Story so far
Lukas worked on computers and devoted his nights to charting stars from the cafeteria, hoping an apprentice might continue observations he expected to take lifetimes. Twenty-five when he grew close to Juliette, he watched the sky with her, visited her in confinement, and told her he had intended to ask her out. After her cleaning, he preserved keepsakes from her belongings rather than let them be dispersed.
Bernard drew Lukas into training for leadership and revealed the other silos, the Order, and the Legacy. During the fighting, Lukas shot an old woman preparing to throw a bomb and continued firing while crying. Confined beneath the servers, he secretly called the neighboring silo and developed a close connection with Juliette. He resisted her suggestion that he kill Bernard, questioned the silos’ origins, and eventually learned that their own side had deliberately destroyed the world. Formally selected as the next leader of Silo Eighteen, he became increasingly troubled by the sacrifices expected of him. His investigation of George’s records led him to conclude George had been murdered.
After Bernard discovered his contact with Juliette, Lukas was condemned to cleaning. He considered jumping from the stairs, but hearing her voice over Peter’s radio helped him decide against it. He survived the threat and was beside Juliette when she woke after her return. He comforted her, told Peter he had evidence of Bernard’s killing, pressed Juliette to help fill the leadership vacuum, and kissed her. As head of IT and her lover, he carried some of the mayoral burden while she dug, warning of unrest and fearing that saving a few people could endanger hundreds.
Lukas studied the Legacy and learned to access server records with Donald’s help. He believed Donald was taking personal risks to help them, eventually told him the digging must continue, and supported Juliette’s outside sampling expedition by radio and in the decontamination team. He noticed the disappearance of one of her scars. Though the couple argued about secrecy, danger, and leadership, his support remained central to her work.
An unexpected call from Silo One brought the crisis. Lukas concealed Bernard’s death and recruited Sims to impersonate him, then tried to escape with Sims as mist spread. His code would not open the server-room exit. Reaching Juliette by radio, he said the silo was being shut down and urged her to seal herself off. In their last contact he was coughing and wheezing, said he could not return to the pantry, and told her he loved her. His death left her grieving. Under the stars outside, she remembers that he imagined worlds around distant stars and supported her work despite knowing its dangers.
Appearance
Lukas was twenty-five when he grew close to Juliette, with light brown hair and eyes that seemed older than his face. She considered him handsome.
Role
He served as head of IT, studied the silos’ hidden history, and became Juliette’s partner and supporter. His ideas about the stars remain part of her hopes after his death.
Relationships
Juliette — Juliette is his lover; he sustains their connection through radio conversations, supports her dangerous work, and declares his love in their last contact.
Donald — Donald helps Lukas explore the server records, and Lukas believes he is trying to help at personal risk.
Sims — Lukas recruits Sims to impersonate Bernard and tries to escape the spreading mist with him.
Sources — 271 recorded facts, by chapter
Chapter 15
- Jahns tentatively identifies the young IT technician summoned by Bernard as Lukas.
- Lukas greets Jahns with a handshake and an awkward smile.
Chapter 20
- Lukas appears to Juliette to be a handsome man in his late twenties.
- Lukas lives in the upper mids and works on computers during the day.
- Lukas relies on a cafeteria worker from his level to report favorable viewing conditions.
- Lukas has spent a long time watching the night sky and says practice improves his night vision.
- Lukas measures the position of a star using charcoal held at arm’s length.
- Lukas wears a flashlight with red plastic covering its lens.
- Lukas says the stars appear in different positions at the same time on successive nights.
- Lukas expects completing his star chart to take several lifetimes.
- Lukas hopes to inspire a shadow to continue his observations.
Chapter 22
- Lukas joins Juliette despite knowing the clouds will prevent stargazing.
- Lukas offers condolences for Juliette’s loss of her partner.
- Lukas says he is not yet in a relationship.
- Lukas is twenty-five years old.
- Lukas says his mother annually reminds him of missed lotteries and her reduced chances of grandchildren.
Chapter 24
- Juliette nearly collides with Lukas in the high twenties of the staircase.
- Lukas carries a lapboard on his back and charcoal in his overalls.
Chapter 26
- Juliette wonders whether Lukas has heard of her arrest.
Chapter 28
- Lukas thinks the star Juliette has seen is an inconceivable distance away.
Chapter 29
- Lukas visits Juliette while she is imprisoned in the mids.
- Lukas has light brown hair and eyes that look older than his face.
- Lukas tells Juliette her friends are collecting signatures to fight her sentence.
- Lukas says he had been coming to ask Juliette out when they previously met on the stairs.
