Lorna LaFey's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Lorna LaFey had one week to prove she could tame a second monster, or the government would send tanks instead. She stood in the observation room of the Initiative, a gray tower full of scientists who feared the creatures they studied. Below her, through the thick glass, a new Kaiju thrashed against its restraints. It had leveled two cities. Lorna wanted it walking free among people one day. That was the whole point of the sanctuary she meant to build. She had done it once. Terra proved it was possible. But one success was luck, and luck did not fund a cause. Her lead psychiatrist put it plainly that morning. "We copied every step from Terra's file. The new one won't respond. If we can't repeat it, the board pulls our funding Friday." Lorna called Terra to the tower. Terra walked in wearing her leather jacket, her horn nearly scraping the doorframe. She glanced at the screaming Kaiju below and snorted. "Your charts won't fix that." "They fixed you," Lorna said. "No." Terra crossed her arms. "Nothing fixed me. I found something worth not stomping for." She looked down at her boots, big enough to crush a car. "You want a method. There isn't one. There's just a reason." Lorna felt the week narrowing to nothing. Charts, drugs, gentle voices. She had built her whole program on steps you could copy. Terra was telling her the steps never mattered. "Then what's your reason?" Lorna asked. Terra was quiet. "The gym. Breaking weights instead of buildings. Somebody who wasn't scared of me handed me a barbell and left the room." She met Lorna's eyes. "You. You left the room." Lorna turned to the glass. The new Kaiju had stopped thrashing. It watched Terra through the window, still, the way a stray watches another dog. She understood then. She had been treating each Kaiju like a broken machine to repair the same way twice. But Terra had not been repaired. She had been given a purpose no one else could copy, because no two monsters wanted the same thing. "Cut the restraints," Lorna said. The room went silent. Her psychiatrist grabbed her arm. "That thing killed thousands." "So did she." Lorna nodded at Terra. "Send her in. Not a doctor. Her." Terra didn't argue. She walked down and stepped into the enclosure. The Kaiju reared. Terra stood her ground and did not flinch. She said something Lorna couldn't hear. Then she reached out one clawed hand, palm open. The Kaiju lowered its head. By Friday, Lorna gave the board her new answer. She could not sell them a repeatable method. She could sell them Terra, walking each new arrival through the door herself. One rehabilitated Kaiju teaching the next. It would work, but it built the entire sanctuary on a single creature's shoulders. If Terra ever broke her rule, the whole cause fell with her.