“Let me introduce you to OLLI—the Original Love Language Interface. OLLI is the cutting-edge AI we’re training with the use of deep-learning techniques over an artificial neural network.” She forwarded the slide to show a ten-second video of the app and OLLI in action, narrating what they were seeing while the video played while wishing she could fast-forward through it all. “Users interact with OLLI to teach it about themselves—their communication patterns, the cadence and pitch of their voices—and once OLLI learns all of this information, it can communicate to the user, via the app, when they need to rephrase what they’re saying, how to steer the conversation back on track, etcetera.”

Dammit. There was supposed to be a joke there that she’d completely glossed over. She couldn’t even remember what it was now, to weave it in later. Oh well. Keep moving, Annika. Just deliver the pitch and get back to the hospital. She took a breath. “There’s also a component that hooks up to the user’s smartwatch and monitors their biometric data to look for spikes of anger or anxiety. But as intimidating as that might sound, as you can see, my developer and I have worked hard to ensure that the experience is both user-friendly and user-engaging. We’re working to increase the app’s scalability, which will allow users to train OLLI from the comfort of their own homes…” She advanced through the rest of the slides, keeping an eye on each of the four men.

They had to be the most stoic men in the history of stoic men. The first one, David Smith, may as well have been asleep or dead. He even sneezed without changing expression.

The second guy, Jim Hernandez, had his eyebrows raised the entire time, which Annika at first took to mean he was interested or surprised by what she was saying. It turned out his eyebrows were always like that.

The third guy, Lewis Stenton, took a lot of notes—a copious, frenetic amount. He barely looked up from his notebook, in fact. Annika wondered if he was writing a book. What a Pitch: Hilarious Tales from a Not-So-Angelic Angel Investor.

Lionel Wakefield seemed the most sympathetic. He made eye contact and even smiled at Annika encouragingly when she stopped mid-sentence for a second, losing her train of thought before continuing. But she shouldn’t have done that. She could feel the other investors taking note and docking her points.

David Smith was the first to speak, slowly and deliberately, as if he’d finally woken from his deep slumber. His voice was very baritone for someone so short and slender. “So, Ms.—” He consulted a clipboard on the table. “—Dev.” Really? He’d already forgotten her name? “You stated that you began prototyping back in September, but that you’re still not done. What’s taking so long?”