"Do you even believe in a god?" The question sounded resilient as always, ringing in her ears like some godforsaken fly curious on finding an exit to such a specious trap. Many times the fly was batted away until finally squashed by her palm slapping quite brutally against the window, but Cytla Jomaran didn't care much for the fly. It was an annoyance, and an annoyance must be executed to ensure a greater peace and greater health for prospects of the future. And the future was right before her.

Her stalwart stature perched with triumph before a set of cylindrical tanks suitable for the growth of larger organisms, and inside these tanks were the embryonic aliens of what they had so joyously named Project ETHEREAL. It was an unbelievably bold project in the eyes of the public, but it was an outrageous cry of inhumanity against life by the congregated and stubborn pack of angry church dwellers just outside the doors of the research complex. But their absence caused a sense of nirvana and heavenly pleasures to gently settle the air of the lab around them. It was a silent lullaby gently caressing the budding ears of the two alien sisters protected by thick shells of glass and motherly fluid. Cytla was beside herself with pride of her own merit, genuine gratitude of her colleagues who fearlessly stood by her in this daunting endeavor, and, in some ways, compassion for the two growing youths cradled in the most of what science could grant them. The masses of tissue curled into roughly the fetal position, hugging their rounded knees and, autonomously, growing exponentially—their growth would be complete in another two months—but the specimen on the right was slightly larger and more developed than her sister. In the beginning of the project just four months before, the elder was implanted first with gene sequences coding for unique traits—traits that Cytla had envisioned for her future children she was too afraid to have on her own. It was the best idea at the time. The Gene Sequence Database was in its prime of development—Colress stated this, himself. All they needed was an intricate and completely original project as a test drive for the computer's limits, but Cytla, to her massive disadvantage, had fallen too deeply into the project. As she looked upon the tanks with great awe and triumph, her eyes were glazed over in a kind of maternity she thought she would never feel in her lifetime. But she was blind even to herself.

They were aliens in every light to the untrained eye, but Cytla knew better—these aliens were in the growing stages every human individual has set for them in stone.

Beside her stood Cheren Nuvema, a recruit to the lab for this specific assignment. He, to a much lesser extent than Cytla, had devoted himself to Project ETHEREAL, but he was constantly aware and even paranoid over the consequences of their actions. Every morning as he walked into the lab he could still hear the loud and angry repetitive chants of the frightfully religious and supposedly moral mob prowling just beyond the gates of the research lab. The voices buzzed around his brain for several hours afterward, and when it was finally time to quit, he had hardly any confidence in himself to keep hold of his life just until he reached the interior of his car's steel cage barrier. He looked upon the growing mass of a potential person with slight horror and wonder—horror that they now displayed vicious audacity in Mother Nature's design, but wonder with how much meticulous care and surreal love that nature embedded into every living individual. However, he always exercised the true might of a scientist and feared the grasping fingers of Murphy's Law strangling these budding and grotesque individuals before they even had a chance to finally be rid of the chains suspending them inside the protective glass shells.

At his question, she merely gave a dismissive laugh and flashed a glance towards his way. She gave no proper recognition of the importance of an abstract concept; she only had interest in the here and now and what will be in the interest of the human race. A spiritual object, real or otherwise, was trivial to her endgame, useless in her methods. As long as the right thing is done, she believed, there is no need for a god of any sort. She turned away from him and brought her attention to the ever-working super computer called The Master, assigned to consistently monitor the vital signs and growth rate of both specimens as well as enforce the correct expression of their heavily customized gene sequence. It was a job only The Master could accomplish so perfectly and systematically.

