ArcReactorBlues

Exodus (A New Journey)

Luce woke up with a jolt, the sprinkler system spraying water onto his unsuspecting face. The brightness of the glow light he had been working on the night before pierced through his worn goggles. He'd fallen asleep in the garden rooms again.

With a groan he stretched his limbs, pushing the goggles up into dark, tousled hair and rubbing at his eyes. He must have finished the repairs if the lights were working now. No use in sitting around getting wet. He stood and gathered his scattered tools, wiping away the worst of the dampness on his grease-stained shirt. The Head Engineer must be looking for him by now; it had been a busy week preparing for the door opening. Things needed to be packed away safely, tools secreted in mobile satchels to be pulled out at a moment's notice, and the vaults' gardens and medical facilities in order in case something happened top-side.

Luce was scared. Sure, the other engineers assured him that they had big, interesting engines and machines outside. But was it worth leaving the vaults, where everything is safe and bright all the time? Mama had told him stories about the sun and how warm it had been on her face, how her skin had turned browner if she stayed out too long. Of course they wouldn't really be leaving yet. The vaults would act as home base before they establish a colony but Luce couldn't help but feel that this was the end of their way of life anyway. He was scared.

He traced the metallic walls of the vaults on his way back to the Engineering Department, saying a silent goodbye with his fingertips. He passed the generator room on his way, gears ticking and pumps hissing, and imagined that he had heard an odd rhythm in the beating of the vaults' heart, as if it was saying goodbye to him too in its own way.

Exodus (A New Journey)

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Name: Lucian D'angelo
Age: 8
Occupation: Engineer's apprentice
Personality: Generally cheerful and curious. Tends to get absorbed in machines to the exclusion of external and internal stimuli.
Backstory: Called Luce, meaning light, by his mother who wanted more than anything to feel the light of day on her face again. Sadly, she died when he was just six, never to step out of the vault into the world she knew as a child. Lucian doesn't know who his father was as his mother never told him and thus he takes his mother's Italian surname.

Due to his curiosity, Lucian finds himself skipping school and exploring the furthest reaches of the vaults from the highly populated regions to the abandoned service tunnels and elevators. This behaviour only increased with his mother's death as the lack of supervision meant that he was absent from school for weeks at a time. As a result, many of the other vault children perceive his lack of education as a lack of intelligence yet his exploration and fascination with the inner workings of the vault places him near the top of a short list of experts, those who know the vault like no one else. Security eventually caught up with him and instead of putting him back in school where he will inevitably leave again, they allowed him to shadow the Engineering department instead, acting as an apprentice of sorts. Having been in their care for almost two years, the department has long since taken him under their wing with the hopes that he will be one of their greatest with time.

Luce has dreams of building his own masterpiece, a vault perfect for those seeking sanctuary with perfect garbage, food, transport, health, etc. systems and his hands on every cog behind its walls.