Sheila, or Shovelhead, as she was known, was just one of the many experimental births at Hellisphere, the corporation headquarters of Hellis Inc. The genlabs were deep underground; you had to prove you weren’t claustrophobic to work there—hell, even to visit, though there were few visitors. And they had to pass a few more hurdles before they got a look at the wombryo plant.
Naturally, just as in nature, no two embryos were truly identical, though each genetic trait had batches of youngsters in the tube. Sometimes there were more than one trait being tested in combination, to see what combinations would cause the young to flourish. Once they were born, they proved or disproved a scientist’s hypothesis; then, they were no longer needed, in most cases.
Sheila was one of these. Her half sister, if you wanted to call it that, was named Oranto; she was one of those in whose bodies were being tested certain organelles. For Oranto and her batch, it was what was inside that counted.