Dr. Elliot Keller walked into the office of Dr. Gregory Jones.  Dr. Jones looked up and him and smiled.

"Those the results from the last experiment?"  He asked.

"Yep."  Elliot said, setting them down on the Doctor's desk.  The doctor looked back at him, his expression changing from a smile to one of annoyance.

"Would you care to tell me how it went?"  He asked.

Elliot sighed inwardly.  He had a lot to do still today, and he knew that the doctor wasn't one for quick explanations.  Still, he at least had to try now.

"It worked.  Not just worked, but went well beyond our expectations."

"How so?"  The doctor asked, picking up the folder that contained the results and opened it.  He scanned the summary page quickly.  Very quickly, in fact.

"I see."  He said.  "So, that new cocktail combination seems to be the trick to it.  Will it be usable in the field?"

"You mean the military side of it?"

"Yes."  The doctor said.  "It seems that we've established that in a medical setting this works very well.  What about in less, well, 'ideal' circumstances?"

"Obviously we need to run more tests to see for sure, but it seems very promising.  The cocktail seems to be what we were looking for.  Each of the individual chemicals are ones that can be safely stored, shipped and used in all but the most extreme conditions.  Now, the only issue is that the cocktail needs to be mixed and used within forty-eight hours of mixing, but that is hardly a serious issue.  Even the mixing can be done easily.  I think we've finally got it."

"Very good!"  The doctor said, his annoyance gone.  "What about the other experiment?"

"The new, more advanced device?"  Elliot asked.

"Yes."

"It was successful.  But, Nurse Rogers did say that she didn't feel it was rugged enough for military use.  At least not yet."

"She's undoubtedly right then."  The doctor said, frowning at that.  "She would absolutely know."

"Yes, sir, she would."  Elliot said.  Nurse Harriet Rogers just two years ago was a lieutenant colonel, and a head nurse for a field hospital.  "She also said, though, said that it was ready for testing outside of the lab.  How did she put it, that it was ready for range trials."

"Of course she did."  Doctor Jones laughed.  "Well, we'll see what they say.  We have some high-ranking officers coming here in a few weeks.  Hopefully we can impress them then."

"That reminds me," Dr. Jones said.  "I already talked to the administrators about this, and they approved it pending the results of these two tests.  We've finally gotten to live human trials."

"Oh, wow, that's good!"  Elliot said, surprised he didn't know about this.  Normally information like that tends to find it's way to him.  It was less of him seeking it out and more that he had enough dealings with enough people that someone normally says a little more than they should.   At least, that normally was the case.

"Yeah."  Dr. Jones said, a sly smile on his face.  "I kept this one close, Elliot.  I didn't want this on the grapevine.  At least, not until I was sure this would work.  So, we're going to use the larger multi-person device and not the "field" device for these tests."

"Why is that?"  Elliot asked.

Dr. Jones laughed good-naturedly at that.  Then he saw that Elliot really didn't understand.  He grinned.  He should have suspected.  After all, Elliot was just a year out of med school and Dr. Jones had been dealing with stuff like this for over thirty years on the job.

"Good business.  If you have a good working product, you sell that first.  You don't promise the more advanced one that is still in development.  What if it goes wrong?"

Elliot had to admit, that did make sense to him.

"Anyway, this should be an easy test.  Two braindead women, just brought in.  Go alert the floor nurse that we'll be doing this."

"When?"  Elliot asked.

"As soon as we scrub up."  He said, standing.  "Also, have Nurse Rogers on standby, as per procedure with this."

"No problem."  Elliot said, heading out of the doctor's office.

Twenty minutes later, everything was set up and ready.  The room had already been prepared prior and the rest of the time was spent with final preparations for this procedure.

Nurse Rogers was in another room with ballistic glass between them.  She had a full suite of monitors and had a clear line-of-sight to the both of them.  It often seemed excessive to people who weren't used to this, but it was far better to be safe bordering on paranoia than anything else.  After all, you never actually could know what would happen with any experiment, especially one involving a machine with so many moving, potentially dangerous parts as this machine.

