3. FleshAfter winter break, I meet my friend Kareem for lunch. He works in the fabrication lab. I take the stairs to the basement of the engineering school and pull open the door. It’s hot and stuffy. The laser cutter is wedged into a makeshift wooden shack in the far corner, and four glass walls cordon off diagonally opposite quarters of the lab. Inside the glass enclosure in front of me, three guys hunch over a lathe. Another slides a beam through a jigsaw. The lathe sings, and the saw roars intermittently. I stick my head through the office door. Kareem is out, but Manny is at his desk. Manny is the manager, and he’s the coolest guy in the lab. He’s thin and balding, but he moves with the energy and agility of a middle-aged Peter Parker. I remember when he helped our research group mill
