Lorna LaFey's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

The board approved Lorna's plan. Now she watched it grind Terra down. Three new Kaiju had arrived in a month. Terra met each one alone, calmed each one, then slept in a cot beside the enclosures. Lorna found her there at dawn, plates dull, eyes red. The whole cause rested on one creature, and that creature was fraying. "You look wrecked," Lorna said. Terra sat up. "Four came in last night. I did two. The others screamed till morning." She rubbed her horn. "I can't be in two rooms." Lorna had built the sanctuary on Terra's shoulders. She saw now those shoulders would break. She needed help for Terra, and she needed it today. She went to the front desk. The Initiative's secretary sat there, purple dress, hair pinned up, filing her nails like the tower wasn't falling around her. "I need every intake record since we started," Lorna said. "Which Kaiju calmed fastest. Who Terra reached first." The secretary set down the file. "Honey, I've got all of that." She tapped her temple. "Been writing it down while your scientists argued." She pulled a folder from a drawer and slid it across. "The second one Terra saved. Big one, enclosure four. Stopped fighting in a day. Been quiet ever since." Lorna opened the folder. Notes in a neat hand. Dates. Behaviors. Things no chart had caught. "Why keep all this?" Lorna asked. The secretary smiled. "You never know when a thing's worth something." Lorna took the folder to Terra. "Enclosure four. The one you calmed second. You said it went quiet fast." "Fastest of all of them," Terra said. "Then it learned from you." Lorna set down the folder. "You calm the new ones. But you don't have to guide them alone. That one could sit with the next arrival. Your presence, passed on." Terra stared at her. "It's not rehabilitated. Not like me." "No. But you were the first, and you taught it to be still. Let it teach the next one to be still." Lorna met her eyes. "I can't clone you. But I don't have to. Every one you save can help save the next." Terra was quiet a long time. Then she stood. "Show me." They walked to enclosure four. Terra opened the gate and stepped inside. The big Kaiju lifted its head. Terra crouched beside it and spoke low. Then she waved a keeper to bring the newest arrival close. The new one thrashed at the door. The big Kaiju watched. It rose, moved to the barrier, and pressed its snout to the glass. The new one slowed. Its screaming dropped to a low rumble. Terra turned to Lorna. "It's holding. Without me." Lorna breathed out. The program no longer rested on one creature. It rested on a chain of them, each one lifting the next. But a chain has a first link. And the board had funded Terra, not a method they couldn't see or count.