Soon, Nurse Rogers was in the other room, and Elliot and  Dr. Jones started.  Both patients, they saw, weren't actually dressed in hospital gowns.  In fact, it looked like they had been clubbing, as both had on short dresses, amongst other things.  Elliot seemed surprised at this and Dr. Jones noticed.

"We wanted to replicate an emergency situation.  Hence why they weren't changed and prepped like a standard surgery."

"Seems odd for a first test like this."

"Well, all of our previous tests indicate that it should work just fine.  Normally, yes, we would do a more sterile set of tests, but given our results, the administration decided we could waive that step and proceed to this one."

"I don't think I like that very much."  Elliot said.

"I agree."  Dr. Jones said as he checked to be sure everything was ready.  Elliot was doing the same.

"I'm ready on my end."  Elliot said.

"I'm ready as well."  Dr. Jones said.

"Though, we shouldn't have skipped that step.  Why do that?"

"Best guess, we're a victim of our own success.  I guess things went too well."

"Remind me to screw up a result or two then next time."  Elliot said, not even half-joking.

"Yeah, good idea."  Dr. Jones said with a laugh.  "Okay, are you clear?"

"Clear."  Elliot said.

"Good."  Dr. Jones said, turning the machine on.

The machine was monitored by Nurse Rogers in the control room, a desktop computer in the room itself, and the floor nurse had a monitor that could be monitored in real time.

Both Dr. Jones and Elliot, at this point, did not have to do anything.  The machine took care of the rest.

It worked quickly, and despite seeing it done before, this was the first time he had seen it done on a live subject, so it was both fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

The machine was designed to remove and transplant limbs, quickly and easily.  It had settings for the arms, legs, and one even for the head and neck.  Today, it was going to effectively sever the right arm of both patients and then attach the arm onto the other respective patient.

However, something went wrong.  The machine went to remove the arms of both patients, then stopped.

At this, everyone's heart sank.  Nurse Rogers check the monitors.  She breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's just a sensor glitch."  She said over the intercom.  "Just power down the operating arms and adjust the sensor."

"Elliot, if you'll power the arms down, please."  Dr. Jones said.

"Sure."  Elliot walked over, and physically turned off the power on the unit.  While he could do it on the computer, it was just a soft shutdown.  He checked to see that it was indeed off before Dr. Jones walked over to adjust the sensor.  He was between two empty operating tables, where the one of the sensors was located.  Likely all would need to be checked.

As Dr. Jones was just about to touch the sensor, the machine started up again.

"Dr. Keller!"

"It's not me!"  Elliot said, shocked.  The machine was off.  How was it not off?

He had little time to worry about that, as he saw the machine grab Dr. Jones.  Instinctively, he ran to help Dr. Jones while Nurse Rogers frantically tried to cut the power from her end.  By the time she realized that nothing was working on her end, the machine had them both and it would be far more dangerous for them for the power to be cut.  She could only watch as the machine worked a program it wasn't supposed to do that day.

Despite her shock, she still managed to contact the floor nurse and get ICU and emergency services ready.

It turned out, neither of those was needed.  The machine, despite seemingly going rogue, performed the rogue surgery with perfection.

She could only look at what had happened after the fact, and, several hours later when both of them woke up, it was her that explained what was known.

While Dr. Jones listened intently, Elliot was a bit too shaken up to pay much attention.  Despite the insistence that he should really be sitting, he stood up and tried to walk some.

He thought it might clear his head.  After all, that was now he normally did it.  Now, though, he nearly fell over.

He steadied himself, preferring still to stand rather than sit, balancing now on heeled boots.  He didn't know where it had gone wrong.  He felt so guilty.  What had happened?  Was this his fault?  Was he the reason this happened to him and Dr. Jones and those two braindead women?

He looked down at himself, putting two feminine hands on his face, rubbing it.  At least his face felt normal.  He thought as he took in the scene.

Here he was, looking at Dr. Jones, his sixty-ish male, grey-haired head now attached to the body of a woman who looked like she was clubbing just prior to whatever made her braindead.  He then looked down at himself, seeing a very similar sight.  He could not believe this.

What, he thought, had gone wrong?  What?