“I don’t care what the study section says!”

Vic was agitated as he paced across the lab. “The grant was solid. We have two high impact papers already!” His anger was clearly evident to his staff.

“Those were all done with internal funds,” objected Carli. She was his lab manager, and the only one who never feared his outburst.

“Which is why it’s about damn time they fund the project. We have three institutions on board, it worked perfectly in mice—“

“Genetically pure inbred mice,” interjected Carli. Vic glared at her.

“And two perfectly good outbred macaques! The pay line is nonexistent now, only 0.1% of projects are being funded, and I’ll be damned if we don’t have the definition of the state of the art.” Vic finally stopped pacing and leaned over his bench. “I don’t even know that we need further primate testing.”

Carli stepped over to him and placed her hand gently on his back. “There are other funding sources. You know you have a meeting with angel donors next week, and besides,” Carli looked over at a pair of terrified grad students, “you’re scaring the children.”

Carli’s smile could calm a charging rhino. Vic just sighed when he looked at her, and then relaxed. “Fine, let’s continue in my office. Talo, you’re coming with us.”

Talo raised an eyebrow, but followed behind the pair. As a staff scientist he was technically Carli’s senior from the university’s view, but he would never act that way in this lab. He knew better.

Talo first began working in labs by washing dishes, being one of the few students in his high school class who needed to work full time. Slowly, and with many more side jobs, interests, and ultimately dead-ends, he found his place as a man of science. His hesitance did not stem from Vic’s outbursts—he was just wary of bad bosses. 

His worst boss had been a tobacco farmer who found unique ways to torture his youth. The farmer’s favorite was taking Talo’s glasses for 'cleaning.' "You don’t need to see far to pick the tobacco at your feet," he taunted. The worst part was Talo could never prove the torment to his parents, and of course that he was blind as bat without glasses.

“Close the door,” Vic said without looking up. Talo groaned inwardly but showed no emotion. It’s going to be one of those meetings, he thought. “Talo, how is the prototype coming?” Talo excelled over all the other lab personnel in regards to machines and actually "making stuff." The ability was what ultimately caused Vic to make the position for him. 

“It’s coming along well. We learned a lot from the macaques. I’ve tweaked the chamber for better gas mixing with the isoflurane machine. With the additional oxygen line going in above their face, I think we’ll be able to keep them down for longer.” Talo always enjoyed optimizing. It didn’t matter if it was a program, protocol, or machine; he always found ways to make improvements.

This was different, however. The long string of adjustments Vic wanted to make bothered him. He didn’t understand or agree with most of them. Vic was better at theory, and probably science in general, but some of the changes seemed more likely to confound their experiments.

“Talo really did a good job with the chair as well. I thought of sneaking in there, and using it take a nap,” joked Carli. Vic gave her a deadpan look and turned to Talo, “So is it ready to hold humans yet?”

“The actual machine? Sure. I think we’ve got it down to where an adult can fit. But are we ready? Not a chance. Never mind that we haven’t submitted any protocols to the IRB, we still have problems with the software. It crashes occasionally, and we don’t know why. I’d really like a few more pairs of eyes on the code to help with debugging. After all, none of us are actually programmers.”

“You’ve built programs, including most of that one. That makes you a programmer.” Vic managed to annoy Talo with that one.

“I’ve caught fish before, does that make me a fisherman?”

Vic was impressed that Talo could deliver such sarcasm without breaking his poker face. He decided to ignore it and turned to Carli, “How much do I have left in my royalties account?”

“$93,345. Definitely not enough to run ten more monkeys through. We're going to need some outside funding.” Carli was always good with money. She could negotiate with a post and could keep track of pennies across dozens of accounts.

“That funding is completely discretionary, I could spend it all on a boat if I want to.” Carli winced a little at this. It was true that the funds were discretionary, but it would be breaking several university rules if it was spent directly for Vic’s individual gain. Noticing her reaction, Vic chuckled, “How is that any different than a pizza party? Anyway that’s not what I have in mind. I’m going to split it between the two of you, 50/50—“

“What’s the catch?” cut in Talo.

“We run the full protocol tonight. On me.”