Lucas

## Family Members

**Relationship:** Amber

**Father:** Koloman**Mother:** Unnamed

* **Half-Sisters:** Miranda, Leyla, Noemi
* **Half-Brothers:** Rayan, Andrin

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### Personality

Lucas is brilliant, compassionate, insecure about relationships, and workaholic. He thinks so much faster than normal people that he tends to leave out some of the words in his sentences. The only person who can then understand what he means is Amber, who reads his mind. Thus he considers her the only girl for him - especially as all others quickly bore him.

He can analyze puzzles and situations with lightning speed and formulate complicated action plans within seconds.

### Early Years

Lucas was an unwanted duty child by a Level One couple who never wanted children, and had originally intended for him to be adopted. He was born via a surrogate mother. Somehow the adoption fell through and he grew up with his real parents in the Orange Zone of Level One.

His father, who was originally from a different Hive (Hive Zurich), left the family when Lucas was six. Lucas sought him out during the next New Year's celebration but was harshly rejected by his father, whom he never saw again. When he was thirteen and moved to Teen Level, he found he was no longer welcome in his mother's apartment either, not even as a visitor.

Being so much smarter than the other teens, but vulnerable after that difficult childhood, he found it hard to fit in on teen level. Eventually he managed to fit in by playing the clown, something he still tends to do as an adult when he feels socially insecure.

### Birthday

Lucas's Birthday is the last day of Carnival, so he was always one of the youngest in any age group.

### Family

He is estranged from his parents and has had no contact with his father since age 6 and with his mother at age 13. He has never looked up their records to discover what they are doing and where they are at.

In *Adversary* he discovers what happened to his father and that he has a second family with five children that he and his second wife raised. He had no actual contact with them and they are not aware of who Lucas is.

**Half-Siblings**:

* Miranda is nearly fourteen
* Rayan is almost twelve
* Andrin will be ten in three days from the events in *Adversary* (around day 9, so his birthday is probably day 12 2533.)
* Leyla is eight
* Noemi is six

### Lottery 2529

Lucas came out of lottery as a level 1 Tactical Commander. A career he had never heard of before. He was assigned to Keith's Tactical team to gain experience.

### Work History

Lucas was imprinted as Tactical Commander three years before Amber went through Lottery. Someone has to be especially gifted to be imprinted for a Telepath Unit in a year when no Telepath is discovered. He was assigned to Keith's Tactical Team, led by Gaius, as a simple team member and a year later was promoted to be Deputy Team Leader. Gaius had already identified him as a potential tactical commander while he was on teen level, and has mentored him during his early years.

When Amber was discovered he was presented for her consideration as her Tactical Commander. She was immediately impressed by the brilliance and number of levels of his mind, and flattered by the sexual interest he exhibited on his subconscious levels. Subsequently, they quickly became friends and worked together very closely.

### Unit Responsibilities

The Tactical Commander only answers to the Telepath and the Gold Commander, who rarely interferes in the day-to-day running of the Telepath Units. He is in charge of all operational units, so that Adika, the head of the Strike team, as well as Nicole, the leader of Liaison, technically report to him. In practice, his leadership style is more collegial. His own Tactical team consists of twelve specialists, some of which are more technical (Hallie - Mathematics specialist, Beckett - the pattern specialist - and Telyn, the attack specialist) while others are more people-oriented, notably Gideon, the seventy-year-old defense specialist in the team. They all work in a large office, part of which is furnished for brainstorming sessions.

A Tactical Commander needs to master all the various roles of the team, so that it is difficult to find qualified candidates with such a wide range of talent and intellect.

During check runs it is normal for Lucas to accompany Amber and the Strike team, but during emergency runs he will direct the actions of the whole unit from his Tactical office. He will give the order "Strike Time!" when the strike team will overpower their target.

Lucas and the Tactical Commanders of other Telepath Units have regular conferences to coordinate their activities and discuss threats to the Hive.

## Summary

### Telepath

Lucas and Amber first meet at Hive Futura, where she confirms him as her Tactical Commander. He explains to her what Telepath units do, that her future role is catching the criminals - whom she calls wild bees - that may threaten their Hive. She is immediately taken with the brilliance of his multi-level mind, and they get close within the first week. Megan and Fran, two of her other unit leaders, are not happy with the growing closeness between Amber and Lucas, while Adika, her Strike team leader, is initially put off by the clown act Lucas tends to put on.

Lucas is hesitant to act on their mutual attraction at first, convinced that Amber will prefer one of the attractive Strike Team members specifically selected to appeal to her. However, when she does not pair off with any of them he starts to court her in earnest.

