So now we finally see some of that tomboy you mentioned in the first chapter. Nice, even if the mental image you conjoured was a tad on the gross side (which really speaks of your skill in description to be able to conjour an image of your scene so quickly).

Terrace’s imcompetence was well explored, but I think Helena’s being a little immature about the whole matter. As a member of the workforce, particularly one in an important position like hers, she should have a more appropriate and controlled manner for approaching such situations.

[By Terrance, of anybody, it has to be him.] – to be honest, that sentence doesn’t make any structural sense to me.

[So, I first retell all the contents of chapter 2 to Terrance,] – this is present tense, so nothing in it suggests that she should be referring back to “chapters”. Past tense, then yes. That’s fine. But present assumes that she’s in the midst of the action while narrating or directly after (not far enough to be called past) and its not exactly feasible for her to write it all down in a journal or a notebook, particularly as she’s so busy. Just say she retells the discussion or something like that. I’d also recommend not using up that much space to literally spell out the flashback – chapter 2 isn’t too far away from chapter 3 and you’d expect a good deal of your readers to read them subsequently, or go back if you go too long without updates. That just takes up unnecessary space and gives people the urge to skim.

Interesting ending; not as brilliant as the one in chapter two but a definite increase to the one in chapter one. Terrace is an interesting character too; I’m afraid I still have my doubts about this system though so Helena’s not what I would consider a reliable narrator. That might be intentional though; either way, I’m looking forward to seeing more of this.

Ooh, monocyte isolation. Now that’s more towards what I’m familiar with.

[I say to Terrance with an impatient hint in my voice.] – I’m curious to know why you chose to phrase it like that, as most people would write: “I say to Terrance, a hint of impatience…” or something similar. It’s not incorrect or anything; it’s simply unusual…which could be an advantage or disadvantage depending on how you intend to utilise that.

There something looser, less constrained about Helena’s narration this chapter as opposed to the last. I think that’s a little too quick and somewhat rough if we’re talking about a development of character; it’s better to ease her in.

[maybe I should've applied to be a prof; that way, I'd get to hear this everyday.] – lol, not in our university. We call them by their first names. Makes them less intimidating. Well, except when I started but I /was/ seventeen. I wonder if it’s the same in this context or if university is a more formal workplace than a research lab though; I would think it’s the other way around, which then makes this wistful thinking. If it is, you’ve got the tone right but for some reason that wasn’t what originally occurred to me.

I have to wonder if all that detail about the characters and the setting is really necessary relative to this. It’s interesting to note their specialties and all, but as this is an introductory scene I feel it’s a tad of an info-dump. Fascinating, but I think it might be more appropriate if you split it and put it where that information becomes a little more relevant…if it does. Or perhaps cut it down a little; while this may have a specified audience fictionpress is rather wider and this seems like it would be mind-boggling for a lot of possible readers from this site.

[It tastes so good, rich with cream yet not sickeningly sweet; just enough to dim down the bitterness and enrich the flavour.] – I don’t think that’s the right semi-colon usage; the second phrase won’t stand on its own.

Again, there are bits of your dialogue which I think would work better when split with speaker tags as opposed to speaker tags being at the end. As a rule of thumb, I find speaker tags far less effective when they come at the end of dialogue with more than one significant sentence involved because they start reading rather oddly.

Nice writing of Joanne and Helena; they make a good combination of newbie trying to impress superior and awkward superior who’s never had anyone under them before.

[after taste] – should that be hyphenated? I’m afraid I’m not sure.

[Just what's wrong with the protocol] – I think this would make a whole lot more sense with “what is” as opposed to “what’s” – that sounds like an uncolloquial question, which doesn’t seem appropriate in the context it’s in.

[pipet] – another Aust. Vs US spelling? It’s spelt pipette in Australia; I’m writing a lab report right now actually, but that’s going off topic. These weird spelling differences always get me though…

Anyway, nice play with the panic and making mistakes and stuff. Ironic how our demonstrator forgot to tell us to wear gloves when we did the blood typing experiment and only realised when six out of eight people were finished. :) Luckily no-one spilt anything.

Hmm…our pipettes look different too. But I suppose a second year microbiology lab wouldn’t be as high tech as a research institute.

Nice ending this time. A good mix of ignorance, panic and exasperation.

Sorry for taking so long with my reviews. Exams are coming up so RL’s been hectic.

