Mad Professor (25 page)

“That pumptose is rockin' it,” said Janna, marveling at the churning rainbow oil slick.

“We going good now, girl,” said Veruschka. She opened her purse and tossed her own Pumpti into the vat. “A special bath treat for my Pumpti,” she said. Then, with a painful wince, she dug one of her long fingernails into the lining of her mouth.

“Yow,” said Janna.

“Oh, it feels so good to pop him loose,” said Veruschka indistinctly. “Look at him.”

Nestled in the palm of Veruschka's hand was a lentil-shaped little pink thing. A brand-new Pumpti. “That's your own genetics from your dirty fork at the diner,” said Veruschka. “All coated with trilobite bile, or some other decoding from your junk DNA. I grew this seedling for you.” She dropped the bean into the vat.

“This is starting to seem a little bent, Veruschka.”

“Well . . . you never smelled your own little Pumpti. Or tasted him. How could you not bite him and chew him and grow a new scrap in your mouth? The sweet little Pumpti, you just want to eat him all up!”

Soon a stippling of bumps had formed on the tiny scrap of flesh in the tank. Soft little pimples, twenty or a hundred of them. The lump cratered at the top, getting thicker all around. It formed a dent and invaginated like a sea-squirt. It began pumping itself around in circles, swimming in the murky fluids. Stubby limbs formed momentarily, then faded into an undulating skirt like the mantle of a cuttlefish.

Veruschka's old Pumpti was the size of a grapefruit, and the new one was the size of a golf ball. The two critters rooted around the tank's bottom like rats looking for a drain hole.

Veruschka rolled up her sleeve and plunged her bare arm into the big vat's slimy fluids. She held up the larger Pumpti; it was flipping around like beached fish. Veruschka brought the thing to her face and nuzzled it.

It took Janna a couple of tries to fish her own Pumpti out of the tub, as each time she touched the slimy thing she had to give a little scream and let it go. But finally she had the Pumpti in her grip. It shaped itself to her touch and took on the wet, innocent gleam of a big wad of pink bubble gum.

“Smell it,” urged Veruschka.

And, Lord yes, the Pumpti did smell good. Sweet and powdery, like clean towels after a nice hot bath, like a lawn of flowers on a summer morn, like a new dress. Janna smoothed it against her face, so smooth and soft. How could she have thought her Pumpti was gnarly?

“Now you must squeeze him to make him better,” said Veruschka, vigorously mashing her Pumpti in her hands. “Knead,
knead, knead! The Pumpti pulls skin cells from the surface of your hands, you know. Then pumptose reads more of the junk DNA and makes more good tasty proteins.” She pressed her Pumpti to her cheek, and her voice went up an octave. “Getting more of that yummy yummy wetware from me, isn't he? Squeezy-squeezy Pumpti.” She gave it a little kiss.

“This doesn't add up,” said Janna. “Let's face it, an entire human body only has like ten grams of active DNA. But this Pumpti, it's solid DNA like a chunk of rubber, and hey, it's almost half a kilo! I mean, where's
that
at?”

“The more the better,” said Veruschka patiently. “It means that very quickly Pumpti can be recombining his code. Like a self-programming Turing machine. Wiktor often spoke of this.”

“But it doesn't even look like DNA,” said Janna. “I messed with DNA every day at Triple Helix. It looks like lint or dried snot.”

“My Pumpti is smooth because he's making nice old proteins from the ancient junk of the DNA. All our human predecessors from the beginning of time, amphibians, lemurs, maybe intelligent jellyfish saucers from Mars—who knows what. But every bit is my very own junk, of my very own DNA. So stop thinking so hard, Janna. Love your Pumpti.”

Janna struggled not to kiss her pink glob. The traceries of pink and yellow lines beneath its skin were like the veins of fine marble.

“Your Pumpti is very fine,” said Veruschka, reaching for it. “Now, into the freezer with him! We will store him, to show our financial backers.”

“What!” said Janna. She felt a sliver of ice in her heart. “Freeze my Pumpti? Freeze your
own
Pumpti, Vero.”

“I need mine,” snapped Veruschka.

