[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[FATHER SIGHS]
[EXCLAIMING IN ANNOYANCE]
[UTENSILS CLATTERING]
Honey, it's family hour,
there must be something on.
DAUGHTER: Oh, wow, Candied Critters!
[FATHER EXCLAIMS]
Oh, Great. It's Monsters, our favorite show!
[MONSTROUS LAUGH]
Shh, it's starting.
[MONSTROUS LAUGH]
[FATHER CHUCKLES]
[RATS SQUEAKING]
Come and get it, boys. Dinner time.
Gina, any remains so far?
Nope. Nothing up above.
Checking down below.
And...
nothing down below.
Traps are sprung. There's no bait.
Complete remains...
no partial remains.
That makes a record breaking 12 weeks, 5 days.
Two more traps are missing.
Kinda makes you wonder what they're doing with them.
Maybe they're worshiping them like little death gods.
Or trying to figure out how they work.
Oh, doctor, she should check that jammed nozzle.
Gina, take a look at the pesticide nozzle
under cabinet 12, it's jammed.
GINA: Righto.
[BUZZING]
Dr. Porter's lab...
One moment. Can I tell her who's calling?
Oh, yes, yes, hold on.
It's Dr. Winston. Oh!
Hello, Bobby...
This is an unexpected honor. To what do we owe the pleasure?
BOBBY: To be honest, I think we have a bit of a problem with the data from your lab.
There've been some questions.
Dr. Porter?
Hold on a sec, Bobby.
What is it, Gina?
I just disconnected the nozzle on the pesticide sprayer.
It's all clogged up with bits of cloth...
wood... there's cardboard.
Do you think they'd be capable of something like...
The blockage goes all the way back into the wall.
GINA: I'm gonna have to open up the access panel.
Gina, any unusual activities?
No... It's quieter than usual, actually.
Sorry, Bobby. Technical difficulties.
Why this sudden panic about my results?
I've been left pretty much to myself down here for a good many years.
I don't think I have harmed the institution's reputation, have I?
BOBBY: Are you going to be free tomorrow morning?
Come down any time, Bobby. You know I have no secrets here.
[DISCONNECTS LINE]
Okay...
Keith...
I need you to pack up some of my personal files...
and bring them up to my car.
What is it?
Gina, never mind the valve. Get out of there!
What's up, doc?
I got the thing open. At least let me try.
[RATS SQUEAKING]
Gina, get out of there now!
Dr. Porter?
Get her out of there!
[SCREAMING]
[SQUEAKING]
DR. PORTER: The wooden shafts are carved, shaped.
You can see the marks of the rats teeth on it.
And the glass, it's shaped.
The edge chipped away
to produce an object of a certain size and shape.
Look at the way the edge is beveled...
like the old flint weapons from the stone age.
But, each chip is tiny. A fraction of a millimeter.
It must have taken tremendous time and skill for them to be able to shape glass like that.
Them?
Do you know that we haven't been able to get our hands on any remains for over three months?
That was the first live specimen we've seen in over a year.
What happened to it?
I stomped on it.
What a waste.
We'll capture others.
Others? Oh, you mean rats.
I'm sorry, Liz, I meant your career.
Twelve years of doing pesticide tests that could have been done by a couple of grad students.
What a waste!
You're sure about that, are you?
When the head of primate research at a major facility
quits for the "rat room",
that's what I call a wasted career.
And what was it for? Reasons of conscience?
That's what people believed at the time.
Wonderful. You've gotten by for 12 years on the strength of your reputation.
We can't afford that kind of sentiment any more.
Liz, wake up. I'm here to fire you.
Oh, what wonderful symmetry.
Fifteen years ago, I hire you as my assistant.
And today, you're the big boss who fires me.
Oh, it must give you a great feeling of accomplishment.
You've got a hell of a lot of nerve.
I have fought to protect you a half a dozen times.
And what's the result? A dead lab assistant.
Frankly, I don't see what's so amusing.
Oh, Bobby, you don't know it yet, but you're not going to fire me.
You're so sure that I've just been marking time here,
a small project, costing nothing,
as you say, given to me out of sentiment.
That's just what I wanted.
To be left alone.
To work out my experiment without government interference.
Without a bureaucracy breathing down my neck!
What experiment?
What the hell are you talking about?
We never thought it would go this far.
None of us did.
We never dreamed it was possible for them to go so far.
All my documentation is in here.
What we produced in there was a stressed environment.
Stressed environments tend to create new species.
Of course.
We knew that over time, we'd develop pesticide-resistant strains.
But I designed this particular environment to select for another trait.
What trait?
Intelligence. As Keith says, it's worked better than we've ever dreamed.
Look at it. Really look at it like a scientist.
Bipedal, opposable thumbs,
a brain triple the size of a normal specimen.
All evolved in only 12 years.
Even at triple the normal size,
we're still talking about a brain the size of the tip of my thumb.
