"Introduction"

“I’d like you to meet someone, Rick.” Tom said. I was still at work, not that it ever mattered to him what I was doing when he called. “A new business partner.” He said the phrase with an odd inflexion I didn’t really understand the meaning of.

“Uhh...” I ducked my head below the cubicle walls. I wasn’t technically allowed to have a second job, it was against my contract. What Tom and I were working on was strictly speaking a violation, and I could be fired for it. “Sure. Whatever. Later. After work.”

“Sounds good. Donovan’s at seven?” He replied smoothly.

Tom was always trying to get me to drink on the weeknights, like we had in college. I suppose I’d grown up a little, and he never had. We were both thirty now, and Tom didn’t seem to know we weren’t twenty-one anymore. “Fine. But it can’t be a late night.” I agreed wearily.

“Sure thing, Rick. See you there. Seven o’clock.”

“Seven o’clock.” I repeated to satisfy him. “See you there, Tom.”

I hung up and went back to my computer. My boss walked by, probably making sure I kept the personal call as brief as possible, and I pretended not to notice his scowl.

Three and a half hours later I walked into Donovan’s. The aging wood-paneled pub was within walking distance of Tom’s apartment, which made it his only watering hole since he wrecked his car in July. The place was pretty sparsely populated, given that it was a Tuesday evening. I saw Tom at the bar, with two empty beer bottles already in front of him. I took the stool next to him.

“Rick buddy!” Tom shook my hand wildly before scooping up his third beer just as it was deposited in front of him. “Glad you could come.”

“Based on what you said on the phone, I didn’t expect to find you drinking alone.” I said pointedly, then turned to the bartender and ordered a root beer, one of the local craft brands that comes in a brown glass bottle. With any luck, Tom wouldn’t pay enough attention to the label to see that it wasn’t real beer.

“Should be here any minute.” Tom replied as I was ordering. “You’ll like this one, Rick.”

“Speak of the devil, and she will appear.” A woman’s voice, soft but commanding, said from behind me. Tom and I turned around. She was about my height, brunette, slim, wearing a blue windbreaker and jeans. Good looking, I decided.

“Ah, perfect timing!” Tom clapped me on the back. “Rick, meet Jen. I told you I’d find us a biochemist.”

I extended a hand, and Jen took it. “Jennifer Kerigan. You must be Rick Pattinson. Tom here has told me a lot about what you two have been working on.”

I released her hand, and frowned at the slight jolt of static electricity that passed between her palm and mine. I’d never known static to happen as things were separated, only when they were joined.

“Something wrong?” Jen asked, picking up on my frown.

“I’ll say. They brought you root beer!” Tom scowled, putting down my drink after having apparently decided to bum it. I didn’t mind that so much - the bartender knew us well enough to charge drinks to the person who actually consumed them and not to the person who ordered them. That meant that Tom’s tab was astronomical most nights.

I rolled my eyes, and Jen gave me a knowing glance. “I was trying not to drink on a weeknight.” I protested.

“And he was helping you out.” Jen pointed out. Tom and I both laughed a little at this. I slid over one stool so Jen could sit between Tom and I. She ordered a beer, one of the expensive kinds.

“Like I was saying earlier, Jen, Rick and I were thinking, technology has progressed to the point in both disciplines where it should be possible to build a machine that ‘compiles’ computer code down to DNA and RNA strands. We have been working on a prototype, but our sequences are so buggy we might as well just be putting in random values. I’ve been working hardware, and Rick’s got the software solid. But the best nanos on the commercial market just aren’t up to this. We need something better.”

Jen nodded. “And I mentioned I might have an idea. But first, the conditions. This could be a stepping stone toward the unification of computer science and the study of biological behavior. As such, I want to be an equal in this if it goes anywhere, one third share. And neither of you breathe a word about this project to anyone until we all agree to do so.”

“Done.” I agreed. I doubted it would go anywhere - this “side job” was more a hobby for me. A hobby that could get me fired.

Tom took a moment to consider, then agreed as well. “Let’s hear your idea.”

We moved to a booth at the corner and discussed the project for more than three hours. She knew her stuff - Jen impressed both of us with her ideas. She said first that we could try adding verification/disassembly nanos to the vat, but that this would slow the output considerably, and that a better solution would be to figure out a way to remove the unreliable nanos from the system entirely. How we’d do that, of course, none of us knew then. We parted ways just before midnight. Jen and I exchanged phone numbers. Apparently Tom already had hers.

I went home that night reeling from the possibilities. Could we really do it? Program cells? I started to believe, sitting in Donovan’s that night, that we could.

I called Jen the next day on impulse and asked her out to dinner. I expected her to say that she was dating Tom, or that she didn’t date business partners, or a million other things, but she surprised me by saying yes, and naming Friday night. I picked her up from her workplace, a bio lab on the south side, and took her to Jasmine Palace, a slightly upscale Indian restaurant that we had agreed upon. I asked quickly about her and Tom, and she said that while he had hit on her, Tom was not really her type. I relaxed after that, and we talked and laughed for over two hours, long after the plates had been cleared away. She was as charming as her first impression had indicated.

I couldn’t sleep that night, and got up early on Saturday to head over to Tom’s place to work on the prototype. When I got there, Jen and Tom were sipping coffee and talking, and I joined them for a few minutes before we got to work. By unspoken agreement, neither Jen nor I mentioned the date, and Tom didn’t ask.

He didn’t notice that Jen and I arrived together four weeks later, after our fifth date went a little farther than I think either of us anticipated. Or maybe he just didn’t mention it. He still hit on Jen once in a while, but this began to taper off as even he began to figure things out.

It took us nine weeks working with Jen to get a successful sequence fab. It was a simple sequence, which would instruct an amoebic cell to cease motion. We fed it into viruses and put them in a test culture, and were amazed to see perfectly healthy amoebas frozen as if they were dead. We celebrated with champagne. That night, Jen and I celebrated a second time.

I frowned at the slight jolt of static electricity as I released Jen’s hand, then started as I realized I was in Donovan’s. Jen was wearing a knowing smile. “Something wrong?” She asked, but her expression instead told me, “I know. Shh.”

“I’ll say. They brought you root beer!” Tom scowled, putting down my drink after having apparently decided to bum it.

“Uh...” I shook my head, returning to the present. “I was... trying not to drink on a weeknight.” I wondered if I already had been.

“And he was helping you out.” Jen pointed out. Tom laughed uproariously at this as he slid over one stool so Jen could sit between us. She ordered a beer, one of the expensive kinds.

“Like I was saying earlier, Jen...” Tom began.

That night I couldn’t sleep when I got home. I was still conscious when my cell phone rang at three in the morning. Caller ID said it was Jen. I picked it up. “Hello again, Jen.” I spoke.

“Do you want that?” She asked.

I knew what she was talking about. “Is that what it was? A preview?”

“In a way.”

I wanted to ask “how” but I was certain she wouldn’t answer, so I refrained. Instead, I asked the second most pressing question in my mind. “Dinner on Friday?”

She laughed. “You already know my answer.”

“It’s a date. See you then.” I was afraid of what I was getting into, but more afraid still of missing it.

“And you, Rick.” She hung up, and I spent four more hours utterly failing to explain in my mind what had happened before the alarm told me that I had to get up for work.

 This story is part of my attempt to finish the 100 prompts challenge posted in the short story competition at RPGCrossing.com.