To part from her Pumpti—something within her passionately rebelled. In a dizzying moment of raw devotion, Janna suddenly found herself sinking her teeth into the unresisting flesh of the Pumpti. Crisp, tasty spun cotton candy, deep-fried puffball dough, a sugared beignet. And under that a salty, slightly painful flavor — bringing back the memory of being a kid and sucking the root of a lost tooth.

“Now you understand,” said Veruschka with a throaty laugh. “I was only testing you! You can keep your sweet Pumpti, safe and sound. We'll get some dirty street bum to make us a Pumpti for commercial samples. Like that stupid boy you were talking to before.” Veruschka stood on tiptoe to peer out of the bank's bronze-mullioned window. “He'll be back. Men always come back when they see you making money.”

Janna considered this wise assessment. “His name is Kelso,” said Janna. “I went to Berkeley with him. He says he's always wanted me. But he never talked to me at school.”

“Get some of his body fluid.”

“I'm not ready for that,” said Janna. “Let's just poke around in the sink for his traces.” And, indeed, they quickly found a fresh hair to seed a Kelso Pumpti, nasty and testicular, suitable for freezing.

As Veruschka had predicted, Kelso himself returned before long. He made it his business to volunteer his aid and legal counsel. He even claimed that he'd broached the subject of Magic Pumpkin to Tug Mesoglea himself. However, the mysterious mogul failed to show up with his checkbook, so Magic Pumpkin took the path of viral marketing.

Veruschka had tracked down an offshore Chinese ooze farm to supply cheap culture medium. In a week, they had a few dozen Pumpti starter kits for sale. They came in a little plastic
tub of pumptose-laced nutrient, all boxed up in a flashy little design that Janna had printed out in color.

Kelso had the kind of slit-eyed street smarts that came only from Berkeley law classes. He chose Fisherman's Wharf to hawk the product. Janna went along to supervise his retail effort.

It was the start of October, a perfect fog-free day. A song of joy seemed to rise from the sparkling waters of San Francisco Bay, echoing from the sapphire dome of the California sky. Even the tourists could sense the sweetness of the occasion. They hustled cheerfully round Kelso's fold-out table, clicking away with little biochip cameras.

Kelso spun a practiced line of patter while Janna publicly adored her Pumpti. She'd decked out Pumpti in a special sailor suit, and she kept tossing him high into the air and laughing.

“Why is this woman so happy?” barked Kelso. “She's got a Pumpti. Better than a baby, better than a pet, your Pumpti is all you! Starter kits on special today for the unbelievably low price of—”

Over the course of a long morning, Kelso kept cutting the offering price of the Pumpti kits. Finally a runny-nosed little girl from Olympia, Washington, took the bait.

“How do I make one?” she wanted to know. “What choo got in that kit?” And, praise the Holy Molecule, her parents didn't drag her away; they just stood there watching their little darling shop.

The First Sale. For Janna, it was a moment to treasure forever. The little girl with her fine brown hair blowing in the warm afternoon wind, the dazedly smiling parents, Kelso's abrupt excited gestures as he explained how to seed and grow the Pumpti by planting a kiss on a scrap of Kleenex and dropping the scrap into the kit's plastic jar. The feel of those worn dollar
bills in her hand, and the parting wave of little Customer Number One. Ah, the romance of it!

Now that they'd found their price point, more sales followed. Soon, thanks to word-of-mouth, they began moving units from their Web site as well.

But now Janna's Dad Ruben, who had a legalistic turn of mind, warned them to hold off on shipments until they had federal approval. Ruben took a sample Pumpti before the San Jose branch office of the Genomics Control Board. He argued that since the Pumptis were neither self-reproducing nor infectious they didn't fall under the Human Heritage provisions of the Homeland Security Act.

The hearings investigation made the Bay Area news shows, especially after the right-wing religious crowd got in on the story. An evangelist from Alameda appeared on San Jose Federal Building's steps, and after an impassioned speech he tore a Pumpti apart with pincers, calling the unresisting little glob the “spawn of Satan.” He'd confiscated the poor Pumpti from a young parishioner, who could be seen sobbing at the edge of the screen.

In a few days the Genomics Control Board came through with their blessing. The Pumptis were deemed harmless, placed in the same schedule category as home gene-testing kits. Magic Pumpkin was free to ship throughout the nation! Magic Pumpkin's Web site gathered a bouquet of orders from eager early adopters.

