As I scanned the convention map I noticed a logo I had never seen before. The top of the logo was dominated by the top half of a human. The middle was a printing head, and the bottom was half a leaf. Of course, in biotech, there were always new companies springing up. However, what caught my eye was the fact that they had claimed an impressive amount of space, more appropriate for a major corporation than a small startup.

I began making my way towards them, stopping to look at the nanobots being showcased next to my company's booth. They were cool, but far from practical.

I worked in advanced organ printing, working out how to grow personalized organs at industrial scale. Our showcase was printing beating hearts in a matter of minutes. Of course, I wasn't here to man our booth, I was here to talk to all of the other people. Just because you have a job doesn't mean you'll keep it. Contacts are always important.

The booth I was approaching ended up being larger than expected. Half the space was taken up by a large enclosure. The inside could only be described as a jungle. Trees grew right up to the top, vines dangling down. Massive ferns and broad-leafed plants filled the forest floor. A few animals could be seen within, monkies, tropical birds, even an alligator (or was it a crocodile? I wasn't a biologist). Massive transparent aluminum walls made sure nothing got in or out, even from the top.

To the side of the enclosure were a viewing platform and a desk. Behind the desk (and below the platform) was a massive machine. It was completely enclosed except for a door onto the viewing platform and several hatches into the enclosure. The thing hummed quietly but otherwise made no sound. Unlike most booths, there were no informational displays showcasing the capabilities of this tech. Instead, there were plaques talking about the various species inside the enclosure.

A few people were talking to the attendants behind the desk. I watched as one entered the door into the machine. Not sixty seconds later she quickly walked back out and away. Curious, I stepped up to the desk.

“Hi!” greeted the attendant, “enjoying our display?”

“Yeah, I was wondering what exactly this is.” I gestured to the massive machine behind her.

“That's our bio-printer. It created everything in that enclosure! In fact, we're about to switch scenes.” She pointed at a small timer next to the door into the machine. It was ten seconds from zero.

I looked towards the enclosure. All of the animals were scrambling into the ports in the machine. Just as the hatches closed the trees began to melt. The foliage liquified and splashed to the ground, tree limbs raining to the forest floor. Even the dirt was liquefying. The goo flowed down into drains at the bottom of the machine. In moments the enclosure was completely empty.

While this was happening I had scrambled over to the railing, amazed.

Ports in the machine opened up again. A massive deluge of water poured from the machine. The water nearly filled the tank before it stopped rising. Mud and pebbles were next, closely followed by several large rocks. Then the ports closed. On the rocks, plantlife grew rapidly, and soon a coral reef had blossomed from a rocky ocean floor. As the dust settled in the tank the ports opened once again. This time, hundreds of fish swam forth, populating the reef. In just five minutes I was looking into a beautiful aquarium rather than a jungle.

I practically ran back to the desk, mouth agape. “Your machine can do that!?” I exclaimed.

“It sure can! And if you'd like to see how it all happens we'll be opening up slots for the next demonstration in half an hour or so.” She said.

I spent the next half hour pacing through the Virtual Reality section, barely looking at the exhibits. How was this possible? The machine was so efficient, the transformation from one biome to the next nigh instantaneous! How could there have been fish and monkeys!? Had they figured out how to 3D print intelligent creatures? That was supposed to be impossible! That was like printing something from nothing!

This, however, only lasted fifteen minutes or so. Then I got wrapped up in one of the booths playing with the partially integrated VR. Crazy how far this stuff had come. When I was a kid the most advanced VR was just starting to work out touch. Now, with just a headset, I could feel the heat radiating from a virtual fire. I even touched it, only to receive a very painful burn. When I looked at my finger, it was perfectly fine.

Only when I looked at my hand did I notice the time. I quickly excused myself from the booth and quickly made my way towards the massive aquarium.

“I'm here for the next demonstration,” I said, as I tried (and failed) to disguise my ragged breathing. I wasn't exactly in shape.

“Great!” the same cheery attendant greeted me, “Here's an identification card. Enter the door on your left when you're ready, and have fun!”

I thanked her and entered the door to the machine. I was greeted by a short hall with six doors. Three had glowing red outlines, but the other three were green and the doors were open.

I stepped through the door and into a small room the size of a closet. A screen lit up, asking me to insert my ID into a port on the side. After I did so the screen changed to the word “SCANNING.” A green light swept across me, and the screen lit up with “SCAN COMPLETE.”

“What the heck is this thing?” I exclaimed aloud. Why did it scan me? Now I was more curious than ever. Was this some sort of automated tour or something?