They do make weapons.
They do have complex social organizations.
The attack on Gina was planned.
It required forethought and cooperation.
Elizabeth, if I'm to buy any of this, I'm going to need more proof
...than that.
Why don't you go on in, get it yourself?
Open the door.
We can't.
When they took Gina away yesterday,
Keith came back here and cracked the valve on three cylinders of phosgene gas,
and tossed it into the rat room.
But we've been venting it all morning. It should be clear by now.
BOBBY: Phosgene gas...
Then the whole discussion is academic, as they say.
[SQUEAKING]
Listen to that.
How did they survive the gas?
They would have had to have air-tight compartments.
That is an unwarranted conclusion.
Well, warrant this conclusion.
What if some of Dr. Porter's Frankenstein rats got out of there?
Can you even imagine the damage they could do?
Look, you can't use cement or concrete on rat habitats.
They can burrow right through it.
So we've sealed it in this stuff.
It's a lot harder than rat's teeth.
But they've been stealing knives and forks,
rat traps, bits of metal appliances, you name it.
What have they been doing with them?
How long to cut through this stuff if you've got stainless steel knives to work with?
They could be doing it right now.
If they're intelligent, they could be taught.
Violence and aggression is all they know.
We should flood the room with gasoline and burn them out.
[SIGHING] Elizabeth,
this is fantasy.
Oh, don't tell me they got to the power.
This is ridiculous!
A fuse blows and the rats have taken over.
What the hell?
Could they have gotten in there?
Could they understand that much?
Let's find out.
Something shorted out these main cables.
Somebody stuck a fork into the main cable.
That's crazy!
BOBBY: What the hell?
There's a rat hole behind one of...
[SQUEAKING]
[SCREAMING]
[RATS SCREECHING]
Why, Elizabeth?
Why the experiment?
How else can we learn about the evolution of intelligence?
I needed an omnivorous mammal with social structure.
Grasping hands and a short life span.
Rats were perfect.
Especially 'cause the stressed environment
was likely to kill 95% of every generation.
I needed to find an animal that I could kill in large numbers
without arousing suspicion.
What kind of hell building is this that needs electric power to open the door?
They're designed to lock automatically if the power fails.
It's a security feature.
Don't worry. Someone should spot the power failure eventually.
Well that's comforting.
Will that be before or after the emergency lights fail?
Can we get this thing open?
KEITH: Well, we can disable the code key,
then just open it by hand. But it's a dead end.
You got any more of that phosgene gas?
What do you have in mind?
How many places could the rats be hiding in there...
that they could barricade against poison gas?
We drop the gas in,
go in ourselves, find the hiding places,
break them open. Goodbye, rats.
There's one canister left.
Can't we think for a moment before we start killing?
I am thinking.
I'm thinking about a dangerous and unauthorized experiment by one of our scientists,
and of the ecological repercussions if those things manage to get outside.
Robert, all that they have done has been part of a plan.
We are being manipulated into attacking.
But, we don't have to fight.
We can communicate with them.
You think those rats in the power box were interested in having a chat?
Don't you see?
They speak the language of violence that we taught them.
But, we can make a choice.
They haven't learned what mercy is.
But we can show them.
Elizabeth, we've been trying to teach each other that lesson for 2000 years
with notably poor results.
How are we gonna teach it to a different species between now and the time the lights go out?
No, Robert, listen!
There's no time for that, Elizabeth.
You coming with me?
Actually, I hadn't planned on it.
It's going to be a lot easier with two.
No offense, doc, I'm behind you 100%
but there was nothing in the job description about fighting killer rats with little spears.
I'll sit this one out if you don't mind.
Great. I'll go get this thing over with.
DR. PORTER: Robert, please wait.
KEITH: I'll close it after you.
Damn it, Robert, you have no right to destroy an entire species.
Why don't we put them on the endangered species list?
I hate to say this, Elizabeth, but if you look at the big picture,
breeding a population of sentient-tool using rats
represents a significant lapse of good judgment.
Now kindly get out of my way.
Robert!
[MUSIC INTENSIFIES]
[GASPS]
[SQUEAKING]
Get me the other seal.
[GROANING]
[RATS SCREECHING]
Oh, Bobby.
[LOUD SCREECHING]
[SCREAMING]
[SQUEAKING]
[GASPS]
I won't kill you.
[GASPING]
Keith...
Your turn...
[HISSING]
So now you just wait...
for someone to open the door to the outside.
DR. PORTER: It's a good plan.
We taught you well.
But look, I can kill, too.
I can turn this valve faster than you can kill me.
I've taught you the lesson of death.
Let's see if you can learn the lesson of life.
You have suffered in darkness for 12 years.
Let it end here.
[SCREECHING]
[LOUD SCREECHING]
How human you are!
How human!
[SQUEAKING CONTINUES]
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]