"Nelson, get your arse in here now!"

A quick glance over the top of the cubicle confirmed what she feared: the entire office staff were peering back.

Great, now everyone gets to witness my walk of shame.

Annabel cringed as his office door slammed with a resounding bang, the venetian blind clattering off the window. A brief search uncovered her notebook hiding under the printouts. She hurried, head hung low and shoulders hunched as if to make herself invisible, to Simpson's office. Pausing at the door to take a fortifying breath, she tucked a lock of hair that had escaped the ponytail behind her ear and took a quick glance at her reflection in the glass. She puffed a breath in resignation, quickly smoothing a hand down the wrinkled blouse and skirt she had been wearing since the previous morning and tapped the glass.

"Sir?" she asked, peeking around the door.

"Close the door, Annabel. Unless you want the gossip mongers to have your business spread through the entire building come tomorrow morning," he advised, motioning her to sit.

Annabel shuffled forward and pressed the door closed at her back, the click making her jump.

"You look a mess," he began, taking a gentler tone. "Did you even go home last night?" Annabel opened her mouth to respond, but he waved her off. "Don't bother, I already know you spent the night in the lab. Speaking of which, where is your report on the Nexus project?"

She grimaced and pushed her black-rimmed glasses back on her nose. "Emm, I need an extension. The tests I ran last night were inconclusive and I need to run more."

"Annabel, I've given you two extensions already. The bigwigs want those reports ASAP. I can't put them off any longer." He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. "If you're having problems I can put someone else on it."

"No! Please, the tests are almost finished. I'll type up an interim report tonight and have it on your desk in the morning." She rose from the seat and backed up to the door. "I just need another couple of days, tops."

"This business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers, Annabel. Don't make yourself one of them. One more day and that's it."

She rushed from his office before he could change his mind, walking quickly past the staring and giggling faces of her colleagues who were packing up, ready to leave for the night. The lift doors opened at the far end of the corridor. As she sprinted for them, she caught her toe on an invisible obstacle and tumbled head first into the arms of none other than Kenneth, Mr. Perfect.

Kenneth swore, his minty-fresh breath fanning her cheek. "Watch where you're going you clumsy cow." He pushed her away, making her stumble again.

She bit back her retort. Mr. bloody Perfect - the asshole - would be the guy to take over her experiment if she didn't get her report to Simpson in the morning. He'd take credit for all her hard work, not for the first time either. As soon as his back was turned, she stuck her tongue out and gave him a one finger salute.

The breath she didn't realise she'd been holding left her in a rush as the elevator door slid open at sub-floor ten, her sanctuary. Any time she spent alone in the lab were her most productive. Relieved to find the place already empty of staff, she switched the computer on, opening the Nexus programme to review the previous night's results.

She gathered her last two samples from the fridge - DNA from an unidentified life-form. The British government wanted Simpson to analyse a batch of samples, with instructions to identify their origins. Simpson put his best man on the job. Not. He'd given it to her because the government weren't funding the experiment and the best were needed for the paying customers.

After flicking the power switch for the cabinet, she set the samples inside. The computer beeped signalling it was ready to proceed.

"Damn," she cursed her stupidity. "I forgot the host."

She reached across the desk to lift the rat from the cage beside the computer, but the rat had other ideas and sunk its teeth into her thumb, taking a large bite. Annabel dropped it. It scurried across the keyboard of the computer before disappearing off the end of the bench, across the floor and out the lab door just as it closed with a hiss as the air-tight seal engaged.

"Crap," she cursed again as she noticed the sequence for the radiation blast had already started. She had five seconds to get the door of the cabinet closed.

Four: She turned.

Three: She tripped over her handbag.

Two: She fell with her hand landing on the computer keyboard.

One: The radiation charge increased from 4 to 4,000,000.

Zero: The glass vials exploded embedding shards in her face and hands. A dazzling light from the machine blinded her.

The clock on the wall read a fuzzy 9:30pm when Annabel finally came to her senses after the explosion. She took off her glasses, setting them on the bench, and rubbed her eyes to clear the blurriness from them.