Then the words “PLEASE SELECT A BIOME” appeared, along with three images, an African Savannah, an icy tundra, and a palm-tree lined beach. Below each was an expected end time, 2:30, 4:00, and 5:30 respectively. Below that was a big cancel button. It was 11:40 right now, which meant that if I chose the fastest option, I would end up spending three hours here. That was a long time! And what about lunch? After a moment I shrugged. I guessed I would be eating a late lunch then.

I pressed the African Savanna option. Immediately the text changed. Now it said, “Choose which animal you would like to be printed.” Weird English aside, if I had to guess, that meant I chose which animal I got to see being printed. Cool. But there weren't just animals there. There were also plants and even a few rocks. Below each option was an indicator of whether or not that thing was already taken. For example, the male lion had a 1/1 and was red. All of the slots were gone I supposed. However, the lioness only had 1/3 slots taken.

All this didn't really matter to me though. I just wanted to see how the machine worked. I selected the lioness and the screen went blank and slid into the wall. Now all of the walls were perfectly smooth metal.

A soft robotic voice said, “Phase one: filament preparation. Step one: extraneous object removal.”

What the heck did that mean? I was about to find out.

A panel in the ceiling slid open with a click. I looked up to get a face full water. Except it wasn't water. It was thinner than water and bounced off my skin like it was human-phobic. My clothing wasn't so lucky though. It clung to every scrap of clothing on my body. I felt my apparel softening, and before I knew it, my shirt was sliding off my body.

“Hey!” I exclaimed, sidestepping the majority of the stream. However, the damage had already been done. My shirt had melted, just like the jungle in the exhibit. My pants didn't last long either, and my shoes even less. They were directly exposed to the liquid splashing onto the floor of the room. The liquid drained straight through the floor. When if finally shut off, I was completely naked. In fact, even my wedding ring was gone.

“Phase one: Step Two: Filament Feed Preparation.”

The voice reminded me that someone might be watching. I quickly covered my privates. However, the next development was even more surprising than the last. The floor opened up, revealing a funnel of rollers. I fell in feet first, and immediately the rollers went to work. My feet felt like dough as the rollers mixed them together. They did I felt them stretching thinner down towards the end of the rollers. Panicked, I tried to grab the lip of the room I had been in with my fingers, but it was just out of reach. Then the floor above me slammed shut.

I felt like a mermaid, my legs fused together half way down, funneling into a cone shape. It didn't stop there though. I felt a thin line of me being pushed from the end of the rollers. My legs fused together more and more and soon the end was long enough to be grabbed by more rollers. Instead of reshaping me they simply pulled.

Suddenly the rollers sped up. The scream which had been welling in my throat burst forth with the realization of what was happening. I flailed at the tubes, but only got my hands stuck. My body sank even faster now. I could feel the end being rolled around a spool like some sort of human thread. Soon my head was the only thing left. A few seconds later and my vision disappeared. To top it all off, I couldn't make a sound if I wanted to.

“Phase One: Step Three: Filament Test”

Nothing felt like any part of my body anymore. I couldn't tell what part of me had been what. My fight or flight response had chosen flight, but I couldn't even squirm. Now I was being pulled off the spool. I felt myself being squeezed even further before a thin line was laid down on a cool surface.  Only then did it hit me.

I was the filament! This thing was printing me! I was caught between panic and relief. However, I choked down my fear. It's not like I was going to get any help. Instead, I focused on what was happening. I was being printed! The thought amazed and scared me at the same time.

“Phase two: Printing”

The rollers kicked into overdrive, twisting and warping rapidly. The sensation was so disorienting that I instinctively tried to scream. Of course, no sound came out. I was sinking slowly down, my body being twisted this way and that. I could feel parts of myself on the print bed. They didn't feel normal though. They felt… soft almost. They touched the print bed in weird places, and there were five of them. One was different from the others and rested on something other than the print bed. They gradually grew in length, and in no time I realized that they were not human.

Despite the speed of the components, the process was actually fairly slow. It had been nearly fifteen minutes and my body was barely halfway gone. It only took a few more minutes for the rest of me to go too.

Down on the tray, a distinctive shape was forming. I could feel all of it, but without the ability to look down anymore I couldn't see any of it.four of the five objects had been connected, and the middle was supported by more of the plastic material supporting much of me that was on the print bed. It was such an odd feeling like I was made of yarn that was being carefully laid out to form a pattern.

Now nearly all of me was on the print bed. I had tried moving it, but it was no use. I was basically frozen solid. I felt the last few drops of me leave the nozzle and suddenly I was whole again. However, I felt really strange. My vision was back, but it was all warped and blurry. My limbs felt alien and my whole body felt fuzzy. My hearing wasn't much better either. Then I remembered when we printed organs they were initially too low resolution to function. There was a treatment required to get all the cells in order.

