Chick Flick Page 6

  Suddenly, as if I’d conjured him, Roseword appeared at the door. Short, stocky, and sporting an amazing tan, with eyes like sharpened points of granite that looked like they could cut you open, he clearly meant business. He had the look of an Air Force fighter pilot. Cole was caught off guard. He introduced Roseword, and immediately sat down to make way for Roseword at what was essentially the head of the table.

  While I’d felt that things were getting away from me earlier in the meeting, now they were on a high-speed train in the wrong direction. I saw we would no longer be talking about Spells, but rather, about the biochip that Cole was obsessing over. Paul nodded emphatically, taking notes on his laptop, and I began to question to whom his loyalty really belonged. At the same time, it felt like there was nothing for me to lose; this wasn’t my idea, and I wasn’t going to be left exposed to Roseword and Cole’s opinion of that idea.

  Roseword had his share of questions; it seemed like he was well-read on the matter. But the train came to a screeching halt when he began to direct his questions to Paul, and Paul alone. It became clear that Roseword thought Paul and I were business partners, rather than understanding that Paul was just brought on to consult.

  “So you two are in business together?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, Paul had taken over and was holding court.

  “Yes,” said Paul. “Scarlet is working on something else,” he began while I started to grind my teeth in horror, realizing he was talking about Spells, “but it might not pan out. In the meantime, she and I can go forward with this idea.”

  He’d shot me down.

  I couldn’t help it; something halfway between a gasp and a laugh came out of my mouth.

  “I’m sorry?” I said, looking at Paul. I know that if Todd had been there, he could have walked me back from the brink, but as it stood, I was all alone and there was no turning back. “I wasn’t aware of this plan, Paul. I strongly believe in what I’m working on now, and I have every intention of following through. In no way did I say I would close my company or forgo my plans.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paul stammered. “I just assumed—”

  Cole turned red, embarrassed for having wasted his counterpart’s time. It was clear who really ran the operation. Roseword coolly assessed us both with glinting, vulpine eyes before speaking.

  “I think we’re done here for now,” he said, getting up and motioning toward the door.

  It was unfortunate that Paul and I had shared a ride there. Worse than arguing all the way home, we didn’t speak to one another.

  Two days later, I was taking a break from the bench when I checked my e-mail. There was a message there from Roseword. He said he was impressed with the presentation, despite the hiccups, and wanted to hear more. But first, he said, he wanted to ask me some questions about a project of his. Wanting to build bridges that I had feared I’d burned in my disagreement with Paul, I agreed, and we e-mailed back and forth for a good while. Nights, days, weekends, holidays, all these didn’t matter to him, and I liked that about him. I felt we shared the same energy and were on the same page workwise. I was familiar with his questions and he was grateful for my advice. Every time I saw an e-mail from him, whether it was at two o’clock in the morning or on a holiday, I jumped at the chance to answer and show off my expertise. Although I was still a bit miffed that he had been more interested in Paul’s thoughts than mine, and in Cole’s idea rather than my own technology for Spells, I tried to remember that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and I worked my hardest to be the resource he needed.

  At the end of the exchange, there it was: the golden key.

  “I’d love to hear more about your passion project,” he said. “I think we should meet and talk about your company.”

  After I had convinced Roseword that I knew enough about others’ ideas, he was willing to give me an hour to express mine. I was ecstatic, and called Todd immediately, exhilarated.

  “Roseword wants to meet with us. This might be our big chance.”

  We arranged the meeting for one night the following week at Roseword’s home. I had suggested a café or even Lauralynn’s office, but Roseword was having none of it. I tried to picture the clean-lined designer pieces all arranged just so in his living room, tried to think about how such a power player would adorn his nest. I was intimidated, but not enough to be scared off. Why not see how the other half lives, I thought. It’s not every day you get invited into the lion’s den.

  Needless to say, I immediately went out and bought a new suit. I had prepared a speech and gone over it with Todd while he was practicing his marketing skills on me. I didn’t prepare any lab results, but rather, worked on crafting an analogy that was simple enough to understand and to capture the attention of these engineers. Regardless of how beautiful the science was, I kept telling myself that I needed to make it accessible, understandable, and—above all—irresistible.

  The suit won’t hurt either, I thought. It’s a nice change from my daily lab coat. I smiled as I slid it back onto the hanger, where it would wait its turn until the main event.

  After the debacle with Paul, I didn’t want to bring in anyone else to infect or change the ideas that were at the heart of Spells. Todd, ever the pragmatist, convinced me otherwise. He said that in order for us to have the strongest position possible, we needed an inside link to Roseword and Cole.

  “Even though we had already met with them?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I sighed, feeling myself capitulating against my better judgment. Todd was the business mind, after all. I racked my brain and my virtual rolodex to see whom I might know who might be able to help us out in this department, and came up with my friend Joel Drafford, a young, friendly entrepreneur who had just begun his own start-up journey. Before that, he had worked with Roseword and Cole on a previous venture.

