Always, Clementine

Told entirely through imaginary letters that a superintelligent lab mouse composes in her mind, the story follows Clementine, a three-inch-tall gray mouse, as she fights to save herself, her fellow lab animals, and her closest friend, a chimpanzee named Rosie.

Clementine begins her first letter from inside a mailbox during a thunderstorm, confused and alone, addressing Rosie, the chimpanzee she left behind at the lab only minutes ago. The letters are not written but thought, a way to catalog her memories until they reunite. Clementine was born in a research laboratory as part of an experiment to increase mammalian intelligence through altered DNA. Before her eyes opened, she understood advanced concepts like prime number distribution and the speed of light. She comprehends human language, solves equations, and dreams in Latin, and her fur smells of raspberries as a side effect of the experiment. One day she astonished the researchers by leaping over a maze wall rather than running through it, yet none of the scientists ever treated her as anything more than a test subject.

Clementine met Rosie during a nighttime exploration of the lab. After picking the lock on her cage, a regular habit, she ventured farther than usual and discovered the chimpanzee's enclosure. Rosie scooped her up gently and held her to her chest. Over subsequent nights, they developed their own communication: Rosie taught Clementine sign language, while Clementine lent Rosie her tiny thinking cap, a miniature pom-pom.

Their bond was severed when Felix, a junior researcher, broke into the lab at night and took both Clementine and another mouse, Subject 6. An alarm blared, and Rosie howled as Clementine was carried away. Before disappearing from view, Clementine signed the word "clementine" to Rosie, claiming it as her name. Felix left both mice in the mailbox of a local celebrity named Pop with a note reading "Please protect these mice." Pop hosts a television show called Pop's Hobbies, filmed in his large garden, and has a reputation for rescuing animals.

The next morning, Gus, Pop's eleven-year-old grandson spending the summer at his grandfather's house, discovers the mice. Pop, a large, warm, white-haired man with an enormous mustache, greets them kindly. A radio broadcast changes everything: Two mice have been "kidnapped" from a high-profile experiment, and the lab intends to dissect the superintelligent mouse's brain. Clementine is devastated: She had believed her purpose was to serve science, not to be killed for it. She realizes Felix was trying to save her life.

Pop outlines three options: hide Clementine, release her into the wild, or feature her on his TV show. He reasons that if viewers see Clementine play chess live, no one could deny her worth as a living being. Clementine spells out C-H-E-S-S and C-L-E-M-E-N-T-I-N-E on an alphabet book, confirming both her chosen activity and her name. Pop agrees to teach her despite having quit chess years ago.

Gus begins teaching Clementine the rules, and she grasps strategy almost immediately, recognizing chess as a complex maze she can navigate from inside the board. She beats Gus in their first game. Pop then plays her himself, his hands trembling when he first touches the board, and their game ends in a draw. Clementine privately names the other mouse Hamlet and later spells his name for the humans.

A researcher visits Pop's house searching for the mice, but Clementine avoids detection by turning on the TV, radio, and blender as a distraction. During quiet moments, Gus confides in Clementine about his struggles with his father, who called him irresponsible and criticized him for having "a mind of his own." Clementine empathizes deeply, recognizing their shared struggle of trying to be "good" according to someone else's definition.

Hamlet's hidden intelligence surfaces when he builds a miniature replica of Notre Dame Cathedral out of woodchips overnight. Pop theorizes that the same genetic alteration is manifesting in Hamlet on a delay, and possibly in the four other altered mice still at the lab. The stakes rise beyond Clementine's own survival.

Gus takes Clementine and Hamlet to a Sunday chess club at Whisper Creek Park, where he meets Ginger, an eighty-six-year-old chess club regular who spots the mice but chooses to help, and Mei, a chess club member his age who plays skillfully. On the way home, Gus spots a researcher disguised as an ice cream truck driver hanging wanted posters with Clementine's picture, and they flee. Ginger, her chess rival Marty, and Mei, having recognized the mice from the news, follow Gus to Pop's house and pledge their support. The group decides Clementine will play a simultaneous exhibition on live television.

After seeing a televised press conference in which the lab parades a thin, dull-eyed Rosie before cameras, Clementine resolves to make the match even bigger by adding Agnes Rota, a seven-time state chess champion and Pop's oldest friend. In the final days, the chess club teaches Clementine specialized skills, and she secretly trains Hamlet at night. On the eve of the broadcast, Pop takes Gus, Clementine, and Hamlet to the roof and reveals why he quit chess: Winning had consumed his identity, and he needed to become more than a single label. He tells Gus and Clementine that "a mind of your own" is something to be proud of, countering what Gus's father said.

On the day of the broadcast, a researcher disguised as the ice cream man snatches Clementine from the set, shoves her into a cage in the truck, and drives toward the lab. Clementine despairs, clutching Hamlet's broken whisker. At a red light, she uses the whisker's pointed end to pick the cage lock, springs free, and leaps from the moving truck. A chaotic chase through a supermarket follows, where her friends burst in to help. Ginger trips the researcher with her cane, and security detains him. Gus and Clementine race back to Pop's garden just in time.

The live broadcast begins. Clementine plays a simultaneous match against Agnes and all five friends, defeating them one by one. Against Agnes, she falls behind and nearly falters until Hamlet climbs onto the board and helps her push pieces. Agnes resigns with twenty seconds left. When the researcher stumbles onto the set, Clementine spells a message on the alphabet book: "I will give you my life. But you must set the others free." She and Hamlet walk toward the researcher, offering themselves for the other animals' freedom. The researcher breaks down crying, admitting he never realized the mice could feel as they do. He shakes their paws and leaves without taking them.

The clip goes viral. Letters flood the lab from thousands demanding the animals' freedom. Under negative press and lost funding, the lab releases the remaining mice to Pop's care and shuts down. Pop gives Clementine and Hamlet a miniature replica of his garden as a permanent home.

Felix, who has quit the lab, writes to Clementine revealing that Rosie is being released to a sanctuary. The entire group drives three hundred miles to visit. Clementine, nervous that Rosie may not remember her, spots her friend cresting a grassy hill in the sunlight. She leaps from Gus's hand, climbs over the viewing area glass, and Rosie scoops her up, just as she did the first night they met. Clementine nestles into Rosie's chest, listens to her heartbeat, and begins to tell her everything, starting from the first letter.