic, religious fanatic terrorism organization known as the Il Alichino. Her father Ronald revealed the truth about the outbreak; he knew about it and tried to warn his family as the release of the virus was a conspiracy that spread through the government and as a military official, he was informed. Leigh could not accept this fact, so she was brainwashed numerous times in order to conform to their ways. When the Il Alichino learned of a place called Eden, which they deemed disrespectful due to their religious beliefs and felt like rebuilding a futuristic society was against God's plans for Earth, they made it their main effort to stop it as best as they could.

Upon befriending a CIA agent who has embedded himself into the Il Alichino simply named Mr. White, Leigh starts having mixed feelings. Eventually, the brainwashing overcomes her and she takes Mr. White out to an abandoned factory for fishing, where she murders him. She returns to camp and announces Mr. White's demise. Her father is proud of her. The Il Alichino manages to get a bomb in their hands and plans on using it by having Leigh get to Eden somehow and be a martyr by blowing it up inside. However, a leader of a different community steals the bomb and Leigh and the rest of the Il Alichino are left back at square one.

Eventually, she learns of a group of soldiers that work for Eden. She instills herself into their camp at the airport, pretending to be a former soldier herself, who they patch up and accept into their group.

Between the time of her arrival at the group and her introduction in Season 2, it is known that Leigh visited Eden on numerous occasions but kept coming back to recruit new members, though it is also probable she was waiting on the stolen bomb. As her father grew ill, Leigh brought him to the Last Chance Society and to John Smith, where he was to be taken care of in his final days.

Season 1
Leigh's voice is heard on the radio on numerous occasions, as Eden's administration has presumably put her in charge of the broadcasts that air across the United States.

Season 2
Leigh is formally introduced in the Season 2 premiere, where she is one of the only soldiers to vouch for Tom's group. Her lieutenant, Griggs, goes insane and blows up the plane because Darla gets infected. When Griggs is killed by Tom, his dying words echo that there is a traitor in their midst, though it is unknown if he knew of Leigh working against Eden or even how he'd figure this out.

Leigh severs Darla's arm to prevent the infection from spreading, saving her life. She instills herself as a useful survivor, recovering medical supplies to keep Darla stablized. Leigh tried to talk Maude out of killing Ash, she mentioned Maude's daughter Chrissie, saying she saw a sleeping bag in Maude's tent with the name Chrissie on it and just played along, assuming the girl was her daughter. However, Ash came forward to Tom and told him he was inside the tent and there was no sleeping bag with Chrissie's name on it. Tom confronted Leigh about this and admitted her father was being held in the Last Chance Society and she was in radio contact with his nurse. She made frequent visits there and her constant conversations with Libby let her know quite a bit about the community. She told Tom she was not the traitor and only lied about the sleeping bag because she knew her being in contact with the Last Chance Society would make her look suspicious. Tom believed her.

During their four months at the airport, Leigh eventually grows close to Tom, starting a relationship in the aftermath of a blow-up between himself and his former girlfriend Sidney. Leigh begins working against the survivors behind their backs, breaking the radio that will call rescue for them because she has not yet been able to get the bomb from the Last Chance Society in her grip. The rest of her people have instilled Gareth into the Last Chance Society in an attempt to extract the bomb, but the plans fail as he lost contact with them and dropped the mission for his own benefits.

It is revealed that agents of her father's secret society are stationed in France, and they have been trying to attack Eden to no avail. A few agents were planted on a cruise ship heading for a tour of the United States, with vials of the virus on board. In the vicinity of the airport, these agents blew a hole in the ship. The boat shipwrecked and one of Leigh's friends at the airport, Rory, was able to recover surviving vials of the virus and bring them to the airport.

As Rory and Phoebe experimented on them, Leigh traveled to the Last Chance Society to be with her father in his dying days alongside her current boyfriend Tom. In his dying days, he asked Leigh to continue the operation without him. Nurse Libby suggested medication that would make his death less painful, but Leigh couldn't go through with it. Tom, however, finished it for her and gave Ronald a quiet, peaceful death. During Ron's funeral, Leigh expressed to Tom discomfort over knowing what he did to her father, despite his intentions it still leaves her uncomfortable.

