Lucas, 16 years old
"Take me out tonight
Oh, take me anywhere, I don't care
I don't care, I don't care
Driving in your car
I never, never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
No, I haven't got one…"
(The Smiths)
Lucas is in darkness, in his room. The dark is utter, piercing, it envelops him. He likes it this way.
He just travelled for hours, going back to Chicago, to the quite luxurious apartments allocated to the great commander. His father, the war hero.
Who, obviously, isn't there.
His only son has been kicked out of the world's most famous and demanding MA, because of insubordination (and because of a profitable dealing of substances he was able to create in the chemical lab), and he isn't there.
Obviously, he's coming, furious as never before. Furious with him: because he stained his family's good name, because he will never be a soldier. Because he's an everlasting failure. It must be annoying to his father since he's sacrificed his mother for him, he reminds himself.
Not that his father doesn't show his contempt to him repeatedly, looking at him as if he's looking at his cadets, the young and newly arrived, those who are not good soldiers yet. Those who have to be refined, molded, chiseled, until they are a killing machine, efficient, devoted and obedient.
All the things he will never be.
Lucas hasn't had a decent night of sleep in about two years. Indeed, when your mother gets raped and killed, very slowly, right in front of your eyes, a little bit of post traumatic insomnia is one of the things which can occur. As soon as he closes his eyes, he sees his mother screaming; every fucking night.
He often hears her voice, his mom's voice, especially in his dreams. "Hello, honey, welcome home." She told him that every day, every time he came back home from school.
His mom. The one who always had a caress for him; the one who hid all his wrongdoings from his father, like the day when, as a six-year-old, he disassembled his father's very expensive Plex to see how it worked.
God, how much he misses his mom. She could make even the big and cold Nathaniel Taylor laugh. His father looked at her as if she were the only thing in the whole world, the only relevant thing.
Since he has learned how to synthesize those Mcd pills, sleeping is no more a problem for Lucas. He falls in a deep sleep, from which he wakes only with the 6 AM's muster.
Then his dormitory pals discovered what he could do, and it took a moment to become the school's drug dealer. He's lucky that the headmaster didn't have him arrested, not wanting to stain the school's good name. Such an old and illustrious institution…
Dear God, Lucas thinks, I've been such an asshole.
His room's familiar darkness cradles him, comforts him…
Maybe they could begin from the start, he and his father. Maybe this time he will explain himself, he will make him understand that he's unfitto be a soldier, an officer; he hates taking orders. Nothing bad about giving them and being obeyed, but he doesn't want that kind of life in which there's always a gaffer above you dictating orders. Not everyone is as kind as General Philbrick, his father's mentor. Actually, he has known so many slimy pieces of shit that he's had enough of them for a lifetime. As soon as his father comes back home, he will explain it all to him.
He's so tired that, for once, he's falling asleep without pills; the drowsiness begins to envelop him.
Then, he hears the entrance's door open noisily.
"Lucas!" A cry that comes from downstairs.
Here it is, he's finally back.
Lucas abruptly sits on his bed. He holds his head in his hands. He must calm down. He must talk with him. He mustn't scream. He has to apologize, to make him understand.
He will never be a soldier. Never. He wants to go to university to study Physics. His marks are excellent; he's too clever compared to his peers to waste his time saying "Yes, sir."
When his father opens the door wide and turns the light on, Lucas understands from his face that the school's headmaster did formally let the accusations die down, yes, but the fucking bastard probably phoned Daddy to make sure he knew everything: about the pills and about the drug dealing. You never know how nice it must be, for a moldy pen-pusher, to be able to mock a decorated war hero; to throw in his facethat his son is not only a wimp but also a drug addict. A crook.
His father's face is made of stone. His eyes are harsh like glass. They don't convey anything but rage.
Then, Lucas sees the belt swinging from his right hand. Too late to try talking to him or discussing anything. His father is too angry, he doesn't even say a word. He takes him by a wrist and lifts him. He's always been stronger, so much stronger than that weedy and pale son, lost among his equations and books.
And the thing which Lucas will remember, more than the pain of the leathering, which luckily ends quickly, or the consequent rebuke (the one which, on the other hand, seems to last for hours), is his look.
As if nothing in the world will ever make him happy again, as if he is trapped in an existence with a son whom he doesn't understand and despises.
Welcome home, honey.
"I never, never want to go home
Because I haven't got one
No, I haven't got one…"
Lucas, 26 years old
Lucas is sitting on the ground, his head leaning against the door of his prison cell. At the other side, the great commandant is babbling.
The old man is drunk, Lucas thinks.
He doesn't call him Dad anymore, not even in his thoughts. But he knows very well that he is still the grandpa of the little creature sleeping in his arms.
Julius is asleep, fortunately. A newborn growing up in a cell. What a ridiculous and terrible thing.
At least my fath-… the commander will never have him, Lucas thinks.
"You know, Lucas, your mother always said, 'Having children doesn't make you a parent, as having a piano doesn't make you a pianist.' But then she reassured me, smiled and told me that I would become an excellent father…" Nathaniel tells him from the other side of the thicksteel dividing them.