You’re opening’s quite interestingly worded; it immediately gives a science-fiction feel by using the words “fluorescent” (BTW are there two spellings to that because your spelling also works on my spellcheck but this is the one in my lecture notes) and “biosafety” – blatantly more obvious with the prefix “bio” involved. I find fluorescent a little odd in the context though; I would think sterile would be a more appropriate description, considering fluorescence is used as an indicator of sorts in microbiology and I can’t imagine it as being a large-scale light source as you seem to imply. Although it could also be a lamp or something, but I think if that is the case you should clarify in that first sentence, because the wording is a tad ambiguous in that regard.

Our latex gloves are a bright blue. Go figure.

[it is so quiet that it is almost disturbing, especially when I'm] – I think perhaps keep that consistent, ie. use “It’s” instead of it is or “I am” instead of “I’m”. The formal and informal tense plays a much larger role in first person narrative as it talks about the character. I think in this setting the formal one (without contractions) is more effective.

[t's bad enough that their tongues sometimes fall out of their gaping mouths, and there is always poop dangling from their butts; if a mouse starts moving when I'm cutting it open, that would be the official end of my days as a scientist.] – this so takes me back to first year biology. Admittedly it was blood on the nose more than anything, but the first bit is a nice reminder to execution and how the earlier scientists used to conduct their research. I also think you’ve caught the ethics of animal experimentation quite nicely; you’ve got a really nice balance going here.

[was really cool.] – that’s a little informal compared to the majority of your narration. I see what you’re going for, but I think it loses a tad of effectiveness when the voice falls out.

Gramps for a woman. Nicely orchestrated. Speaking of dialogue, I like the gender and work hierarchy that worked its way into that little snippet of conversation. Clever.

{Have you ever heard of a biotech company hiring a zero-experience Bachelor of Science as its new head of R&D?} – I wish. Then that would be my career sorted after graduation. But that doesn’t speak particularly well about the institute…which also makes me wonder what sort of person this “Helena” is beyond a scientist. Well, until I got to the bit of him being the President’s son, which brought a different hierarchy to light.

["make mice breathe fire"] – you haven’t read the Dragonkeeper trilogy have you?

[I'm still the lone member of this mission at the moment, after Terrance forced the former team to quit their jobs.] – I think a dash would be more effective than a comma.

["Oh, Helena. Why are you here?" a voice speaks from the front of the room, quieting everybody down.] – personally, I think putting the speaker tag between the two fragments of dialogue would be more effective than having it at the end of the second “sentence”.

[There are two main components to factors that generate phi radiation; contributory or con-factors, and identification or id-factors.] – I think that should be a colon.

The depth of information here shows a deeper level of understanding than surface research, another thing that makes me think you might be at the very least studying in a similar field? My major’s in pharmacology so I’ve got only first year physics to complement my knowledge of radiation, but there’s enough biochemistry involved to allow me to understand generally anyway. I have to wonder though if that level of depth in the explanation while showing great specificity in detail, is not restricting the group this fic is aimed to?

Somehow, the ending didn’t seem appropriate for a business meeting; it comes out a little too informal and multi-directional, particularly as the story is from a first person narrative and the first chapter doesn’t really conclude her narration, instead ending somewhat open-endedly. It would have been a good opportunity to tie up the ending with Helena…unless you’ve chosen to have her reflect in the next chapter.

(artist-author trade 3 of 5) I like Helena interactions with everyone n this chapter .. .they are hillarous. The way that she overeacts or unreacts to the situation helps this. i disliked how you said chapter 2 before the flashback...it seemed like breaking the fourth wall. I believe you should have said earlier today...UPDATE SOON!

(Artist-author trade 2 of 5) I like Joanne's character. She gives me some good laughs since she looks so experienced but is very inexperienced. I also liked how Helena explained everything to Joanne especially eurkaryotic, this is a fun read.

(Artist-author trade 1 of 5) I like the science at the end, it was fun watching the two female chracters fight over it. The thing I dislike though was the detail in the beginning. It seemed way too much for the first chapter... because in my opinion the details bored me. Still a great story.

I feel kinda sorry about Joanne, getting stuck in the middle of all this when she just wanted to be a secretary. Though, after seeing the second part where she's helping Helena, I can't blame Helena for getting pissed that she's given some type of inexperienced person to help as her aid. I understand Terrance's argument about how you can't teach good work ethics (and I thought it was a nice touch to have him say that because it makes his character seem like not just some ignorant goof), but I don't think you can really teach this kinda stuff to someone who's never stepped into a lab before. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that you did a great job (for me) with helping me relate to Helen's frustration so I can relate to her character itself a lot more as well. And you also helped me relate to Joann, because I'd be right along with her blundering around trying to figure all this stuff out.

