Janna found Veruschka's grand Russian vision of user-based genomic petware infectious. Despite her natural skepticism, real hope began to dawn. The old Valley dreams had always been the best ones.
What an old-skool, stylin', totally trippy way for Janna to shed her grind-it-out worklife! She and Veruschka Zipkinova would create a start-up, launch the IPO and retire by thirty! Then Janna could escape her life-draining servitude and focus on life's real rewards. Take up oil-painting, go on a safari, and hook up with some sweet guy who understood her. A guy she could really talk to. Not an engineer, and especially not a musician.
Veruschka pitchforked a glob of quiche past her pointed teeth. For her pilgrimage to the source of the world's largest legal creation of wealth in history, the Russian girl hadn't forgotten to pack her appetite.
"Pumpti still needs little bit of, what you say here, tweaking," said Veruschka. The prototype Pumpti sat shivering on its paper napkin. The thing had gone all goose-bumpy, and the bumps were warty: the warts had smaller warts upon them, topped by teensy wartlets with fine, waving hairs. Not exactly a magnet for shoppers.
Stuffed with alfalfa sprouts, Janna put her cutlery aside. Veruschka plucked up Janna's dirty fork, and enthusiastically sucked it clean. She even scratched inside her cheek with the tines.
Janna watched this dubious stunt and decided to stick to business. "How about patents?"
"No one ever inspects Russian gene labs," said Veruschka with a glittery wink. "We Russians are the great world innovators in black market wetware. Our fetal stem cell research, especially rich and good. Plenty of fetus meat in Russia, cheap and easy, all you need! Nothing ever gets patented. To patent is to teach stupid people to copy!"
"Well, do you have a local lab facility?" pressed Janna.
"I have better," said Veruschka, nuzzling her Pumpti. "I have pumptose. The super enzyme of exponential autocatalysis!"
"'Pumptose,' huh? And that means?" prompted Janna.
"It means the faster it grows, the faster it grows!"
Janna finally reached out and delicately touched the Pumpti. Its surface wasn't wet after all, just shiny like super-slick plastic. But -- a pet? It seemed more like something little boys would buy to gross-out their sisters. "It's not exactly cuddly," said Janna.
"Just wait till you have your own Pumpti," said Veruschka with a knowing smile.
"But where's the soft hair and big eyes? That thing's got all the shelf appeal of a scabby knee!"
"It's nice to nibble a scab," said Veruschka softly. She cradled her Pumpti, leaned in to sniff it, then showed her strong teeth and nipped off a bit of it.
"God, Veruschka," said Janna, putting down her coffee.
"Your own Pumpti," said Veruschka, smacking, "you are loving him like pretty new shoes. But so much closer and personal! Because Pumpti is you, and you are Pumpti."
Janna sat in wonderment. Then, deep within her soul, a magic casement opened. "Here's how we'll work it!" she exclaimed. "We give away Pumpti pets almost free. We'll make our money selling rip-off Pumpti-care products and accessories!"
Veruschka nodded, eyes shining. "If we're business partners now, can you find me a place to sleep?" Janna let Veruschka stay in the spare room at her dad's house. Inertia and lack of capital had kept Janna at home after college.
Dad's tranquil haze broke with the arrival of Veruschka, who definitely livened up the place with her go-go arsenal of fishnet tights and scoop-necked Lycra tops. With Veruschka around, the TV blared constantly and there was always an open bottle of liquor. Every night the little trio stayed up late, boozing, having schmaltzy confessions, and engaging in long, earnest sophomore discussions about the meaning of life.
Veruschka's contagious warm-heartedness and her easy acceptance of human failing was a tonic for the Gutierrez household. It took Veruschka mere days to worm out the surprising fact that Ruben Gutierrez had a stash of half a million bucks accrued from clever games with his stock options. He'd never breathed a word of this to Shirley or to Janna.
Emotionally alive for the first time in years, Dad offered his hoard of retirement cash for Veruschka's long-shot crusade. Janna followed suit by getting on the Web and selling off her entire Goob collection. When Janna's web money arrived freshly laundered, Dad bought in, and two days later, Janna finally left home, hopefully for good. Company ownership was a three-way split between Veruschka, Janna, and Janna's dad. Veruschka supplied no cash funding, because she had the intellectual property.
Janna located their Pumpti start-up in San Francisco. They engaged the services of an online lawyer, a virtual realtor, and a genomics supply house, and began to build the buzz that, somehow, was bound to bring them major-league venture capital.
Their new HQ was a gray stone structure of columns, arches, and spandrels, the stone decorated with explosive graffiti scrawls. The many defunct banks of San Francisco made spectacular dives for the city's genomics start-ups. Veruschka incorporated their business as "Magic Pumpkin, Inc.," and lined up a three-month lease.
San Francisco had weathered so many gold rushes that its real estate values had become permanently bipolar. Provisionary millionaires and drug-addled derelicts shared the very same neighborhoods, the same painted-lady Victorians, the same flophouses and anarchist bookstores. Sometimes millionaires and lunatics even roomed together. Sometimes they were the very same person.
Enthusiastic cops spewing pepper gas chased the last downmarket squatters from Janna's derelict bank. To her intense embarrassment, Janna recognized one of the squatter refugees as a former Berkeley classmate named Kelso. Kelso was sitting on the sidewalk amidst his tattered Navajo blankets and a damp-spotted cardboard box of kitchen gear. Hard to believe he'd planned to be a lawyer.
"I'm so sorry, Kelso," Janna told him, wringing her hands. "My Russian friend and I are doing this genomics start-up? I feel like such a gross, rough-shod newbie."
"Oh, you'll be part of the porridge soon enough," said Kelso. He wore a big sexy necklace of shiny junked cell-phones. "Just hang with me and get colorful. Want to jam over to the Museum of Digital Art tonight? They're serving calamari, and nobody cares if we sleep there."
Janna shyly confided a bit about her business plans.
"I bet you're gonna be bigger than Pokemon," said Kelso. "I'd always wanted to hook up with you, but I was busy with my pre-law program and then you got into that pod thing with that Korean musician. What happened to him?"
"His mother found him a wife with a dowry from Pyongyang," said Janna. "It was so lovelorn."
"I've had dreams and visions about you, Janna," said Kelso softly. "And now here you are."
"How sweet. I wish we hadn't had you evicted."
"The wheel of fortune, Janna. It never stops."
As if on cue, a delivery truck blocked the street, causing grave annoyance to the local bike messengers. Janna signed for the tight-packed contents of her new office. "Busy, busy," Janna told Kelso, now more than ready for him to go away. "Be sure and watch our web page. Pumpti dot-bio. You don't want to miss our IPO."
Janna shook her head. "That would be confidential."
"You don't have one, then." Kelso pulled his blanket over his grimy shoulders. "And boy, will you ever need one. You ever heard of Revel Pullen of the Ctenephore Industry Group?"
"Ctenephore?" Janna scoffed. "They're just the biggest piezoplastic outfit on the planet, that's all! My dad used to work for them. And so did I, now that I think about it."