"No National Science Foundation for you guys," mused Janna.
"Wiktor was supposed to tweak a cabbage plant to make opium for the criminals -- but we were both so busy growing our dear Pumpti. Wiktor used my DNA, you see. I was smart and saved the data before the Uzbeks smashed up our lab. Now I'm over here with you, Janna, and we will start a great industry of personal pets! Wiktor's hero fate was not in vain. And--"
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