

The scientists plan to escape with Morgan, but after waking, Morgan, believing they have betrayed her, kills most of them, while Ziegler commits suicide. The scientists refuse to kill Morgan before Weathers can do so, they shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and imprison her in the cell in which Morgan was held.

Weathers tranquilizes Morgan after a brief escape, and decides that she is too unpredictable and must be terminated. When Shapiro aggressively taunts Morgan as part of his evaluation, she becomes angry and spontaneously kills him. Alan Shapiro arrives to assess Morgan and quickly defies the scientists' requests to stay outside Morgan's room for the assessment. Psychologist and artificial intelligence expert Dr. Although Morgan considers Cheng to be her "mother", the scientist is pessimistic about the project she admits to Weathers that she ended the outings as it is cruel to expose Morgan to a world she cannot be allowed to enter. Menser promises to take Morgan to a nearby lake that she describes as wonderful the behavioral therapist understands that Morgan is, despite her intellect and physical appearance and abilities, emotionally childlike. Amy Menser wants to resume taking her on outings. The scientists have reared Morgan from birth following two failed attempts, and most consider her to be their child Grieff defends Morgan to Weathers despite her injury, and Dr. Lee learns that Morgan attacked Grieff when she was prohibited from leaving her room, a glass cell, after killing a deer impaled on a fallen tree while outside. Simon Ziegler discuss an incident in Helsinki involving Cheng in which 21 SynSect researchers were killed in an hour by "crude prototypes".

Over dinner with the team of eight scientists, Weathers and project leaders Dr. The cold and precise Weathers, who insists on calling Morgan "it", is at the site to assess the project while a psychologist evaluates Morgan, who has used a pen to stab Dr. The "hybrid biological organism with the capacity for autonomous decision making and sophisticated emotional responses" is smarter than humans and matures quickly, walking and talking within a month and physically a teenager despite being five years old. She arrives at a rural site hosting its L-9 project, an artificial being with nanotechnology-infused synthetic DNA named Morgan. Lee Weathers is a "risk-management specialist" for genetic-engineering company SynSect.
