Hmm, it's the five-year anniversary of this post and I'd be curious to hear an update from you. It seems, from my perspective, that you've not found any more time even after changing the rules and that even the month-long prompt is problematic most months. How do you feel? :)
A science experiment The laboratory was so quiet that if you'd dropped a pin one of the students would have looked up from their alembics and glassware and frowned at you, holding a shushing finger in front of their lips. There were eight of them in total, all at individual wooden work-benches that showed the use of generations of classes: burn marks, places where acids and alkalis had etched the wood away, odd colours where reagents had been spilled and not wiped up in time, and in one case a small, fist-size hole that none of the lecturers would talk about. Each student was wearing the regulation white lab coat and heavy plastic goggles, and each student had an array of glassware in front of them that started from the left and stretched to the right and towered in the middle and looked like a roller-coaster ride for lab-rats. "You've had ninety minutes," said a calm, dispassionate voice. This was from a man who was wearing a much nicer, more expensive looking lab-coat, that was pristine white and had none of the stains and spills that the students's had; Proctor Ncuti. "Distilation should be starting in ten minutes." There were at least two sharp indrawings of breath and a tiny clink as Mabel on Desk 6 set a bottle of perchloric acid down a little harder than needed. The students at Desk 1 and 5 started looking a little frantic, and the student at Desk 3 looked near to tears, but otherwise not much changed in the room. Proctor Ncuti looked around carefully, and then signalled to a young woman sat at the side of the room. She looked up, brushing orange hair out of her eyes. "You have the room for--" he checked his watch, a heavy Philippe Patek on his left wrist, "--two minutes, Miss Daniels." Proctor Ncuti went through a narrow but tall door marked "Equipment only" and when the door closed behind him tapped on the plain wall beside him. It would have surprised every student in the lab to see the entire wall swing inwards like another door and a second white-coated man appear there. Behind him was a room laid out like an office, with a large viewing window that was clearly one-way since the other side of it was the lab. "I think we'll get two positives out of this," said Ncuti to the man who'd opened the secret door. "Desks 4 and 7 are looking strong." "We'll see," said the other man, frowning. "They've handled your announcements well so far, but they're about to reach the stage where they realise the reaction can't possibly work under the conditions we've given them. I think it's fifty-fifty whether they'll have the courage to challenge you." Ncuti frowned. "I think they will," he said. "But I can say something if you think it will help?" "No," said the other man. "It's not a proper experiment if we change the conditions half-way through." "If they don't speak up we'll have another class of dead students though," said Ncuti. "I wish this experiment were... less expensive."
Greg - yeah, it's going about as trash as it seems. It's just too easy to put off responding to comments and the backlog feels like it grows exponentially, not one day at a time. The yearlong prompt is really the only thing keeping me on task, knowing I need to respond to the previous one before posting the next.
I honestly have no idea what a proper solution is, but I have a sneaking suspicion it involves discipline and more structure on my end.
This is delightfully well done and I hope that we get to find out the results of this deadly little experiment. You've crafted some interesting characters that I would be pleased to learn more about and explore this setting further.
2 comments:
Hmm, it's the five-year anniversary of this post and I'd be curious to hear an update from you. It seems, from my perspective, that you've not found any more time even after changing the rules and that even the month-long prompt is problematic most months. How do you feel? :)
A science experiment
The laboratory was so quiet that if you'd dropped a pin one of the students would have looked up from their alembics and glassware and frowned at you, holding a shushing finger in front of their lips. There were eight of them in total, all at individual wooden work-benches that showed the use of generations of classes: burn marks, places where acids and alkalis had etched the wood away, odd colours where reagents had been spilled and not wiped up in time, and in one case a small, fist-size hole that none of the lecturers would talk about. Each student was wearing the regulation white lab coat and heavy plastic goggles, and each student had an array of glassware in front of them that started from the left and stretched to the right and towered in the middle and looked like a roller-coaster ride for lab-rats.
"You've had ninety minutes," said a calm, dispassionate voice. This was from a man who was wearing a much nicer, more expensive looking lab-coat, that was pristine white and had none of the stains and spills that the students's had; Proctor Ncuti. "Distilation should be starting in ten minutes."
There were at least two sharp indrawings of breath and a tiny clink as Mabel on Desk 6 set a bottle of perchloric acid down a little harder than needed. The students at Desk 1 and 5 started looking a little frantic, and the student at Desk 3 looked near to tears, but otherwise not much changed in the room. Proctor Ncuti looked around carefully, and then signalled to a young woman sat at the side of the room. She looked up, brushing orange hair out of her eyes.
"You have the room for--" he checked his watch, a heavy Philippe Patek on his left wrist, "--two minutes, Miss Daniels."
Proctor Ncuti went through a narrow but tall door marked "Equipment only" and when the door closed behind him tapped on the plain wall beside him. It would have surprised every student in the lab to see the entire wall swing inwards like another door and a second white-coated man appear there. Behind him was a room laid out like an office, with a large viewing window that was clearly one-way since the other side of it was the lab.
"I think we'll get two positives out of this," said Ncuti to the man who'd opened the secret door. "Desks 4 and 7 are looking strong."
"We'll see," said the other man, frowning. "They've handled your announcements well so far, but they're about to reach the stage where they realise the reaction can't possibly work under the conditions we've given them. I think it's fifty-fifty whether they'll have the courage to challenge you."
Ncuti frowned. "I think they will," he said. "But I can say something if you think it will help?"
"No," said the other man. "It's not a proper experiment if we change the conditions half-way through."
"If they don't speak up we'll have another class of dead students though," said Ncuti. "I wish this experiment were... less expensive."
Greg - yeah, it's going about as trash as it seems. It's just too easy to put off responding to comments and the backlog feels like it grows exponentially, not one day at a time. The yearlong prompt is really the only thing keeping me on task, knowing I need to respond to the previous one before posting the next.
I honestly have no idea what a proper solution is, but I have a sneaking suspicion it involves discipline and more structure on my end.
This is delightfully well done and I hope that we get to find out the results of this deadly little experiment. You've crafted some interesting characters that I would be pleased to learn more about and explore this setting further.
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