Bethany did not know how to listen to directions. She had been that way her entire life. It was an oddly defiant streak in her, something that even she had a hard time rationalizing or understanding. It was if she felt the need see what would happen if they weren't followed.

While she had gotten better over the years, and wasn't foolish enough to do it with things that had genuine danger to them, little things she still felt this odd need. Take today. She and a friend were on a tour of a research lab for a major company. It was fascinating and she had always been interested in cutting-edge technology, especially when it broke new ground on what could be done. This place and this tour certainly fit the bill.

While her friend was interested, she was positively beside herself with examining and learning everything she could about every new product, every prototype. Even the failures she was enthralled by, wondering what they learned and how they applied that to make something that did work.

As they went through, they got to see one of the real labs, one that was used in research. This one, the tour guide said, was between projects and was gearing up for their next big thing. As everyone left, Bethany faked like she was going with them, and then stayed in here. Here it was, a real live lab! Maybe they had something of interest someone had left, a note or a small piece of something that could show what they were working on!

She looked around a minute, knowing she had little time, and after testing a drawer or two and seeing they were locked, she looked over and saw a door with an electronic lock on it. She also saw it had windows, but of the one-way mirror type where she couldn't see in but others could see out. She wondered, why did they have that? She walked over to the door, and smiling tried it.

She didn't expect it to work, not really, but she had really hoped it would. By chance, the system had accidently unlocked, a glitch with the a software update that would relock it in just a few seconds after it had unlocked. She just happened to catch it at the perfect time.

She opened the door and saw it was a hallway, with several more closed doors. She smiled and tried another, pressing her luck. It opened, leading to a lab that looked like it was set up for chemistry and yet another closed door. This one, she found, seemed to be slightly ajar.

She opened the door and in her haste to get in she made a mistake. She shut it completely.

The sound of her screaming and banging on the door were the only sounds that emerged, and faint at that. No other sounds could be heard. It was a not more than five minutes later that the door opened again and a figure walked out, starting to walk out of what she thought was a chemistry lab.

The feminine body stopped on booted feet, and turned. An elderly male head smiled, a stark contrast to the womanly body below his neck, a body that used to belong to that woman that entered the room. Why had she come in here? Who was she?

He walked over to the door, hit a button and it closed. He smiled as he heard her yelling, banging old hands on the door as he walked away. He'd need to call security, obviously something had gone wrong that she had gotten access to here and managed to activate the device. Of course, he thought, maybe having it go when the door shut... but that was a feature, a failsafe to prevent the machine from going anywhere and she had came in when he had it on to ensure that a new feature was powering up correctly.

Well, he thought as he walked over to ta phone, at least we know the machine works perfectly. Small comfort for her with his old body, but it certainly was one for him!