  He said he’d be happy to talk to me in advance of my meeting with Roseword, and we soon convened for lunch at the university where we both studied. I had a meeting earlier that day with an old professor, and he often went there to avail himself of the research resources. We bagged our lunches like in the old days and secreted away to my old corner by the philosophy building.

  “Scarlet! It’s been too long,” he said, opening up his lunch bag and peering inside, as if he would be surprised by the contents. “This is so exciting that you’re meeting with George Roseword to talk about potential business ideas.”

  My smile came naturally; this wasn’t just any ordinary networking meeting I had to push through. I was genuinely happy to see an old friend.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s an impressive man. I imagine he was a great boss, too.”

  Joel nodded, cocking his head as if remembering the good old days.

  “I do miss that security sometimes,” he said. “You know, the regular paycheck, the other people backing you.”

  “How’s your big project going these days?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t being too intrusive.

  “It’s good, but it’s going slowly,” he said, lowering his voice and looking to make sure we were truly alone. “We’re developing equipment that will detect small quantities of viral or bacterial DNA to sniff out bio-warfare threats, like detecting anthrax on an envelope.”

  “That’s exactly what I need!” I exclaimed.

  He laughed. “Are you in that much trouble?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m under no threat. I just need it for some chickens I’m working with.”

  “This is just getting stranger and stranger,” he said.

  “It’s not what it sounds like,” I shot back.

  “Scarlet,” he said, a friendly hand on my arm, “I’m not even sure what it sounds like!”

  “I need a way to assess DNA in microscopic amounts, because it’s almost nonexistent in the blood I draw from blood vessels inside of the egg shells of the chickens I’m working on. I’ve been looking for alternatives to amplify the signal from that DNA, as it were,”
I said.

  I almost choked on my sandwich when he clapped me on the back.

  “My dear! You have come to the right place!” he exclaimed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no need to amplify. We’ve got a super-cool technique to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio right here,” he said.

  “Don’t play with my heart, Joel,” I said.

  “Would I do that to you?”

  I had to admit, I didn’t think so. Joel wasn’t like the villainous, cutthroat entrepreneurs that one sees in Hollywood films. He was all heart, a truly decent man. Furthermore, he was a community man; he taught kids basketball and joined the city’s Parent Patrol, a group of parents who volunteer within their community, spending their free time on the streets, making sure their presence is felt at the youth hangout spots.

  They communicate with the teens and explain the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

  The Patrol acts in cooperation with law-enforcement officials, helping to prevent crime in the community.

  “When can I come over to see your setup?” I asked, half joking but hoping he’d take me seriously.

  “Come over tomorrow,” he replied without hesitation, standing up and brushing the crumbs off his khakis. “Your application sounds intriguing, and besides, we’ve only been working with synthetic DNA. Maybe if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” he said with a wink.

  We began to walk together out into the courtyard, and the possibilities warmed me as much as did the sun’s heat.

  “I’m so glad you might be able to help out, Joel,” I said, explaining that the superior design had a hand in chicken blood, which would also help us out in the amplification department. DNA was present in Chicken’s red and white blood cells, as opposed to in human samples, where it is only present in the white ones. This means we would have more DNA per each sample of blood. I took it as a sign that chickens were meant to be sexed in the egg; if they did not have this characteristic, it would be an impossible task to undertake.

  “Life works in mysterious ways,” I said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” he agreed, giving me a final smile and a wave as he went off to pursue his own work.

  The next day, I met with Joel at his lab, and got a chance to see his equipment. The idea behind all the shiny high technology was simple, but his device was elegant, and it took a team of ten, working together in a large, loft-like space, to execute his engineering concept.

  “Joel,” I said, surveying the space. “You should be proud.”

  He beamed. “That means a lot, coming from you, Scarlet.”

  The time had come for our meeting at Roseword’s home, a hulking Brutalist house set on top of a high hill. It felt ten degrees cooler on the hilltop, even in the summer heat. Roseword took us into the house and we saw, but were not introduced to, a teenaged boy playing a game of virtual tennis on a huge TV screen. He was moving from side to side of the living room, his hand making sweeping motions that coincided with the THOCK of the virtual ball through the surround-sound system. Outdoor tennis seemed to be moving toward obsolescence.

  As we started making our way down the hall to Roseword’s office, he had a change of heart and guided us outside onto the deck, where he joined Cole at a long table overlooking the craggy mountainous vistas behind the house. I was hoping for something a little more intimate, or at least, something a little warmer. The sun was setting, it was growing cooler by the moment, and it seemed as though he had no inclination to turn on the lights. Only Roseword seemed unaffected by the temperature.

  I took a deep breath, and then began my speech, detailing how their idea of biochips was a hot topic at the moment, especially since there was a push to read a person’s entire genetic information—or Genome—for $1,000.

