Olly walked into the restaurant. Not his favorite place but many of the business meetings he had to attend were held here.

  He handed his pristine suit jacket to the entry staff and adjusted his tie. An obligatory attire for running a business.

  He said, “Inform me when my friend arrives, I’ll grab a drink at the bar while I wait.”

  He headed to the bar to wait, noticing a nervous looking lady. She looked out of place. Curious, Olly sat at the bar stool next to her. Her story could be a nice distraction from the dinner he’s about to have.

  He waited briefly to see if she would start the conversation, then leaned towards her and asked, “Bad date or are you expecting it to be?”

  Clara responded, “Excuse me?”

  He said, “You just seemed very uncomfortable and it’s surprising to see anyone alone at this place. I’m assuming you are here to meet someone.”

  Clara feeling silly explained, “I’m out of place here. I was hoping to catch someone in the biotech industry and impress them. I’m looking for a job, recently graduated. But now that I hear you and myself out loud, I realize how silly this is.”

  He said, “hmmm, I don’t think your plan will work. Everyone here is already busy with their own plans, or trying to forget what they do to earn money.”

  Clara said, “Well how about you? Why are you alone? .. Never mind, I should just leave. Sorry.” She moved to get up.

  He caught her arm. “Well I have plans, but they seem to be running late. The staff will let me know when they arrive. You should at least finish your drink. I’m curious, tell me about your biotech work.”

  “Well I guess it’s a bit silly really. The seed companies are already doing amazing work with GMO and custom engineering. I thought I could create a full functioning seed using the advanced BioPrinters on the market today. I’m not sure how marketable it is really, but thought the printers we have today could do it and I wanted to try, no cheating, direct printing a seed.” Said Clara.

  He said, “What would the value of a direct printed seed be? It seems like the big industries are doing fine.”

  Clara said, “I guess I’d like to see it lower costs, increase the flexibility. Some types of fruits and vegetables are very susceptible to disease. And the market is controlled. A fully 3D manufactured seed would decrease costs. Imagine a world where farmers could print as many seeds as they need at their farms, no middle man.”

  “Thats intriguing. Like directly printing life? Is that possible?” He said.

  Clara said, “Sort of. I came up with a mechanical design to initiate it, it’s a bit of a hybrid concept. The machine is supposed to be like the cells, but mechanical. It will read the DNA and follow the directions like a cell would, only it will be a machine doing the work, not an initial cell. Assuming the machine works correctly it should make a functioning cell. My results have been mixed, the machine should work but I’m not getting the results I expect. I must confess, I’m not a mechanical or electrical engineer so my issue may be with the machines themselves.”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He smirked and puffed out his chest a little, thinking himself a mechanical mastermind, “So are you using silicon MEMs or carbon MEMs? I’m actually qualified to help you on the electro-mechanical side, not so much on the biological. I run a tech company that has done some pretty small robotics in the past. I’d be happy to review your design and manufacturing process sometime.”

  The wait staff, hesitant to interrupt, lurked in the back. He noticed them and motioned to the main seating area. The wait staff nodded and scampered away.

  Olly said, “The staff around here can be so skittish, they must think we bite more than the food. I didn’t catch your name?”

  She said, “Clara Blaire, here let me share my contact and resume as well.”

  He waved his mobile over hers. The ping let him know the swap of contact data was successful.

  He said, “I’m sorry, I really must be joining my friend. Good luck on the job hunt.”

  He walked out of the bar area into the main dining room. His good friend and CTO Jake Grier was holding a thick pamphlet. The look on his face showed this wasn’t the usual light-hearted hang out. Jake set the papers down and sat at the table.

  He sat at the table across from Jake and looked at the pamphlet. They were the financial statements for the year. “Why did you bring work? And why the financial statements? Let the business side handle that.”

  Jake flipped to the balance sheet. “Have you seen these numbers this is the worse year we have had.”

  Olly closed the pamphlet. “I have seen them. We always go through streaks. Funding comes and goes like the tides.”

  “The investors are getting upset.”, Jake said.

  “I have a meeting setup on the west coast, should land us some big contracts.”, Olly said.

  “I don’t know if they will wait. There’s been rumors of mergers or downsizing.”

  “They won’t force our hand.”, Olly said.

  Jake tossed the papers at him. “Look at those numbers. This isn’t just any bad year.”

  He collected the papers. “I’ll go over them okay. Maybe there is some previous contracts we can renew. Don’t kill the whole evening.”

  “Fine, I’ll let it slide tonight, but things need to turn around and soon.”

  “Have you heard of the new biotech work at the university labs?”, He said,.

  Jake said, “The little bits in the news feeds, Why? You’re not thinking of changing our business focus to biotech. Don’t change gears again.”

  “No, of course not. I don’t have a green thumb anyways. No, I just learned of an engineering puzzle that we could try our hands at. It should be a great distraction.” He picked up his mobile and pulled up Claras resume and followed a few links. Pulled up a few queries for biotech research, logged into the university, pulled the latest publications. “This is the work they have been doing over there. Look at the third link, you see that tiny machine that’s reading the DNA?”

  Jakes mobile buzzed, buzzed again, and buzzed one more time. Jake picked up the device and combed through all the papers Olly had just sent him. “Yeah, what is all this? And what does it have to do with us?”

  “I think this works at least conceptually. But I think it has some issues with the implemented design.” He pulled up the latest paper and skimmed through it.

  Jake looked over the 3D models and rotated the device around for Olly to see. “Yeah, I don’t think this whole section is needed, and that piece could be half the size. What’s this piece doing? We could pipe-line that section there.”

  He grabbed a sheet from the business pamphlet and sketched a section. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Don’t get too carried away. It has to be built, remember this is smaller than we usually work with, about the size of a pepper flake. Also 2D structures will work better so maybe like this.”

  He sketched out a whole redesign of the machines Clara used in her process.