I thought the ending was interesting in how Terrance suddenly brings up the whole 'flirting' thing, like he thinks Helena is attracted to him somehow. And I'm now wondering if she really is, and if their arguing is like some type of spat that married couples normally have, haha. The way he plays with her - I think Terrance really is smarter than he lets himself off to be, and I enjoyed the quip about how he had better marks than she did for four years in a row. I have a feeling he just likes watching her squirm.

I admit I did have a hard time getting through all the science stuff, but that's to be expected for someone like me who doesn't really know a whole lot about science.

I also felt their conversation was running 'in circles' like Helena said, and it was starting to get a little boring for me since not much else was happening... but again, I'm easily bored when there isn't some type of action going on, so that could just me be. I thought the break of the second section helped speed the pace up a lot, and the end of their conversation after the flashback was great, but the beginning started making me a little bit bored. Also, the third section had a few lines of dialogue one right after the other where there were no speaker tags present and I wasn't sure who was speaking until I got to the next line, so you might want to add in a few 'he says' and 'I say' just to make it so the reader doesn't have to back-track - but again, I'm not sure if that was just me or not.

Overall I was really entertained by this, and I can't wait to see Helena and Terrance working together. Thanks for the read!

Okay, you totally have creative license over this, but I personally feel like you would benefit a lot from making your chapters shorter in length just because it can be extremely tempting for a reader to skim through such long chapters.

[Can I let my fork "slip" now?/ "You are so going to die, Terrance."] While I appreciate Helena's humor, occasionally, like here, I feel like she's too immature for her age. I know Helena is "well past thirty" but she narrates like a teenager. Maybe I'm stereotyping scientists, but while I'm sure they can be fun, young at heart people, there's an aspect of maturity that I feel like Helena lacks in her thought processes sometimes, like here.

I quite enjoy the twist that Joanne has 0 experience as a lab technician, and I think Helena's reaction is great! Character wise, I'm glad that Helena is consistent with her quips. They are quite clever.

Merle

[He probably catches me glaring at him from his open doorway, as he gestures for me to come inside] Writing present tense is tricky for situations like this. But this sentence read awkwardly because there's the obvious fact that he caught Helena glaring at him before he gestured to her. I think that the better way to phrase this is "he has probably caught me…" so you avoid going to the past tense and the timing issue.

[At the assonance between "Shirley" and "surely"?] Haveta say, Helena has a rather geeky sense of humor that makes her unique and fun to read about!

I love the quirky little details of this story, like the fact that no one knows Kris Tang's gender. I think it added to the richness of Helena's narrative as a whole.

Hi from the RG!

To start, I immediately liked Helena as the narrator. I love her wry sense of humor, and I think her perspective as an older, once idealistic but now more world weary scientist definitely made for an enjoyable read. My mother used to work as a researcher in a university, so I can definitely understand lab drama, especially with regards to addressing people by their proper titles.

I'm not a big fan of your dialogue. At times, I feel like it gets unnecessarily wordy. Certainly, people could talk a lot, but they just as often use three word responses, which is something I don't remember seeing in your dialogue. Also, although I'm sure science plays a big role in given the setting in your story, I wonder if it's possible to condense some of the talk (though explain the basic meaning of it) because things like factor complex membranes might just go over the heads of your average reader that explaining them in depth might only make them more confuzzled.

Merle

I don't think I've ever come across a story online or offline that has had this much detail pertaining to science, and so far from anything I can even begin to understand, XD. I mean, I guess my biggest question is, "who are you writing for?", because it isn't me-so I'm going to assume it's people who are in a very specialized group of science that get this more than I do. I don't dislike it because of that, I just find it kind of fascinating that it's so unique and unlike the regular stuff that I usually read!

I liked the dialogue between Terrence and Helena at the beginning of this chapter because I thought it was playful and enough to keep the attention going and kind of constitute as a type of "action" for a story that doesn't have a ton of it. The characterization of both characters was detailed further in a fun banter that I enjoyed reading.

Because of the dialogue, this chapter went a lot faster for me as far as pacing, which was great because I felt like the last one was pretty dense. I liked your focus on the banter with Terrance because I think it also sticks true to your title, haha. And poor Joanne, I was feeling bad for her last chapter but even worse for her here at the beginning with the termination letter. I like that she's thrown into the mix though. I'm still undecided about liking Helena, though, but I do know I love her sarcasm and narrative voice!