However, Cheren was less than thrilled at her aloof countenance, but it was nothing that surprised him. In fact, it was a topic that he would have rather ignored for the rest of his life for the life of checking, double checking, and triple checking the status of every individual subject without the complexity of emotional attachments. But science has its own agenda. Every time he dares himself to gaze upon the mass of tissue floating nonchalantly and even mystically in the aqueous environment, strange wisps of doubt cross over his mind and wrap his scientific judgment in the silk of night. He felt buried alive by the pressure his superiors stack onto his chest, by a nagging force gnawing away at the rear of his consciousness, but most forcefully, by the presence of those rabid rioters running rampant back and forth beyond the ringlets of steel. It would only take one more push to finally have him buckle, but for now, he felt a sort of comfort around the presence of Cytla. At least she's more human than Colress, he thought.

"I can't be bothered by such a trivial subject." She sighed and her words flowed out like a smoothened river. She was exhausted, the blindest of men could see even that, but despite many warnings of lab work under the conditions of weariness, she defiantly stayed and stubbornly worked—and prayed—on Project ETHEREAL's development. She, foolishly enough, tossed away the empty and silent shell of her life for what she had hoped would be something extraordinary, something that was thought of often but never executed. She wanted to be that person of moral etiquette, a person so filled with benevolence that she would give rise to life in the forbidden way—she would fill the shoes of Mother Nature for the greater moral good of humanity, though rare she found the graceful acceptance of such an endeavor. She saw the horror in life—the sex, the drugs, the overall physical weakness and inabilities of her fellow humans as time slowly ticks life away—and vowed, by the dire topic of blood, to strive for humanity reaching a greater plateau closer to perfection. However, the example could not be her for she was cut from the same mold of imperfection as the billions and billions of humans dotting the globe. Instead, she drove her efforts to create something that, on a glance, would be the same as any other human created, but its arrival would be clean and pure, and its judgment would be free of any blatant and instinctual habits that imprinted devastation upon her own kind. Project ETHEREAL was to be a diamond in the rough, purity in the flesh, and above all, her gift to the world.

Cheren was slightly offended by slick brushing he had just received, but he vehemently pursued Cytla as she swayed from machine to machine with a pretense of involvement. "Over three billion people in the world believe in one god or another. How can you say it's trivial? You have to consider it—after all, we're playing God here. I know they won't accept this." She stopped her pretense and absentmindedly stared at the screen of The Master as it calculated and recalculated myriads of formulas, numbers blitzing across the screen faster than her eyes could register. It was a great annoyance that this young boy before her deliberately dug into the most sensitive fabric of tissue this project had to offer, but she was beyond patient enough to professionally repair it.

"There are a number of gods. How many do we honestly need? It just goes to show that humans are too afraid to make themselves their own gods. So they have to invent one, or many, to look up to. Then they see what the power of science is capable of. Some revere it for what it is—the explanation of how the world works. Some honor it as a religion in its own right and would defend it to the dying day. Some detest it for Hell knows why—you and I both know this. And others, like us, clearly see what we can do with it. But with this—this here," She took long strides to the tanks and gestured to the growing bodies with her hand, fingers perfectly parallel to each other, to claim Cheren's full attention. She was animated now, more so than he would've expected, but her true intent was to eradicate this discussion for at least until the completion of Project ETHEREAL. A little force was necessary and proved most effective, as it was when formulating the grant proposal and public address of this godly endeavor. "We, as scientists, believe that this is a milestone in the history of knowledge. We see the possibilities, both good and bad, that this project has to offer. We can see that—we can see everything. But then those who claim to love life but take life," There were no windows in the lab for the contribution of heat and light the sun would stubbornly cause any experiment to deviate from the intended pathway, but she faced one of the two exits—the exit closer to the main doors of the research facility—and Cheren imagined that she was talking to the reddened faces of the protestors outside. "Have the audacity to condemn this project—and by extension, us—on the grounds that we are creating life that only God can create. We might as well add ourselves to the list of gods in the world." She chuckled quietly then turned her attention to her specimens, the early stages of what would be her people. "But if their God did exist, I'd think there wouldn't be much strife in the world or any at all. I mean, really," She turned to Cheren who had kept his silence in fear for his own safety. "You'd think that a great and powerful deity who rules the world and loves mankind so much would either retract the idea of freewill or repeatedly make itself known to the people so they'll stop raising Hell in general. Sounds like God has neglected us. Since everything as we know it was created by human design, why not take the reins, so to speak. I believe that we are much better off without a deity."

