Mark Stern was the leading investment partner for the West Coast venture capital firm Private Pacific Partners. It was Stern and PPP who were providing the stacks of cash that kept Alan Smythe and OptiMarx afloat.

Smythe grimaced. He took a deep breath before he picked up the telephone and spoke. “Morning, Mark. You’re up early. It’s…what…six o’clock out there on the coast?”

“Alan, I know damn good and well what time it is,” Stern growled. “My question is, do you? We’ve shoveled over fifty million into that company of yours to date. So far, all we’ve gotten for our money are more and more delays. That excuse you have for a chief technology officer is giving us some cockamamie story about ‘ITS’ and ‘SIAC’ and ‘POPs’ and half a dozen other acronyms that make no sense to us at all. We don’t want alphabet soup, Alan, unless it’s ‘ROI.’ We want return on investment. Is that so hard to understand?”

Cheryl had stepped into the office to deposit a stack of folders on his desk. Smythe hit the MUTE button on the phone and muttered under his breath.

“Damn VCs. They have egos the size they think their dicks are and brains the size they really are.”

Cheryl waggled her finger and looked at him over the tops of her half-glasses. “Play nice,” she mouthed, then turned and left. Smythe unmuted the phone.

“Mark, calm down. We’ve just had a little delay while the SEC reviews our plan. Couple of days. No big deal. We’re still on schedule. Testing the algorithm is going well and that’s the tough part. Ustinov is doing a great job.”

“Well, maybe you oughta make Ustinov your CTO instead of that idiot Andretti,” Stern shouted into the phone.

Smythe held the phone away from his ear while the venture capitalist vented some more. He put the receiver back in place and spoke again, calling on his most soothing voice. “Mark, ease off a bit, old chap. Remember, what we are doing is revolutionary. There are going to be unexpected glitches. Carl Andretti is performing miracles every day. We need him. Now, I’ll give you a call this evening, just before I leave for the coast for the board meeting. I’ll have the latest numbers for you and an update on the progress. It’ll be good news, I promise.”

Smythe hung up with a happy “Cheerio!” He massaged the bridge of his nose. God, he hated these calls! Venture capitalists were the worst scum of the world. They had to be endured. They were the ones with the money, after all, and it took money to build empires.

Now, next on the agenda, he would have to deal with that idiot Carl Andretti. He shouted at the door, “Cheryl, get Andretti and tell him I want to see him right away.”

“Should he wear his asbestos drawers?” she shouted back.