We round the IP officer's desk... - I didn't like this paragraph because there was so much going on in it as far as "telling". It has admittedly been awhile since I reviewed the first chapter of this story, so I found myself really struggling to keep up here. I also have zero idea what some of the more technical stuff is about and I got a bit lost with the social stuff mixed in with the kind of specializations each of the people do. It was a rough paragraph for me, but for someone who is more familiar with lab research and the actual subjects that these characters deal with, it's probably not that bad, haha.

So this chapter/story has the same problem that your other one did as far as numbering goes. At the beginning of the chapter you don't spell out the number 9, but later on you spell out "thirty"-remember to stay consistent. Either you never spell out your numbers (usually this is chosen by poets etc. for aesthetic reasons), or you spell them out (more common for prose work and longer narratives).

One big thing I noticed was this:

While I immerse myself in this internal monologue, buttoning up my lab coat, the intelligent Joanne fishes out a clean lab coat from the rack and puts it on before I had the chance to even suggest this. I'm seriously amazed at her efficiency, but maybe I can give her skills a little further test…

-Is this story in present tense or past tense? You use "While I immerse", but then you say, "before I had the chance"-"had" should be "have". This happens a lot. It's just kind of dotted here and there throughout the narrative where there are some awkward slips into past tense, and a lot of the time I don't notice until I double-back to read it.

-A minute later- - Did not like this, I thought it was a cheap way to just say "After a few minutes", which you could have easily worked into the narrative in the below paragraph.

I feel like...these chapters are just too long. Like...they wouldn't be if this was published, of course, but for FP, when the average reader isn't going to know anything about the science of it, the mudane-ness can only go on so far before it starts getting unbearably boring. I feel like, though, this is a goal for you-to kind of parody (although it's very subtle) the more mundane lab work that actually happens, instead of showing it like a CSI situation where there's instant results and all this action. And you're doing that really well, I understand it as a realistic portrayal, and I like how you've added in the humor, but I'm only about half way through and I feel like I've had enough-and that I also understand what you're doing.

BUT, then again, I'm not the intended audience for this, lol. I'm a creative writing English student-so this kind of thing is the EXACT opposite of what I do on a daily basis. All of the science is lost on me, so perhaps my suggestion/opinion about the length is also just a reflection of a reader who really shouldn't be reading this because I can't fully appreciate all the parodies you are including.

"Anyways, following our..." - at this point in the story I was really really really tempted to just skip this entire paragraph. I feel like I wouldn't lose anything...I read it-and I didn't get it...so, lol, could have been skipped for me. But yeah I just thought I'd point that out-again though, not the intended audience BUT you definitely are getting your point across if you're portraying the lab work in a more realistic hard-boiled way, if that is the goal, you are excelling at it.

Also I think I got so caught up in the technical stuff that I missed some of the characterizations. That being said, I really do like your narrative voice and everything-it works well and I think doing a conversational tone makes it more accessible to more readers. The little sarcastic remarks were wonderful, never get rid of that!

I loved this. The first reason this story was awesome was because it was so evident that you know your field. I love reading a book and feeling smarter afterwards. I'm not saying a grasped everything, but I caught enough to understand that the science wasn't make-believe or imitation jargon. Secondly, I love the macabre description of the procedures in the opening two paragraphs. The dry imagery coupled with the occasional morbid reflections of the narrator made it perfect.

Interesting character with Helena! I find this chapter to have increased a bit in its level of true interaction, whereas the last one was largely pushed on by description.

This is for the review game...

The only reason I decided to get my PhD in the first place was because I thought being called "Dr. McBride" was really cool. Stupid reason I know-

That was a genuinely funny line that hooked me right in. Obviously the people involved here are of the comical sort that, at the same time, you have to look at through the veil of seriousness.

Somehow, however, I didn't find myself laughing too hard, instead conjuring chuckles at various points aside from the above line. Again, this is almost certainly due to the scientific nature of the setting. Nothing is freaking funny about science. I say, this shot is close to being a parody of that fact.

That might be what drew me in, however. As I come back to the end, I finally admit that I do get a decent picture of what's going on here. The only thing I'd say is that, at times, the description cuts into the humour. Otherwise, the quasi-science lingo is easily a turn-on for anyone interested.

Like me.