After her traumatic first emergency run, it is Lucas who comes to Amber's rooms to make sure she copes with the harrowing experience. He takes her on a simple check run the next day, including a restaurant meal and buying socks, to show her that not all her duties will be so terrible.

Lucas shares a love of swimming with Amber. He gives her lessons in shooting, since she said she would feel safer being armed during emergency runs.

Their courtship does not proceed altogether smoothly, there are some misunderstandings, especially when Amber quarrels with Lucas for trying to discover why she is so terrified of Outside. A chance remark leads him to guess the truth about her childhood memory and solve the mystery of her obsession with her friend Forge.

When Amber falls into the trap set by an enemy agent, Lucas spares no effort to save her. By the end of the book they are partners and moving in together.

### Defender

Lucas needs to help Amber cope with the symptoms of fragmentation, the lingering effects of minds she has read, which can overwhelm telepaths. Moreover, he is hurt in a fire in what had been supposed to be a simple check run, and has a crisis of confidence when he believes that he bears the blame for the the victims of that arson attack. With Amber's help he manages to overcome his doubts. He also guesses how to help Amber overcome her problem, and formulates a brilliant plan to prevent a major catastrophe for the Hive. He and Amber work as a team, supporting each other through some terrible challenges.

### Hurricane

Lucas is faced with the request to take over the responsibility for the Sea Farm, now that Morton's health no longer permits him to cope with that difficult task. He is reluctant to agree, and even more reluctant to accede to the orders of Gold Commander Melisande to take the entire Telepath Unit to the dangerous Sea Farm. However, the Hive needs them to step up, despite all risks, and Lucas tries to focus attention on himself rather than Amber, to keep her safe. He arrives at the Sea Farm accompanied by fighter planes, makes a speech where he promises to catch the criminal they seek within days, and then brilliantly traps the ruthless killer they are seeking.

### Borderline

Still exhausted from the previous mission Lucas faces new challenges including conflict with other telepaths, having to rescue a friend who got lost on teen level, and neutralizing a teen game which has become increasingly dangerous to its players. From scant information, Lucas once again solves a mystery with his usual brilliance. Keeping certain information secret from everyone except Amber turns out to be providential. His private life is more difficult - his subconscious terrifies him with fears of rejection during the dreaded New Year celebrations.

Shopping for specially designed festival outfits for Amber and Lucas, with Amber's mother, is interrupted by an emergency. The outfits are nevertheless commissioned by Buzz, from an ambitious up-and-coming designer. When Lucas sees Amber in her festival outfit he has a bout of fear that she will leave him. This insecurity becomes great distress during the festival itself, that he and Amber spend with her family on level 27. His traumatic memories of being rejected by his father during a New Year festival when he was six are swept away by Amber's steadfast support and love.

When Amber's unit is assigned to shut down the teen game Blue Upway, he works out who the old commander was and contacts Hive politics. In the meantime he and his tactical team start a new teen game Halloween with the express intention of taking away the Blue upway players. Their tactics worked so well that the Blue Upway game commander called in on one of the Halloween numbers and threatened Forge's life if they didn't shut down their game. When he called he made several comments that clued him in that he was doing all of the harm to punish Michaela and Elliott. When he and Amber finally go the full story out of Hive Politics and they discovered just what all was at stake, he was very careful not to let his team or anyone else, besides Amber know that anyone in Hive Politics was connected with Blue Upway. He has some of his strike team arrest and sedate Bruce before bringing him to the unit's holding cells. Lucas has Buzz work with a reset specialist, right in their holding cells, to reset his mind back to before he learned the truth about telepaths. After that Bruce was sent off to a normal therapy unit.

### Adversary

Lucas survives the coming of the New Year and goes along way toward healing the trauma of his early childhood. He was hoping for a romantic couple of days with Amber, but they kept getting interrupted by unit problems until on day two, Morton has an emergency surgery and Amber recalls most everyone back from the Holiday to start work early.

Keith has been working on an attack on **Lucas** for months and all of the pieces are finally in place. Keith's aim is to totally destroy Lucas' ability to function and possibly the entire strike team which will take Amber's Unit years if ever to recover. But due to Lucas' brilliance, the attack is not successful. Lucas still had a major life changing shock though, something that will take him a long while to process.

## See also

* Amber's Unit
* Hive Politics (Hive England)

## References

### Citations

1. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4) . Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.

### Bibliography

* Edwards, Janet. *Telepath (Hive Mind 1)* (2016). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Defender (Hive Mind 2)* (2017). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Hurricane (Hive Mind 3)* (2018). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Borderline (Hive Mind 4)* (2019). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Adversary (Hive Mind 5)* (2023). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition