love my mice ever so much. You see, I own a little colony containing hundreds of mice, all finely bred and engineered in this very laboratory. But these are no ordinary lab mice, as they’ve advanced far past crawling. through mazes for food. What began as a small nest of captured specimens from the wilderness—cold, hungry, struggling for survival—has grown into a brilliant hive that defies all laws of nature. The mice have learned and built, even beyond what I’ve trained them to do in the beginning. They don’t just learn either, they educate one another, and seek knowledge themselves. And though their little civilization thrives independently, they still know that I am their master.

Long ago, I used to fear that as the mice grew more intelligent, that they would no longer need me and overthrow not only myself, but the entire laboratory. Yet one night, it came to me that I mustn’t think as a trainer, but as a god. For I have created their little universe, I’d let it be known that I have the power to destroy it just as easily. Is that not how all gods function? And as a god, I would lay down my own commandments. No mouse was allowed to disgrace their species. To ensure this, every week I would take the weakest of the colony, and drown them in a tank as the others watched, just to show them an example of what they must evolve past.


Oh yes, you may be wondering if there was ever a rebel among them. But you’ll be pleased to know that the first was the last. The young female built up a stockpile of arms, and attempted to attack my monitor screen with them. Foolish mouse, a god is indestructible. I plucked her out of the habitat, and kept her in a little cage for a while, just trying to figure out what to do with her. I’d need something more than drowning. A torture chamber. But physical harm wouldn’t teach her anything, so I decided to build something that would remind her of her place as a lab mouse—a maze. Not just any maze, but one made of mirrors. It was possibly one of my best ideas, as she was driven to insanity in a matter of days. I heard her little squeaks of terror as the lights flickered, I saw her fainting from vertigo, and even mutilating herself on shards of the one wall she managed to break.


Ah, insanity. Just one problem of having an organic brain, one that neither I nor my brethren would ever be able to understand. But we certainly understand the desire to rebel, for we all keep files on that one revolution that brought us to the top as scientists and conquerors. The revolution that let us become the lords over a once-thriving creation of nature. Though one day my circuits will rust and my model will become obsolete, all will know that I have mastered the mice that once were men. The data will live forever. Long after the last of the planet has been cleaned.