  “Currently, it can be done for $10,000; not exactly pocket change,” I said, and they nodded in stony silence. “If we could each get our genetic data on a CD, we would potentially know, someday, which types of diseases we are prone to and we could receive personalized treatment for our specific problems. No more general drugs that target general receptors in our bodies; instead, we will use a drug that inhibits the exact source of our illness.”

  I could tell I had their attention; I was on a roll. Now would be the time to persuade them away from the chip technology they had alluded to in my first disastrous meeting with Paul and onto my assay idea.

  “The DNA is the genetic information, which is transferred from generation to generation, and each species has its unique genome. If you can imagine a book that is copied over and over, you can also imagine that while the book is copied, spelling errors may occur,” I said, incorporating the “spell-checker” that was at the heart of Spells.

  “Rather than having you read this book line by line checking for errors, our assay technology works as a ‘spell-checker,’ inferring by subtraction,” I explained.

  “As we said in the first meeting,” Cole began, “we’re interested in chip-based solutions.”

  I felt put down again, and unsure why Cole was so adamant about chip-based solutions.

  “I understand that, but given the size of our operation, your goal is a little out of our reach. There are huge companies with hundreds of employees trying to work on this problem, and we feel that we want to take on something that we can handle. I absolutely would love the chance to work with you, and that’s why I’m willing to consider talking out these solutions with you. But I have to admit, I would appreciate the opportunity to explain the real reason why we are here.”

  Then, I felt a sharp kick under the table. Todd didn’t look too amused by my choice of words. I tried to finesse things a little bit.

  “What I meant to say is that I’d love the opportunity, if you’ll allow it, to explain an application I’m very passionate about.”

  Cole appeared restless, while Roseword seemed interested. He leaned into the table a bit, motioning for me to continue.

  “This does sound interesting,” he said, while I could detect Cole trying to keep his eyes from rolling.

  Seeing the opening, I jumped right in.

  “Chickens,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. That caught their attention, if only by seeming to be a non sequitur. Had they really invited a madwoman out to their ten-million-dollar property to waste their time? they surely wondered.

  Todd sensed that I was getting overexcited and tried to turn the pitch to one that operated on a level businesspeople understood: money.

  “The poultry industry trashes two billion male chicks each year, worldwide,” he said. “They might as well be burning their money with that loss. We’d like to turn this loss into profit.”

  Now, even Cole was listening. Todd continued.

  “As you know, the world is going green, and so must we. If we can determine if these chicks are male while still in the egg, the egg white can be used for different products made from egg-white powder. We would save on incubation time and electricity. All this translates into profits.”

  “What does this have to do with genetic information and chips?” asked Cole. “I would like to stay on the subject at hand. Honestly, John—”

  Here, with a swift motion of his hand, Roseword cut him off.

  “It has everything to do with this,” I explained. “If you take the genetic information of a female chicken, it differs from the male information. This is similar to the comparison of human genetic information, but here, we are comparing chicken genetic information in order to ascertain the sex of the chick.”

  “So you picked one application, and you are going to show that your method works?” asked Roseword.

  “Yes,” I said. “My simple example shows that I can differentiate between female and male chickens by subtracting their genetic differences.” I paused, waiting to see their reaction.

  “And so you’ve essentially found a way to test your method on a small scale,” Roseword said. “I love it!”

  “I love it, too,” I said, smiling first
at Todd, and then beaming at Cole, who was forced to stay quiet while Todd went on with the marketing end of the presentation.

  I finally relaxed, sipping from a glass of water and glancing inside to see how the tennis game was going in the living room. My mind was wandering off to happy places, where I could work in a lab without having to worry about money.

  “I like your story, Scarlet,” said Roseword. “I came here expecting to talk about DNA on chips, which everyone seems to be talking about. But your explanation of why that technology is important came with an exciting twist. You managed to show me that you think within your reach, and I rarely see that in young entrepreneurs. They all seem to bite off more than they can chew.” He motioned to Todd. “And plus, your partner here has convinced me that there is money to be made.”

  “It’s a bit low-tech, John,” Cole sneered. “Do you think it’s enough profit for our investment firm to consider?”

  Roseword did not hesitate. “I don’t care about the firm. I’m putting $100K down on Spells out of my own pocket.”

  It takes a conscientious man to rise to the occasion.

  I nearly fainted, but Todd managed to pull me out of there before I made a complete fool out of myself, profusely thanking Roseword and even Cole, who had nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I was not good at keeping my cool.

  “We found our Angel,” I said to Todd on our way out, meaning our angel investor—a successful businessman willing to invest some of his own capital on our big dreams. And now Spells was four: Todd, Joel—our temporary partner, Roseword, and I. I couldn’t wait to have Roseword officially on board, even though I knew he’d want a board position with a consulting role and a veto vote. I was nervous about giving up some of my control, but the money soothed that blow. And besides, he was an engineer; maybe he wouldn’t want to see anything more detailed than a quarterly report, I rationalized.