"And morals? What should we do then?" Cheren's voice was steady but low. He was smart in keeping calm to deter any concentrated assault on his body, or perhaps the loss of the opportunity to achieve glory. "How do you think people would go about interacting without morals? The world would come to part."

"Morals and religion are different, Cheren." She utilized the full extent of a restrained and cultivated voice, one that arrested his attention and thoughts then transfixed them into the cold boulder of silence. "If you have trouble picturing it, then think of a clam. A clam is composed, basically, of a shell and meat. Religion is the entire clam, shell and all. However, morals are the meat inside the shell. Humans revere religion because they want the meat, the morals, inside of the shell. The meat is what is most important. For seafood enthusiasts, it could be the greatest meal they have ever experienced. Morals are the same. Humans who pursue things like righteousness and higher purposes look for morals to base their actions on. They want to do the right thing because doing the right thing reciprocates the good feelings of the helped to the helper. Then you could go on to say that this good feeling as a taste of ecstasy in the helper, provoking them to do more good."

"And the bad people? The murderers, the liars, the thieves, the neglectors? What are they to morals?" She stopped and looked at him with an air of incredulity as if she was lost at any idea of what to do with him, but within the minute she showed a small smile that he knew was pretense so he waited for what was to come.

"Not everyone likes clam meat, Cheren. Their nervous system may reject it." And she walked back to the tanks, adoring their majesty and watching the budding masses fabricate into humans. She felt instantly calmer at the sight of it, and after a moment, she spoke. "I undertook this project not for the same reasons as Colress. However, I will admit that even I was seduced by the legends of this Gene Sequence Database. It seemed so much like fantasy to me—how can you not be amazed at how far the human intellect has come in just thousands of years? And I, like Colress, wanted to see what it could do, but back then I assumed that we were working with smaller organisms—much smaller, microorganisms even! I had no idea we were to attempt to create another human being. Of course, I had my doubts at first. I knew that this was officially in the danger zone. What if our experiments went awry? What if our data leaked and fell into the wrong hands? What would the public think of our sanity? But most importantly, what if we had no other choice than to kill whatever the hell we had bred? I considered each one in the discussion of the grant proposal with Colress. But then I had come to a conclusion about myself—I was too perfect, too materialistic in nature. I only cared about my reputation and the reputation of my colleagues, about how the specimen would look if it had survived, about the total lack of discipline many researchers have often displayed here, and about how well programmed those gods of nerds and geeks had made the database. I wasn't getting at the meat. I didn't even cast a single, god-forsaken thought about the specimen itself! I started questioning the emotional and mental state of the specimen to be created. So what if it didn't look as perfect as it looked on the screen? So what if it still looks like a mass of tissue even after completion? It was a living thing and it deserved to be treated as such! I would take no other viewpoint. I went on with the proposal with the full determination to raise and cater to the needs of our subjects, regardless of perfection. It would be a challenge, but I would meet it with every ounce of strength and self-control I have."

"But what about," Cheren hesitated a moment within his speech and his eyes drifted toward the tablet of data cradled delicately in his arm. However, he swallowed quickly and, not wanting to upset his superior with his lack of complete ideas, gathered his fortitude and sense of gambling pride to rush the rest of his words out for the hell of it. "Their other needs? I know you're not the type who falls in love so quickly, but—"