A stack of paper lay haphazardly on the floor under the printer, she took it as a sign that at least some of the experiment might be salvageable. Nothing happened when she tapped the wake up button on the computer. The screen remained blank.

"Just great," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in defeat. "That's the second one that's died this week. I might as well go home. Not that I'm going to have a home for long when the rent doesn't get paid because I'm sacked for sure this time."

She kicked the stool out of the way in frustration, but was so busy looking for her handbag she didn't notice it crash into the wall twenty feet away. The air-tight door failed to open after typing the code into the keypad. She tried again and nothing happened. Nothing; the door stayed closed trapping her inside.

"And it just gets better!"

Her temper rising, she clenched her teeth and let out a feral growl. She tried typing the code a third time. When the door stayed closed, she punched it. The shock waves of pain radiating from her knuckles did nothing to deter her utter amazement when the reinforced door fell off its hinges.

"Great! And I bet they blame me for the dodgy fittings on that as well," she muttered, stepping over it on her way to the lift.

As the steel doors opened on the ground floor, she looked up from re-arranging the printouts into some semblance of order and noticed her reflection in the glass of the main entrance doors. Only it didn't look exactly like her; the reflected Annabel wore no thick ugly glasses. Her blue eyes shone in the artificial light. She raised her hand to her face and realised that her glasses were still in the lab, yet she could see perfectly.

Her doppelgänger also had gorgeous, blonde tresses falling in shimmering waves to her waist, outlining boobs that strained the buttons of her tattered blouse. She hesitantly looked down, expecting to see her flat chest - one that didn't require a bra - and squealed with joy at the unbound, pert melons that jiggled when she bounced with excitement. Sparing a brief glance at the printouts clutched to her stomach, everything clicked into place.

It has to be something that happened in the lab.

The main doors whooshed open as she neared, allowing her to see the pelting rain beyond the canopy. She stuffed the printouts into her bag and pulled her jacket over her head - not that it would do much good against the torrential downpour when her car was parked in the second last row. Keys in hand, she made a dash for it, managing to jump twenty feet over a puddle instead of the two she intended. Anticipation filled her on the drive home; any glimpses she was able to get from her hazy reflection in shop windows were impressive.

The apartment complex was a hive of activity, and not wanting to draw attention, she kept her head down, taking her time to her tiny, third-floor flat. Once inside though, she stripped naked and stood admiring her curvy body in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Such a change from her former teenage boy-like appearance, she couldn't take her eyes from it until she remembered her former roommate's clothes in the back of the wardrobe. Several minutes of searching eventually coughed up the perfect outfit: a two-piece, black, PVC bra and trouser set that hugged her curves like a second skin. She looked like a BDSM mistress, but felt like a million bucks.

Gun-shots on the street below brought her attention to the window overlooking the car park. Two men in black suits had her neighbour pinned up against a car, one holding a gun to his head. She could hear them clearly through the glass, despite being three floors above them.

"Alright look," the one holding the gun said with impatience. "I've tried to be reasonable. Tell me which flat and you can go back to drinking your sad little existence into oblivion."

"Okay, okay!" Rick stopped flailing and raised in hands in surrender. "Flat 3c. She came home a couple of hours ago. That's her car."

"No more games. You give me your word in ten seconds or I shoot you in the head."

"I swear."

Annabel backed away from the window when the gunman pulled the trigger anyway, fear and confusion creasing her brow. They look like the government guys who dropped the samples off. What the hell do a couple of trigger-happy monkeys in suits want with me? Realization dawned. "Oh God, the project. They must know about the explosion."

She didn't have time to weigh her options beyond not opening the door to them, and that option was taken from her when the door crashed off the wall. They meant business. Without thought, she pushed the window open and jumped, landing in a crouched position as if she dropped a couple of feet not three stories.

Bullets rained after her. Several embedded in the bitumen road by her feet. With no regard to her bare-footed attire, she ran for her life, wishing she had the forethought to lift her handbag from the seat by the window on her way past. She had no money, no car keys, no shoes and wore very little clothing.