Technical aspects: Everything was fine for the most part. There were some missing words and use of present tense instead of past tense, but these were easy to identify. There was one exception: in conjecture, it's more appropriate to use past tense. Specifically, "As it is, none of the people inside the safehouse would notice anyone sneak out of the yard and make a break for it before they find the bodies." should've been "As it were..." Maybe a sentence or two could've been reworded. "Right at the moment the goon turned towards him..." might be better phrased as "Just as the goon was about to turn his way, there was a sudden shout that made him turn the other way.", or something like that. Plot and characterization: Just some random thoughts... At first I thought the night-time aspect of the scene was a mistake, then I found the bit in Scene 3 that clearly specified the breakin was taking place at nice. It just goes to show how easy it is to miss things like this. Note on the goons getting "whacked": there's a difference between them actually being dead, and someone coming upon them and panicking, thinking they are dead. I'm fairly sure at least one of them is alive, and I wanted to point out the difference between the two interpretations. The bit where Tanner mistakes the attack on the goons as being mob-related was hilarious- a good example of a minor third party (Drake) causing potentially big trouble between two major ones. The driving scene with Jarhead and Drake on the way back is good- it captures the buddy-buddy relationship between them, with the mouthiness that comes from familiarity. There was one thing that caught my eye: the way Jarhead uses "dude"- it made me think of Bill and Ted. At first I thought it was poor characterization, but after some thought, I realized there wasn't an actual restriction on the way he talks. All we know about him is that he's an ex-Marine who works at a bar. I deliberately left the setting of the story open-ended; It could be one of those weird cultural fusions like Steam Detectives. And I also remembered that there was a reference to computers in Chapter 2- so the word "dude" might not be out of place. This brings up an important point- there are two ways to establish the setting and general culture of a story. One is to set things in stone- give a date, show technology in use that pins down the time period, even lay out in the author's notes "This is how things work." The other way is to rely on shared knowledge, which is kind of tricky, and puts more of a burden on the reader and on other writers. So, if it becomes absolutely essential for the story to have some flavor (like 1920's Chicago), the best thing to do is to capture that flavor with descriptions, with mannerisms. One final note: Jarhead used the phrase "mass destruction", which doesn't really fit in anywhere, except among Improfanfic regulars. Hope this review was worth something. NeoPuu neopuu@sandwich.net M.E.T.A. 1, Scene 6 Review http://www.chaoseed.com/btr/meta/ 4/16/00