Captain Martha Ranton saw him stop struggling and paused for a moment, looking the private over. His body was still slowly changing, but he was no longer fighting her. He no longer looked like himself. Instead Private Taylor was a muscular bipedal canine with silver-white fur dressed in a slightly too small uniform. He stared at her as if waiting.
She struck him one more time, and the private's body fell limp. Ranton stood up, staring at him. Even unconscious, his musculature continued to improve. The seems on the uniform started to split as he somehow grew larger in volume.
A body like that on anybody else and she would can considered-. "Focus," she muttered to herself. After a breath, she realized she needed one of the base scientists here immediately.
Grabbing a hand cloth from her neighboring bathroom sink, she quickly wiped the blood from her face and knuckles. Straightening herself she took a breath, made sure he was still unconscious, and stepped out into the hallway. She poster two guards at her door with instructions that nobody goes in or out of that room until she gets back. No need to say more. She didn't want to start a panic.
In under a minute see entered the biology lab. "Doctor Martinz? Is she here? We have a bit of-"
"No," said the one man in the room, Woodward's fiancé if she recalled correctly, who was looking through a microscope without so much as glancing up in her direction. "She's watching Catherine." Next to him on the table she could see the toolkit of syringes and mixtures that Woodward used to change herself. Or at least it was another set just like it. Though she did see multiple sample vials with Woodward's name on it with various dates from a few weeks ago to a month. Then it clicked in. That wasn't the set she used. Those were samples they had taken of her on those dates. Untainted samples.
Impatient, Captain Ranton drew in a deep breath. Suddenly the smells in the room became much stronger. She blinked at that. The chemicals were more pungent. The man's deodorant was noticeable. Even the half eaten ham and cheese sandwich in the far corner was obvious. Her stomach grumbled.
Oh no, she thought. Instinctively she touched her face. It was feeling warm around her chin and forehead. Then she rubbed those areas and couldn't locate the injuries. "Hypothetical question, would a human sample be used to return her back to normal?"
"That is the idea," he said calmly. "I'm just checking her samples for any anomalies, and also to record what we see from her in her current state." He actually giggled. "We never tested this on anybody this large before. Personally I thought the changes would peter out after more than three pounds of mass, but it kept going. Hadn't done this on anything bigger than rats before... well... ferrets now."
While he continued taking notes and staring at his sample, Ranton felt a sudden flushness cover her head. She wasn't going to be able to wait. She grabbed a set and quietly took one of Woodward's samples. They didn't have any samples of her own there, but if she picked up some traits of Woodward, so be it. She didn't want to turn into an animal. "Yeah. Quite the success."
"No, the real success comes from the augmentations we added to help encourage the procreation after the fact. That wolf brought in definitely caught and if the children are fertile...." His words came to a stop at he continued adjusting the focus on the microscope. Captain Ranton could feel her facial muscles starting to throb, and she stepped out quickly and quietly.
She was gone when he spoke again. "Uh. We might not be able to change her back immediately. Shit. The original mixture is still active in her system." He jot some notes down. "It must be the added mass slowing it down. Normally if the transformation completes, the mixture recognizes there is nothing more to change and becomes inert. But there was too much of her to fully change, so it's slowing down but not fully stopping. If we inject her with her own pure sample now, the two mixtures will just be fighting with each other constantly. They might never stop." He looked up and only at that moment noticed he was alone. He sighed, but grabbed his notes and ran off to speak with Erica and Catherine. They had to know this immediately. Maybe if we found a way to change recompletely, thought. Then maybe after deactivation they could change her back. But they absolutely needed to make sure only one mixture was active at a time in a host.
Meanwhile, in a nearby restroom, Captain Ranton had started to feel her teeth straining. She wasn't sure if they were growing or popping out, but that had to stop.
She injected herself with the mixture combined with Catherine's sample. She had to hold onto her humanity.
And in her office, what was Private Taylor woke up.