- Lukas has told his mother about Juliette.
Chapter 32
- Lukas considers working through the paid holiday on the morning of Juliette’s cleaning.
- Lukas drew Juliette’s sheriff’s badge on one of his star charts while she spoke with him.
- Lukas visited Juliette in her cell two nights before her cleaning.
- Lukas spends most of the night before Juliette’s cleaning crying for her.
- Lukas has had no appetite for two days.
- Lukas had been testing Ethernet runs because he suspected a faulty server cable.
- Lukas has told his mother about Juliette.
- Lukas contemplates suicide by jumping from the fiftieth landing.
- A hurrying porter makes Lukas suspect that something newsworthy has happened at the cleaning.
- Lukas hopes that the petition from Mechanical may have persuaded the authorities to reconsider Juliette’s banishment.
- Lukas takes Juliette’s belongings from Marsh to carry them upward.
- Lukas tells Marsh that he and Bernard are good friends.
- Lukas promises to guard Juliette’s belongings with his life.
Chapter 34
- Juliette hopes hiding her body beyond the hills will spare Lukas the sight when he comes to watch the stars.
Chapter 35
- Lukas takes the box of Juliette’s possessions to the pump control room on level thirty-eight.
- Lukas uses his IT master key to enter the pump control room.
- Lukas hides behind the server rack with the room’s light off while examining Juliette’s possessions.
- Lukas has defied his boss and lied to Deputy Marsh while delaying delivery of the box.
- Lukas feels guilty about intruding into Juliette’s belongings.
- Lukas fears that his friends in IT would trade away Juliette’s possessions.
- Lukas keeps Juliette’s ID badge in his breast pocket.
- Lukas exchanges his multi-tool for Juliette’s to keep a reminder of her.
- Lukas takes Juliette’s working watch and the ring from the wooden box.
- Lukas replaces the watch and ring in the antique box with loose chits.
Chapter 38
- Lukas arrives at IT on level thirty-four carrying a box of Juliette’s belongings.
- Lukas has secretly searched Juliette’s belongings after hiding behind the servers.
- Lukas conceals items from Juliette’s belongings in his chest pocket.
- Lukas fears being searched and having his contraband discovered during Bernard’s inspection.
- Lukas pretends to discover the sliding lid of Juliette’s wooden box.
- Lukas feels uncomfortable alone with Bernard for the first time.
- Lukas wishes he had hidden more of Juliette’s possessions after seeing Bernard’s treatment of them.
Chapter 41
- Lukas is unsure he has actually accepted Bernard’s offer to train for another job.
- Lukas has his own access code and ID for the server room.
- Lukas suspects there is more to learn about cleaning suits than about the servers.
- Lukas thinks Sammi would be better suited to Bernard’s job.
- Lukas worries that the new job might require him to give up charting the stars.
- Lukas descends into the hidden area beneath the server room with a watch, ring, and ID in his breast pocket.
- Lukas feels both curious and afraid about the responsibility Bernard is giving him.
Chapter 47
- Lukas notices that the circles on Bernard’s chart are arranged like the servers.
- Lukas conceals a picture of Juliette against his chest.
- Lukas is startled when Bernard refers to multiple silos.
- Lukas recognizes the beginning of the enormous book as the Pact.
- Lukas believes his fascination with Juliette remains secret.
- Lukas reads the Order’s instruction to prepare for war after a failed cleaning.
Chapter 50
- Juliette recalls Lukas’s belief that the stars are very far away while struggling with the world map’s scale.
Chapter 51
- Lukas waits with a loaded rifle on the conference table after receiving only five minutes of instruction hours earlier.
- Lukas’s talk with Bernard was interrupted by preparations for people approaching from the down deep.
- Lukas initially watches the fighting without firing his rifle.
- Lukas shoots an old woman as she prepares to throw a bomb toward him.
- Lukas cries as he empties his rifle’s clip during the second assault.
- Lukas reloads and continues firing at the attackers.
Chapter 52
- Lukas carries a rifle while watching the stairwell after the blast.
- Lukas believes the fighting is over because their opponents are retreating down the stairs.
- Lukas helps Bernard reach the server room.
- Lukas uses his code and ID to enter the secured door.
- Lukas has a copy of the master key used to open the server.
- Lukas supports Bernard when the call leaves Bernard unable to stand.
Chapter 57
- Lukas is reading a historical account of the Civil War instead of concentrating on his assigned studies.
- Lukas can use a computer to view live camera feeds from the server room.
- Lukas has been confined for about three weeks and asks Bernard how much longer he must stay.
- Lukas lies to Bernard about keeping up with his studies of the Order.
