Zomborgs, huh? Groovy.

Interesting to see this Doktor Bizarro in action. I like the idea of him being a semi-pathetic villain who ends up helping humanity by accident more than conquering it. And it is rather funny that someone so tech-saavy carries a sword and a long-out-of-date gun. He's an interesting character for sure.

Do I smell romance between MM and Charlie?

Well, this had some good ideas, but all the problems from the first chapter seemed to actually increase. A lot of the special terms were really confusing. What the hell is autistic mode? The plot itself was kind of confusing. Why did Doctor Bizarro want to turn them into zomborgs after he found out who stole his virus? Why did Doktor Bizarro follow them in the first place? When did she summon all those people to help fight him? What did they mean at the end, about the favor and the nanobugs? I liked some of the bits, like the future soviets and the Nestor Makhno types. He was anarchist though, not socialist. The characterization problems also remained. Marie Magnum and Charlie were pretty interchangeable. Bizarro was the only one who really had a unique voice, and while there was a great oppurtunity for Marie to make fun of Bizarro and defuse his bombastic brags with some hardboiled wit, she pretty much just talked to him all matter-of-fact and normal. The writing also could have used some upgrades, with the descriptions from the last story being a bit better and more comprehensive. The battle with the zomborgs was over pretty quickly, and didn't seem to present any real challenge. I was expecting a big battle with Bizarro at the end, but they just summoned help and chased him away. Kind of disapointing. Finally, there were a lot of typos, just missed letters and repeated words, but it still detracted from the overall story. I do hope you can sort these problems out before the next story, because this could be a great series, and these issues are distracting from it.

Wow, that is one seriously high-tech setting you've got going! Nanobots everywhere, downloading data to people's minds in real-time... and Ms. Magnum still insists on using a revolver. Autorevolver with caseless shells, sure, but nonetheless, it's charming. I was blown away by some of the technology on display in this chapter.

It took me a while to figure out what a fork was, and there were a couple of terms in there that I was not familiar with. I know it's a long chapter already, but a few extra notes about what exactly some of these things are might help ease newbies into the swing of it. There were some typos along the way, but nothing serious that a quick editing run couldn't finish. (For instance, I saw Charlie referred to as Chu at one point.)

I love the characters so far, and the setting is awesome. Definitely can't wait to read more!

This was pretty good, with a well-defined setting and some good characters, but it still had a fair number of flaws. First off, I think another round of editing could have helped, as I noticed a great deal of typos and word confusion. This made some of the scenes, particularly the fight in the Triad bar, difficult to follow, with a lot of pronoun confusion. Secondly, you used a great many words, acronyms and such without fully explaining them. I have some idea what a nearbaseline is, but what is a fork? Some kind of clone or something? And what exactly was the fork going to do with the gray goo or the nano replicators? Some kind of terrorist attack? I know you understand what these are, but either add some kind of glossary or put the words into a context where I can understand them. There were quite a few parts of the setting that could have used more information as well, with large lists of organizations that I just didn't understand. And why were the Triad gang allowed to carry weapons openly without police interference? The characterization was another problem, with most of the characters, especially Marie Magnum and Charlie sounding very similar. Except for Luigi and Ragnar (cool to see him here, by the way!), most of the characters' dialogue was pretty interchangeable. The writing itself was decent, and I got a pretty good picture of the city, but more could have helped. Finally, I think a good Noir voice for this story would be great. Not neccessarily first person, as Noir doesn't recquire that (The Maltese Falcon is Third Person, for instance), but I think some hardboiled metaphors, catchy, snappy dialogue with wisecracks, and the very deliberate, minmalist descriptions of fights used by Noir writers would be wonderful in this setting. Definetly read some Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler if you haven't already. Oh, and wasn't Charlie's one-liner – ‘stick around’ after stabbing a guy – a line from Predator? In any case, it was a good start, and I hope you can remove the problems and make an even better second story.