Sentience

Okay, so here's the story:

There is a secret government project going on in a facility in the Louisianan swamps. The basic idea of the project is to find a way to create specifically designed creatures from genetic blueprints. They have developed an interface (~computer menu/program) that allows designers to sculpt a creature, design how its physical processes work, and then "Print" the information to engineered embryos that will then grow into the new creature. Basically, they can grow any monster they want.

Michael Krentz is a young scientist who has contributed much to the development of the interface. However, he discovers a dark secret. Because of the difficulty involved in engineering intelligent minds for the monsters, the code for many of their brains has been copied and pasted from human genetic code. This means that they do not grow simple animal minds, they grow human minds. They are literally human minds trapped in the bodies of monsters. Michael is horrified. He realizes that he has been involved in keeping these creatures who are really human beings in strange bodies in captivity. Putting everything on the line, he releases the creatures with human minds from captivity and sets them loose in the Louisiana Wetlands. He is taken into captivity himself by the military, but manages to escape. He then sets out to find the released creatures himself and try to prevent them from being captured. He has to deal not only with the military, but also with Louisiana locals, some who are friendly but others who want to destroy the creatures and make soup and leather boots out of them.