- Lukas worries that Mechanical could cut power to the farms and starve the silo.
- Lukas believes the IT technicians will remain loyal to Bernard and the silo.
- Lukas no longer knows the code needed to open the door that confines him.
- After Bernard leaves, Lukas calls silo seventeen through the jack labeled 17.
- Lukas receives an answer to his call and settles in to talk.
- Bernard’s anger reminds Lukas of living with his drunken father.
Chapter 59
- Juliette thinks about her last conversation with Lukas while preparing the suit’s air-hose connection.
Chapter 60
- Lukas is sleeping alone in a hidden bunk room on level thirty-five.
- Lukas has lost track of time and his normal washing routine during confinement.
- Lukas feels overwhelmed by the scale and strangeness of the history he is reading.
- Lukas and Peter Billings are about the same age.
- Lukas senses competitive tension from Peter Billings but does not share it.
- Lukas tells Peter that he mostly works on servers while confined.
- Lukas says his apartment is in the mids, close to the up top.
- Lukas asks whether the planned assault means he can leave confinement soon.
- Lukas feels physically out of shape from confinement and the loss of his daily walk to work.
- Lukas asks Juliette to reduce her daytime calls because Bernard is frequently present.
- Lukas refuses Juliette’s suggestion that he kill Bernard.
- Lukas has recurring headaches.
- Lukas has omitted parts of the uprising from his account to Juliette.
- Lukas lies that Peter will soon bring dinner so he can end his conversation with Juliette.
- Lukas remembers shooting a small white-haired woman.
Chapter 62
- Juliette recalls only two or three in-person meetings with Lukas.
- Lukas and Juliette have since talked dozens of times, including about his childhood.
- Juliette thinks Lukas might try to dissuade her from diving if he were present.
Chapter 63
- Lukas pretends to study the Order while wanting to read the other books.
- Lukas asks why the Order does not explain the origins of the silos or identify their builders.
- Lukas reasons that the silo builders must have anticipated the disaster outside.
- Lukas understands the Legacy as humanity’s achievements and hope for what the world can become.
- Lukas distinguishes the past from the future by saying people cannot change what has happened but can affect what happens next.
- Lukas interprets the Order as guidance for preventing and repairing problems between the past and a hopeful future.
Chapter 64
- Lukas has been keeping Juliette informed about the danger her friends face.
Chapter 67
- Lukas tells his mother that his current work will bring a substantial promotion.
- Lukas confirms that he shadowed in IT.
- Lukas identifies maintaining the Order as his primary duty to the silo.
- Lukas doubts whether the sacrifices demanded of him are justified.
- Lukas has spent little time in the Suit Labs and says his boss intends to schedule more.
- Lukas tells the voice that he would not have handled the lower-level conflict differently.
- Lukas is formally designated next in line to control and operate silo eighteen.
- Lukas is welcomed into Operation Fifty of the World Order.
- Lukas asks how the circumstances that led to silo life began.
- Lukas concludes that their own side caused the catastrophe, and the voice confirms his conclusion.
Chapter 70
- Lukas learns that the destruction of the world was deliberate.
- Lukas is confined because of the dangerous knowledge he is learning.
- Lukas worries that he and his mother might have been shot if he had disclosed what he knew during her visit.
- Lukas argues that he and Bernard are now participants in the system that destroyed the world.
- Lukas questions whether he could become one of the people responsible for running the silos.
Chapter 73
- Lukas listens to the fighting because he expects Juliette to ask how it ends.
- Lukas wants to tell the fighters to stop killing each other.
- Lukas fears that Juliette may have been hurt while undertaking dangerous work.
- Lukas recognizes a similarity between Juliette’s technical work and his star charts.
- Lukas becomes jealous after finding Juliette’s handwritten poem addressed to George.
- Lukas uses personnel records and ID photographs to search for the George in Juliette’s poem.
- Lukas concludes that the George in Juliette’s poem is dead.
- Lukas records the deceased Mechanical worker’s ID and case number to investigate further.
Chapter 76
- Lukas detects a possible smoky smell at the server room air-conditioning vent.
- Lukas requests the closed investigation file on George Wilkins to confirm what he has discovered in the server records.
- Lukas has found travel logs coinciding with George’s death and numerous messages urging Holston to close the case.
- Lukas realizes George was murdered.
- Lukas asks to leave confinement and sleep in his own bed.
- Lukas fears Bernard after being pressed to say that he wants out.
Chapter 77
- Juliette remembers that Lukas receives updates about the uprising on a radio below the servers.
