No matter how he coaxed the rat, it did not want to reperform that little trick.

“Make it easy for me, I implore you. I would rather not remove you from the cage lest I lose you, Theodore Prime.”

Theodore Prime, as Gareth had christened him, did not oblige that request. He, in fact, gave no indication that he had heard a thing.

“Damn rat. If you weren’t so important, I would… probably do nothing. Hurting you would serve no purpose. Monster though I may occasionally seem to you, I do have principles.”

He sat and put his face in his hands.

“Now I’m monologuing to a rat. A rat with amazing abilities, but a rat nonetheless.”

Gareth stayed like that for several minutes, gathering his thoughts and considering taking a nap.

Theodore Prime will not be going anywhere. The worst that could happen is he clones himself then reconstitutes the clone at a time when I am not paying attention. It might have already happened in these past few minutes. I would not put it past him doing something like that to spite me.

He sat up and leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling.

I am ascribing human behavior to a rat. Theodore Prime would not do something like that. I believe I am much too drained from the events of today to continue as I am.

Standing up, preparing to go upstairs for a quick nap, Gareth walked up to Theodore Prime one more time.

“I will return in a short while. Please cooperate with me then.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He put the cage to his back and headed to the stairs, when he heard more squeaking than usual. He shut his eyes, exasperated.

Of course you would do it now.

He looked back and saw two rats in the cage. He grabbed gloves and put them on.

“Thank you for your cooperation. Now, which of you is Theodore Prime?”

After a quick perusal of the last thirty seconds the camera recorded, heopened the cage and grabbed the rat on the left before quickly shutting it. Theodore Two protested the way he was being handled, but Gareth ignored it.

“Calm down, Theodore Two. This will be over in a moment. Then you can rejoin Theodore Prime.”

He restrained the struggling rat in a cloth and reached for a small, sterile needle.

“You may feel a little pinch, but you will be just fine.”

He carefully grabbed the rat’s tail and lined up the needle, preparing to insert it and draw blood. Before he could, another rat crawled of the cloth Theodore Two was in and jumped at Gareth, interrupting the process.

“What the—”

Theodore Three clawed and bit at his hand, then scampered away. Theodore Four came away from him and beelined for the stairs, quickly climbing them. Gareth watched them both disappear, Theodore Three somewhere in the basement and Theodore Four upstairs. He began to run after them, but Three had disappeared and Four was squeezing under the door to freedom.

Well, shit. Chasing after them would be a fool’s errand. Two is still out of the cage as well.

At that, he slumped down and defeatedly walked back to Two. He grabbed the needle he had dropped on the table, and restarted the process of drawing blood.

“You really did not need to do that. This will not kill you, nor will it even really hurt. Now a cloning rat is on the loose.”

He swiftly grabbed Two’s tail and inserted the needle, drawing a small amount of blood. This time, no surprise rat attacked him.

“This better have been worth it.”

He unbundled Two and put him back in the cage next to Prime. Two nosed around in the cage and looked at his tail, then back at Gareth.

“I tried telling you, yet you still went and unleashed potential devastation on the city.”

Gareth looked at the two rats, that turned into three, then four, then back to one.

“Could you not have done that sooner? All this time wasted…”

He spotted three rats looking at him from behind a box.

“I sure hope you have limits. Otherwise, my house is about to be destroyed.”

Considering that statement, Gareth’s eyes widened.

“Oh god. I might have just destroyed the city with rats.”