Under unknown circumstances, Leigh found out about the virus being held at the airport. Leigh fled the Last Chance Society shortly after her father's funeral, and wrecked havoc at the airport, getting the vials for her operation, killing Phoebe, Regis and Sidney, but suffering a bullet in the shoulder from Sidney in the process. On her way back to the Last Chance Society, Leigh wrestled with demons of her past, who urged her to destroy the vials. It is known that Leigh fought these hallucinations away and kept the vials, with plans of finally getting hold of the bomb and being able to release the virus throughout Eden using a combination of these vials and the explosives that she was determined to extract from the Last Chance Society. Her plans failed as Tom allowed the bomb to explode after John Smith used it as a failsafe when his community fell apart. She arrived back at the airport with the remaining survivors and arrived in Eden.

At Eden, Gareth informed Leigh of Tom knowing about her true intentions, setting up a juicy conflict.

Season 3
An indeterminate amount of time after the season two finale has passed. Tom and the others have settled into Eden, and Ash has since moved out of Tom's suite. His relationships with Leigh and Darla have faltered, with suspicions fueling that Leigh was involved with Sidney's death after Gareth's hints. They attended therapy together, and he admitted to wanting to fight these suspicions and get back together while Leigh seemed more despondent and careless.

Tom cooked a dinner that Leigh and Darla attend, though it turns out disastrously as Darla pointed out that he didn't fight to work out his relationships with Kate and Sidney, and they actually cared about her. This turned into a shouting match and Leigh stepped out, saying this isn't working out. At therapy the next day, both Tom and Leigh admit they want to work toward a goal of separating amicably. While on a walk after therapy, Tom encountered a woman who killed herself in her car of carbon monoxide poisoning. He put down her reanimated self, and is visibly traumatized after this. Leigh comforts him and learns that Tom's mother killed herself in this way, and witnessing this brought back that childhood trauma.

Leigh accompanies Tom, Declan and Touch Star employee Victor to The Serpent's island in an effort to retrieve the kidnapped Ash and PJ. It was revealed that Leigh was behind "Operation Snapdragon", in an attempt to get Manila to smuggle a bomb in for her to use for her plan to bomb Eden from the inside, she threatened PJ and Declan's lives.

Six weeks later
Tom has gained some authority and he and Leigh are pointing guns at each other. A bomb is on the table in between them and Leigh insists she has won, while Tom tells her it is over and he arrests her.

In Eden Rising

 * Numerous counts of infected
 * Mr. White
 * Regis (indirectly caused)
 * Phoebe Denning
 * Sidney Strauss

In the UFSW Hunger Games

 * Jess

Trivia

 * Rose Byrne recorded voice-only segments for season 1, in which she was credited simply as "Radio Voice".
 * Leigh's full name, Lorelei, is a big hint at her actual role in the story.
 * Irish legends say that a maiden named after the rock of the same name, "Lorelei", lives on the rock and lures fishermen to their death with her song. This can be referenced to Leigh's role as the voice on the radio that led the survivors to Eden in the first place; Eden being the location she plans on committing mass murder.
 * This fits in with Leigh's middle name, Adelynne, a name that means "kind-hearted" or "beautiful". This is meant to be ironic, in the fact that the survivors initially view Leigh's voice on the radio as a guardian angel, and upon meeting her in person, they see her as a protector and friend, especially Ash, despite her true malicious intentions.
 * Leigh was the first suspect to be the traitor to the group, but was quickly cleared. Ironically, Leigh ended up as the traitor, but working for a third party and not for the Last Chance Society as initially suspected.
 * She was presented to be the first red herring in the story, only to turn around and be the culprit anyway.
 * Leigh was featured in the first UFSW Hunger Games, the only female from Eden Rising to do so, alongside Ash and PJ.
 * Leigh placed 41st, dying in Issue 3, killed by Rick.