- Bernard says Lukas betrayed him by communicating with Juliette.
- Bernard announces his intention to send Lukas out to clean the following morning.
Chapter 78
- Lukas is taken from the server vault on a public march toward his death.
- Lukas considers jumping from the staircase to choose his own death, recalling earlier suicidal thoughts.
- Lukas believes he is being sent outside because the knowledge he could share threatens everyone in the silo.
- Lukas feels that his own condemnation gives him a deeper understanding of Juliette’s innocence.
- Lukas hears Juliette on Peter’s radio ten levels above IT.
- Lukas decides against jumping from the stairs while listening to Juliette and Bernard argue.
Chapter 79
- Juliette is trying to get back in time to intervene in Lukas’s impending cleaning.
Chapter 80
- Juliette fears she and Lukas may die together if her rescue plan fails.
- Lukas is not the cleaner Juliette finds dead after the airlock fire.
Chapter 81
- Lukas is alive and holds Juliette’s hand when she wakes after her rescue.
- Lukas tells Juliette she is in the infirmary on level thirty-three.
- Lukas says the infirmary is the best in the silo and offers a place to keep Juliette safe.
- Lukas stays beside Juliette as she reads her notes.
- Lukas comforts Juliette when she wakes distressed at night.
- Lukas tells Juliette he heard her voice on Peter’s radio during his march to cleaning.
- Lukas tells Peter that their choices going forward define who they are.
- Lukas tells Peter that Bernard killed a man and that he has proof.
Chapter 82
- Lukas admits that he and Peter withheld some of the notes sent to Juliette.
- Lukas urges Juliette to help fill the leadership vacuum and hold the silo together.
- Lukas admits that he has delayed Juliette’s departure because he does not want her to leave.
- Lukas kisses Juliette.
- Lukas pads Juliette’s bag strap to protect her wounds.
Chapter 160
- Lukas Kyle was considered as a possible replacement two years earlier but judged unready.
- A report identifies Lukas as a possible gazer after hundreds of hours at the wallscreen.
- Bernard reports that Lukas is already studying the Legacy.
Chapter 179
- Lukas confirms that he shadowed in IT.
- Lukas recites maintaining the Order as his primary duty to the silo.
- Lukas recites that Life and Legacy must be protected through sacrifice.
- Lukas says he has spent little time in the Suit Labs.
- Lukas says he receives only broad reports about the problem in the lower levels.
- Lukas claims that the situation is under control and has been handled according to the Order.
- Lukas’s nervous reactions produce borderline readings during his initiation.
- Lukas is confirmed as next in line to control and operate Silo Eighteen.
- Lukas passes the Rite of Initiation.
- Lukas asks how the silos began because he wants a clearer sense of their purpose.
- Lukas initially guesses that the disaster was something their predecessors saw coming.
- Lukas concludes that their own side caused the disaster rather than merely anticipating it.
Chapter 190
- Donald is accustomed to speaking with Lukas on calls to the mayor’s silo.
Chapter 193
- Lukas reports that numerous reassignments have left his workplace short-staffed.
- Lukas reports that normal routines have resumed without another uprising.
- Lukas has reached volume C of the books he is reading.
- Lukas questions whether the material in the books is real.
- Lukas refuses to disclose the mayor’s current project to the voice on the call.
- Lukas has tried to persuade the mayor to abandon her project.
- Lukas believes the voice on the call wants to help.
- Lukas fears that the mayor’s project will have a bad outcome.
Chapter 195
- Juliette wants to tell Lukas about the discovery beyond the wall.
Chapter 197
- Lukas Kyle, head of IT and Juliette’s lover, visits her in Mechanical.
- Lukas complains that he is doing the mayor’s work while Juliette digs.
- Lukas warns Juliette that dissent in the Up Top resembles the previous uprising but is now directed at them.
- Lukas asks Juliette to stop digging.
- Lukas has heard a rumor that Juliette’s cleaning was an election stunt.
- Lukas fears hundreds will die if Juliette tries to rescue a few people.
- Lukas suggests keeping the digging secret if Juliette insists on continuing.
Chapter 200
- Juliette privately agrees with Lukas that she should leave the excavation site.
Chapter 201
- Juliette tells Hank that Lukas has reported complaints about her work below.
Chapter 203
- Lukas waits for Juliette after a porter tells him she is approaching.
- Lukas opposes telling residents about the other silos because he believes disbelief and trouble would follow.
- Lukas asks Juliette to postpone discussion of her plan so they can spend a night together without working.
- Lukas says a small star-shaped pattern of scars has disappeared from the crook of Juliette’s right arm.
