Lorna LaFey's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The board had promised Lorna a sanctuary. Now she had the land and no way to build on it. She stood at the tower's edge and counted the crowd inside. Six calmed Kaiju from Friday. A dozen more before that. Every bay full. She needed walls raised at Kaiju scale, fast, and no human crew would work that close to monsters. The land sat empty while the tower strained. Terra found her staring at the flat, bare field. Terra was the first Kaiju Lorna ever rehabilitated, and she still caught Lorna's mistakes first. "You keep hiring people who won't show up," Terra said. "Wrong crew." "There's no crew big enough," Lorna said. Terra flexed her huge feet against the dirt. "There is. You just cage it." Lorna turned. Terra pointed down the row of holding pens. A mole-like Kaiju filled the nearest one, broad snout, claws like plows. Beside it, a spiked turtle sat armored and still. Both calm. Both useless behind bars. "The burrower digs foundations in an hour," Terra said. "The turtle's shell holds weight. They want purpose. Give them one." Lorna's stomach tightened. Letting calmed Kaiju work the land meant trusting them outside the pens, in the open, near the field the board watched. If one panicked, the guns came. Azzie leaned on the pen's frame, wig catching the light. She was the second Lorna ever calmed, and she lived for an audience. "People will film this," Azzie said. "Monsters building a home. That's a look." She checked her nails. "I'll stand where the cameras see." Grey sat on top of the turtle's cage, still as the stone she was carved from. The third rehabilitated, a gargoyle who watched more than she spoke. "Okay so," Grey said. "The scared ones stay calm near calm ones. Same chain. Just outside instead of inside." She shrugged. "I'll sit on the high beam. Watch for anyone slipping." Lorna made the call. She opened the mole-Kaiju's pen herself. The brute stepped out slow. It sniffed the field, then drove its claws into the dirt. Earth flew. In an hour it had carved foundations no machine could match. The spiked turtle hauled beams across its shell and set them like posts. Azzie posed beside the rising frame. Grey watched from above and never once called a warning. By dusk the first sanctuary wall stood, taller than the tower, shaped for Kaiju to walk through. The board members came and touched the stone. "You built it," the lead member said. "With them." Lorna should have felt only relief. But she looked at the working Kaiju and saw the flaw. They dug and hauled because they stayed calm. And the calm only held while they took their doses of KaijuX. She had a crew now. She also had a crew that would go still the day the supply ran short. The walls would rise. She had to keep the drug flowing to finish them.