Lucas

He was sent to Terra Nova to work. He had been recruited early (before his father had been actually) by those who saw the potential beyond the idealism that was pouring out in the face of the discovery of the rift. All they had waited for was confirmation from the probe that they were sitting on what it was that they thought they were sitting on and plans had started being laid out for the best method to proceed. He was integral to those plans. He had, in due time, been sent out to work from the far end. His grasp of theoretical physics far outweighed his lack of practical engineering application experience, and he was not entirely certain that those pulling the strings behind the scenes actually understood that differentiation anyway. He was not inclined to enlighten them. There was a plan, and he was implementing it. That was his focus.

Being exiled to wander around the jungle had not been a part of the plan. There were a lot of things that had not been a part of any plan. He was not a fan of things not working out the way that he wanted them to (he operated under the assumption that any person with a speck of honesty would admit to being the same). Still, he knew the odds of any plan being brought to completion without something deviating from the outlined course of events were incredibly low. He did not enjoy that, but he was practical enough to recognize that that was the way that it was. It was why contingency plans existed. It was why there were times when contingency plans all needed to be thrown out and adlibbing needed to become the order of the day.

That's what he did after he watched his father shoot his designated replacement in front of the portal. They really should have known better. If there was one piece of the whole puzzle that he had never been able to make fit into its proper place, it was why they had ever allowed his father to be placed in command of this project in the first place. He was not the type to embrace what they were going to accomplish. If they thought that he would merely step down quietly when faced with a command from an unexpected superior officer, then he could have told them how wrong they were. After all, it would not be the first time that his father had abandoned what should have been the proper response to his responsibilities for some random sense of believing that something else was more important. He was living proof of that.

It did not matter (or it would eventually not matter any longer). It changed the timeline. It did not change the endgame. He could work in the jungle just the same as he could work in the settlement. As a matter of fact, there were things that he appreciated more about doing his work in the jungle. There were, of course, the troublesome necessities of finding supplies and avoiding certain aspects of the natural world with which he was now living up close and personal. Those were annoyances. They were time wasters that had to be gone through in order to keep himself well enough to do what needed to be done.

There were still things to like about his sojourn. There was no need to hide what it was that he was doing. There was no need to try to offer explanations. There was no need to pretend to get along with other people or spend time doing required work for the set-up of the colony (which was all worthless because it was not even going to be a colony any longer when he was finished with his project). There was no need to attempt to play civil with his father. There was no need to find reasons to try to avoid Alicia and her blasted little disappointed shakes of her head (as if she had any right to pretend that she was in any way, shape, or form still an actual part of his life).

He could breathe out in the cover of the trees and the colorful plants and the animals that sometimes looked like something out of a dream and sometimes like something out of a nightmare. It was what it was with no pretenses. There was no need for him to wear a mask. He got to be him in a way that he had not gotten to simply be him since before that time that he was not going to think about no matter how much the sounds of the wildlife around him blended into a background of seeming quiet.

There were other things that he chose not to think about as he worked on his equations and theories and learned (at times via the hard, painful way) to pay at least partial attention to his surroundings even when he was on the trail of a new idea that was particularly engaging. He did not choose to think about the fact that he was surviving out in the jungle on his own. He did not choose to think about the fact that he was proving capable and quick on his feet and able to come up with nonstandard solutions to the challenges which he faced. He did not choose to think of the fact that he was doing quite well on his own because the little voice in the back of his head that whispered that he knew someone else who had been left on his own out in this jungle to fend for himself and had learned to thrive in it had to be kept quiet. It could not be allowed to speak. It could not be allowed to draw his attention. It had to be shut up in whatever manner did so most quickly and expediently because if there was one thing that was never, ever allowed to be contemplated, it was the idea that he had anything in common with his father.