- Lukas remembers three scars crossing into a little star in the crook of Juliette’s right arm.
- Lukas suggests having Juliette’s father examine her apparent scar change.
Chapter 204
- According to Donald, Lukas has cracked another server containing detailed records of silo residents.
- Lukas asks Donald many questions about how the world used to be.
Chapter 206
- Lukas urges Juliette to attend the first monthly town hall since her election.
- Lukas warns that Juliette’s successor could return the suit workshop to its former purpose.
- Lukas wants the books in the Suit Lab secured because their paper is valuable.
- Lukas returns to the servers to answer a call before unanswered-call lights attract attention in the offices.
Chapter 207
- Lukas considers transferring from IT to Mechanical so he can stay with Juliette if she loses the mayoralty.
- Lukas is learning to access the servers’ contents with Donald’s help.
- Lukas now studies the human-behavior passages he was forced to read during his Rite.
- Lukas believes the accounts of past revolutions are real and that conditions eventually improve as people learn.
- Lukas believes Donald is trying to help at personal risk.
- Lukas tells Donald that the digging must continue.
- Lukas asks Donald why he calls every day to discuss the books.
Chapter 208
- Lukas persuaded Juliette to leave the digging and attend the meeting up top.
Chapter 212
- Lukas maintains radio contact with Juliette during her outside sampling mission.
- Lukas tells Juliette they intend to use flames when she returns because airlock readings suggest the flames may be necessary.
- Lukas reports that the spectators are being moved while staff try to keep them calm.
- Lukas jokes that Juliette could have cleaned the sensor while outside if they had supplied pads.
Chapter 213
- Lukas counts out the airlock burn for Juliette over the radio.
- Lukas takes the place Juliette expected Sophia to occupy in the decontamination team.
- Lukas returns to lead Juliette out of the new airlock into the former jail cell for more washing.
Chapter 217
- Lukas helps Juliette carry the lead-lined trunk down the stairs.
- Lukas believes that people simply cease to exist when they die.
- Lukas believes that actions endure forever because the past cannot be changed.
- Lukas listens to the sample examination by radio from outside the lab.
Chapter 218
- Lukas is helping Donald investigate the contents of the servers.
- Donald admires Lukas’s curiosity and study of the Legacy.
Chapter 220
- Lukas holds a flashlight while Juliette investigates beneath the server-room floor.
- Lukas interrupts the investigation after receiving a radio call from Juliette’s father about a child going over the rails.
- Lukas reports that the child fell twenty levels.
Chapter 225
- Lukas receives an unusually timed call from Silo 1 during dinner.
- Lukas identifies himself to the caller as head of silo eighteen.
- Lukas conceals Bernard’s death by telling the caller he is indisposed.
- Lukas initially plans to have Nelson impersonate Bernard to buy time.
- Lukas cannot find Nelson in the Suit Lab.
- Lukas recruits Sims to impersonate Bernard instead.
- Lukas lowers Juliette’s radio volume to prevent the caller from hearing her.
- Lukas tells the caller that he is Bernard’s shadow and has passed the Rite.
- Lukas covers his mouth with his undershirt and tries to escape the spreading mist with Sims.
- Lukas cannot unlock the server-room exit with his code.
Chapter 226
- Lukas’s initial radio transmissions convey only boots and breathing or static.
- Juliette recalls that Lukas warned her something bad was about to happen.
- Lukas finally reaches Juliette through the portable radio.
Chapter 227
- Lukas explains that his radio volume was turned down.
- Lukas reports falling down a ladder and injuring his nose.
- Lukas says the silo is being shut down.
- Lukas cannot get radio reception inside the pantry.
- Lukas urges Juliette to seal herself off.
Chapter 228
- Lukas contacts Juliette again while coughing and wheezing severely.
- Lukas says he had to hear Juliette’s voice one last time.
- Lukas tells Juliette that he cannot return to the pantry and declares his love for her.
Chapter 233
- Juliette believes Lukas has been lost in the destruction of her silo.
Chapter 234
- Juliette imagines Lukas dead in his apartment below the servers with a radio in his hand.
Chapter 240
- Lukas’s death leaves Juliette struggling with grief.
Chapter 248
- Juliette recalls falling in love with Lukas because of the support he gave her during her isolation.
Chapter 251
- Juliette remembers Lukas explaining that the servers were arranged like the silos.
Chapter 253
- Juliette says Lukas noticed the disappearance of one of her scars before she believed it herself.
Chapter 257
- Lukas once told Juliette that the stars might have worlds of their own.
- Juliette remembers that Lukas supported her work despite knowing it was dangerous.