+   +   +

Kelso's art-scene friends were happy to sign up to work for Magic Pumpkin. Buoyed by the chance of worldly success,
Kelso began to shave more often and even use deodorant. But he was so excited about business that he forgot to make passes at Janna.

Every day-jobber in the start-up was issued his or her own free Pumpti. “Magic Pumpkin wants missionaries, not mercenaries,” Janna announced from on high, and her growing cluster of troops cheered her on. Owning a personal Pumpti was an item of faith in the little company—the linchpin of their corporate culture. You couldn't place yourself in the proper frame of mind for Magic Pumpkin product development without your very own darling roly-poly.

Cynics had claimed that the male demographic would never go for Pumptis. Why would any guy sacrifice his computer gaming time and his weekend bicycling to nurture something? But once
presented
with their own Pumpti, men found that it filled some deep need in the masculine soul. They swelled up with competitive pride in their Pumptis, and even became quite violent in their defense.

Janna lined up a comprehensive array of related products. First and foremost were costumes. Sailor Pumpti, Baby Pumpti, Pumpti Duckling, Angel Pumpti, Devil Pumpti, and even a Goth Pumpti dress-up kit with press-on tattoos. They shrugged off production to Filipina doll clothes makers in a sweatshop in East L.A.

Further up-market came a Pumpti Backpack for transporting your Pumpti in style, protecting it from urban pollution and possibly nasty bacteria. This one seemed like a sure hit, if they could swing the Chinese labor in Shenzhen and Guangdong.

The third idea, Pumpti Energy Crackers, was a no-brainer: crisp collectible cards of munchable amino acid bases to fatten up your Pumpti. If the crackers used the “mechanically recovered
meat” common in pet food and cattle feed, then the profit margin would be primo. Kelso had a contact for this in Mexico: they guaranteed their cookies would come crisply printed with the Pumpti name and logo.

Janna's fourth concept was downright metaphysical: a “Psychic Powers Pumpti Training Wand.” Except for occasional oozing and plopping, the Pumptis never actually managed conventional pet tricks. But this crystal-topped gizmo could be hawked to the credulous as increasing their Pumpti's “empathy” or “telepathy.” A trial mention of this vaporware on the Pumpti-dot-bio Web site brought in a torrent of excited New Age e-mails.

The final, sure-thing Pumpti accessory was tie-in books. Two of Kelso's many unemployed writer and paralegal friends set to work on the Pumpti User's Guide. The firm forecasted an entire
library
of guides, sucking up shelf space at chain stores and pet stores everywhere.
The Moron's Guide to Computational Genomics. Pumpti Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts. The Three-Week Pumpti Guide, the One-Day Pumpti Guide,
and the
Ten-Minute Pumpti Guide. Pumpti Security Threats: How to Protect Tour Pumpti from Viral DNA Hacks, Trojan Goo, and Strange Genes.
And more, more, more!

Paradoxically, Magic Pumpkin's flowering sales bore the slimy seeds of a smashing fiscal disaster. When an outfit started small, it didn't take much traffic to double demand every week. This constant doubling brought on raging production bottle-necks and serious crimps in their cash flow. In point of fact, in pursuit of market establishment, they were losing money on each Pumpti sold. And the big payback from the Pumpti accessories wasn't happening.

Janna had never quite realized that manufacturing real, physical products was so much harder than just thinking them up.
Magic Pumpkin failed to do its own quality control, so the company was constantly screwed by fly-by-nighters. Subcontractors were happy to take their money, but when they failed to deliver, they had Magic Pumpkin over a barrel.

The doll costumes were badly sized. The Pumpti Backpacks were ancient Hello Kitty backpacks with their logos covered by cheap paper Pumpti stickers. The crackers were dog biscuits with the stinging misprint “Pupti.” The “telepathic” wand sold some units, but the people buying it tended to write bad checks. As for the User's Guides, the manuscripts were rambling and self-indulgent, long on far-fetched jokes yet critically short on objective facts.

Day by day, Janna stomped the problems out. And now that their production lines were stabilized, now that their accessories catalog was properly weeded out, now that their ad campaign was finally in gear, their fifteen minutes of ballroom glamour expired. The pumpkin clock struck midnight. The public revealed its single most predictable trait: fickleness.