"Go to bed, you are making an amusing show to your soldiers."
"I don't give a fuck. Your mom was so beautiful. When you was born, she held you in her arms, so radiant, as if you were her last hope. And, actually, you were…"
"What the hell are you saying, old man?"
"Boy, have you ever wondered why you are an only child? I'm an highly decorated hero, I could afford two children. Damn, those of the government loved me so much that they would have made an exception to the law and let me have even three children. But you mother couldn't have any others: every time she was pregnant, after a while, she aborted… And I tried to cheer her up, to tell her that this wasn't important, that all I needed was her, my Ayani, my beautiful Ayani…" Nathaniel's voice stops and Lucas understands that his father is crying.
Damn!
Then he remembers.
It's hot in his cell. Julius was crying for an hour even though Lucas was lulling him and singing all the songs that came to his mind. He was sweaty, he couldn't sleep.
Maybe it's August. The anniversary of his mother's death. That's why the old man has drunk too much.
"You never told me that," Lucas whispers.
"Your mother wanted this to stay as a secret of ours. She said that your birth was a miracle. You were her little miracle. And she told me that I would be the best father in the world," Nathaniel's voice becomes more and more blurred. He's sobbing.
Lucas is embarrassed for his father. He hates him but a little part of his mind can't help wondering about what she would have thought of him, of what he has become. His mom. His beloved mom.
He tried to kill his father. Twice. The knife penetrating the stomach, the feeling of pliability under his fingers while he sank the blade in his father's viscera.
Did his mother see him? Wherever her soul stays, did she feel ashamed?
He is a physicist: he knows that when matter dissolves, there's nothing more. Soul is irreducible, so it doesn't exist.
He would do everything to talk to her again.
Would his mother love his little Julius? She would adore him. She would love Skye, so fearless and rough. And she would have kicked his father's ass because of his banishment from Terra Nova. Who knows what she would have thought about the drift of the colony, with his father bossing around, his stupid processes, the curfew, the martial law, the public floggings, the absurd laws. She would have helped his father, avoided his madness.
At the other side of the door, there's no noise. Maybe, finally, the guard has taken the commandant away and sent him to bed.
Lucas closes his eyes, at last there's only darkness, darkness and silence.
36-years-old Lucas
Lucas knew that it would be an awful idea. But Julius insisted very much; he loves spending time with his grandfather, damn! And the Commandant loves finding new places for fishing, so Lucas is stuck in this trip with his old and hated parent and an enthusiastic and hopping preadolescent, who seems to enjoy getting into the most dangerous situations he can find.
As if Lucas hasn't had enough of that fucked jungle.
"Dad, Dad! Look! What is this herb? Is it edible?"
"Don't touch this! It's a poisonous plant: you'll get a skin rash for a week!"
"What is a rash?" the little guys asks.
"Ask your mother, she's the doctor… Commandant, where are you leading us? For God's sake!"
Nathaniel ignores his son to talk to his grandson, who is clearly having more fun than ever before. "You'll see, Julius, Grandpa has found a pretty little lake. It should be right behind that hill, but I haven't come here for years. Maybe, it is the hill on the right…"
"What a beautiful idea, but let's not waste any more time! I have a laboratory to lead…" Lucas stops him.
"Don't listen to your dad, Julius. He'll learn very soon that the time spent with children is the most precious…"
"Said the man who was on military missions for ten months every year during my childhood."
"What is a military mission, Dad?" Julius asks.
"Ask your grandpa, he is the soldier…"
"You know, Julius, serving your own country is the noblest thing that you can do. Your dad has never understood this…"
"Said the man who is on trial for lese-majesty!"
"Cut it out, Lucas! Not in front of your child!" the commandant snarls.
"Well, your reign of fear is over, you'll have what you deserve…" Lucas bugs him.
"You can't understand, it was my responsibility, my burden."
"Every tyrant says this," Lucas cuts off, foretasting the quarrel which is coming.
But the commandant closes himself in an obstinate silence and starts to go down the hill. Suddenly, he stops, insecure. He looks around,lost.
"Fuck! Dad, we're lost!" Lucas is so furious that he doesn't realize the fact that he called him "Dad."
Nathaniel, instead, hears it and winces. He has just realized that they are in an unknown part of the jungle and that there are only two of them. "Where is the child?"
"Julius!" Lucas starts to scream "Show up! It isn't funny!"
The man start to search for his son, more and more nervous.
The child is nowhere. Nightfall is coming to Terra Nova and the noises of the animals suddenly look more threatening.
"When you were a child, you escaped to hide in the neighbors' garden, we couldn't find you until that night. Your mother was crying her eyes out. When they brought you home, I didn't know if I should have hugged or killed you!"
"These memories are really touching, old man, but I just want to let you know that we are lost in a dense jungle full of dinosaurs and we can't find my son!" Lucas snarls.
They frantically start to search for the child; minutes go by and the tension is palpable.
The jungle is calm, a cold breeze has started to blow and the child is still unseen.
Julius has vanished.
What happened to Julius?
Why is Nathaniel on a trial?
To be continued…