“Phmske ghfer: smodgff bblk”

Slowly my limbs started to make sense. My vision began to clear, but my body was still unresponsive. My chin rested on what I assumed was support material, as did my torso and… tail? Did I have a tail!? I wanted to twist and look, but my body was still frozen. However, my senses had sharpened to beyond what I had enjoyed as a human. I could see so much finer detail than before. The print bed alone looked dramatically different. I could hear better too. I could hear the machine working all around me. Even my sense of smell had improved.

In fact… I focused on the center of my vision. My nose looked weird, almost like a-

My limbs suddenly went limp. I froze (voluntarily) for a moment, before trying to move my head from the bit of material supporting my chin. It worked! My head moved! The thing in the center of my vision moved with my head. It was short, and most of it was my mouth and nose. A muzzle! I had a freaking muzzle!

I twisted around, and discovered not only that my body was way more flexible now, but also that my body was completely different! I had four legs, a tail, and was covered in tawny fur. I looked down. At the end of my new front legs were two very cat-like feet. They had pads and retractable claws and didn't move nearly as much as my human hands. I also noticed something hidden beneath the fur of my chest. It felt hard and inflexible. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the ID I had been given! It was buried just below my fur. Fur.

I caught my breath. I was a cat! No, a lion! I had selected a lion in that little booth! In fact, I had selected a female lion. I winced as, now that I was paying attention, those were definitely female parts back there.

I took a deep breath through my new sharp teeth and looked around. The printer had moved, the bed I was standing on had shrunk, and the walls were a lot closer now. Then the wall in front of me lifted away to reveal two other lions, a male and a female.

I stumbled towards them, quickly gaining proper control of my limbs. This body felt strange, but it was still similar in many ways to my old human body. Except for the tail. That I was going to have to get used to.

“Hi!” I attempted to say, before remembering that lions couldn't speak. Unsurprisingly the sound that came out of my mouth was not a word.

The female lion walked up to me and rubbed her face against mine. I guess that meant hello. I was surprised to find myself purring and returning the gesture. These two had probably been other people at the convention like me. The female went back to the male lion and laid down with him. I followed, sitting next to them. What were we supposed to do? Just wait?

I noticed a timer on one of the walls. Twelve and a half minutes. That wasn't too long a wait.

Ten minutes later one of the walls opened up and another lioness stumbled in. I stopped cleaning myself - wait what? I hadn't even realized that I was doing it. - and watched as the other lioness greeted the new lioness. I guess I was part of a pride now.

A minute later the wall shifted again. However, this time it revealed a short tunnel and a door. Suddenly it opened, revealing the enclosure. It was a mimic of the African Savannah. Mostly grass, some rocks, and a few sparse trees. There was a watering hole too. This was where most of the other animals were now. There was a small herd of zebra, a pair of giraffes, and many more.

The next hour and a half was a blur. Part of that was the fact that I spent half of it sleeping. The rest of the time I walked around, got a drink from the waterhole, etc. I was surprised by how animalistic many of the other creatures were acting. Were they all like me, or were some of them real? Then again, I was acting pretty animalistic too. I barely even thought about all of the people outside. In fact, it seemed like the more time passed, the less I even remembered being human. That was a sobering thought.

I looked towards the other three lions. I could identify them by scent now, and it didn't weird me out at all. And that weirded me out. However, the longer I looked the less weird it got. I got up and trotted down to the watering hole to get a drink. By the time I got back, all I wanted to do was bask in the warm light shining down from the ceiling.

Then, about half an hour later I suddenly felt the urge to go back into the machine. So did all of the other animals, as they too were flooding in through the ports. I quickly followed the rest of my pride into the machine.

I found myself back inside a small enclosed space. There was a screen on the wall with strange symbols written across it. I shook my head, and the symbols resolved into words. “Please select an option.” Below that were another three images and times. The Beach, end time: 5:30. Deciduous Forest, 7:00, and finally, Mountain: 8:30. Next to those was a button which read “exit to the convention.”

I looked down at my paws, then back at the screen. Being a lioness had been weird, but fun. I definitely wanted to do it again, but I also wanted to check out the rest of the convention! I ended up pushing exit to the convention with my nose. I figured I would come back towards the end if I could.

For a second I wondered if I was going to exit as a lioness, however, the box I was in quickly began to change. The rollers came back, and soon my body was being swirled together again.

Half an hour later I exited the machine fully clothed and human, but still a little frazzled from the printing process. In the end, I still didn't really know how it worked. All I knew was that it was miles ahead of what I was doing at my job.