Bucksworth was surprised to hear that MFE got no response for their offer to cooperate with Cryer three years ago. He had only served the company for two and a half years. But then he thought of all the management and ownership changes the company has underwent in recent years, so it all made sense.
"Dr. Xi, first and foremost allow me to apologize in the name of Cryer's board of executives for not responding to your request three years ago. I'm sure you heard the recent news about Cryer's new ownership. That's not the first major change in Cryer that happened during those three years. I assume back then, management was far less open about cooperation with third parties. But here we are now, discussing how we can cooperate on research. I believe, in contrary to what the previous management believed, that this is the way to go."
He then wanted to make things clear before closing the deal on the mobile labs. Holliday seemed very eager to deploy his men onto Cryer stations, and it didn't seem like he understood the implications it'd have on Cryer. Bucksworth wanted to make things as clear as possible, in a way that wouldn't offend MFE.
"Dr. Holliday, when I was talking about the deployment of mobile labs, I was talking about a one-sided deployment of Cryer labs onto MFE stations. The reason I meant that is due to the complications that arise from having third party employees aboard corporate-owned stations. There are several regulations that make it difficult, as well as levels of clearance required to enter certain parts of our facilities. Your employees may be exposed to sights we'd rather keep for ourselves. Don't forget that we're a profit-oriented corporation after all, and while we both work for the greater good, there are corporate secrets we'd rather not reveal.
For the presence of MFE aboard Cryer stations, we can arrange an 'ambassadorial lab' on Syracuse and Cambridge Research. This will allow our scientists to cooperate, while granting MFE employees limited access to most facilities of the stations. Aside from that, each and every employee you deploy aboard a Cryer station would have to go through the process filling out health insurance and disclaimer forms.
I hope you can understand the complexity of the matter on our side, being a lawful inter-house corporation making commercial products. And if you do, then it's a done deal!"