"Carnal desires?" She slurred the word with a mixture of exhaustion and slight frustration—she had absolutely no patience on the subject at hand and was not likely to show even a single shred anytime soon. Immediately, Cheren regretted bringing up the topic, but now he was paralyzed as she whisked her line of sight to him with a scowl upon her face. But at least she still looked civil. "I have explicitly informed Colress that a joining together may be detrimental to the health of, of the female. We are also unsure if the DNA of the specimens will combine and duplicate then split as predicted and expected. Besides, it's a dirty deed—we can't have our subjects committing to some ill humor. It wouldn't be right. So, we spliced those desires out from the DNA sequence. More specifically, we have intentionally ignored the gene in the puberty sequence that would allow ovulation to occur—preventing these subjects from becoming pregnant. They'll still have eggs inside them, ovules, and the like, but those eggs will never become fertilized inside of their bodies. It's to ensure their health. Colress wants to have them live longer than the standard average for humans. He wants to learn more about them—or, rather, what the machine has done to them. Personally, I just want them to forever be virgins. I even doubt that they'll survive the joining process."

"But isn't that taking away part of what it means to be human?"

"Be specific. Carnal desires are based off of the instinctual need to survive and reproduce. These subjects have been programmed with the best genes we could think of—survival is almost guaranteed. However, they do not need to reproduce. We have billions and billions of people on this planet. We sure as hell don't want another one with the ability to make babies. It would throw us all into Hell faster. We want our subjects to be beyond us—higher on the totem pole. The best way to do this is to modify the glitches Mother Nature has programmed into us. However, being human is something else. We don't know if they will be capable of loving or feeling any emotions and whatnot." She faced the tanks again, this time with concern laced in her eyes. "The human brain is a complex structure. Even at this age we don't know everything. We recently discovered how to manipulate memories to implant vital skills into our subjects. We'll just have to wait and see if emotions can work themselves out. But yes, I do hope for that. I do want to see them love purely without buckling under the crushing power of lust we lower humans are subjected to." She paused and slightly paced around the room, but her eyes were always transfixed upon the mystic presence and form of the aliens. "These specimens are designed to be a wonderful, honorable, and pure race free from the burdens of a loathsome god who just loves to play the love gun with all life, especially with females."

"It's comments like that that will make science and religion never get along. Maybe our mediator will be morals. Don't go on a killing spree to attack religions, Cytla. It's what people believe." He noticed her sharp look aimed straight to his eyes, but he held his ground. "You believe in morals, I can accept that, but these people—those people outside believe in some god, real or not. Eventually, you're just going to have to tolerate them. You don't have to believe in what they believe, but you do have to accept that they believe that way. If you do that then maybe they'll accept your own beliefs."

"I doubt that. After all, a man of reason is a man of sin." She held the expression of disgust in her eyes and a scowl on her lips, but all the same, it vanished to be replaced with exhaustion. She was in labor with her project, apparently.

"Then just try! You say that you believe in morals, right? The moral thing to do here is to express tolerance." For an instant, he had thought that she held the look of defeat, but he didn't chance his safety to pursue it any further. "And the first way you can tell them that you tolerate their views is to go out and speak to the press. Colress already gave you permission. Even if you don't want to speak, he can always speak for the lab. He, unlike you, has no trouble expressing tolerance."

If only you knew, kid, she thought, but she gave way with a sigh and rubbing of her temples. "Look, I'll see what I can do. I'm not happy about giving those people an audience, but if Colress speaks, we may just have a chance to settle them down."

"Just be honest with them, Cytla. Morals respect honesty. Hell, it might even win science more of the true respect it deserves." She muttered some curse under her breath before she rotated and animated her shoulders to limber and energize her body. She was getting ready to enter battle, she knew that full well, but she still held scorn for her promoter—that scrawny and meticulously neat kid standing no more than ten steps from her with glasses glaring under the dim light and tablet at the ready. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"If this honesty shit of yours causes any complications whatsoever to the project or any of the researchers, it's your ass." Cheren, surprisingly, responded with a small smile at Cytla's sideways glare. He was confident in the outcome, knowing that she had enough sense to stay out of an argument that would only serve to get her worked up to the point where she could cause some serious damage.

"At least I gave you the best advice to approach the problem. Everything else is on you."