While Doctor Kathy Tucker rushed to get Rick's transformation into Rikki, the man most responsible for it was being ushered a security office in the hospital. Henry Wendz was extremely nervous over the entire issue. The retrovirus he had designed had been worked on while he was still at the hospital and he had access to the better computer equipment that was needed to actually synthesize the artificial virus. His idea had been make it possible for any person to be able to become any were in Moon Lake, but he also knew his methods wouldn't approved of and that Doctor Tucker would surely suspect him once the lab detected the retrovirus in Plunkett's system. That had been why he had warned Andrew that they were to get in and get out as quickly as possible, and the two could meet and fall in love on their own.
But something had gone wrong and he had gotten caught. It meant that he would likely soon have to face the music of people with no understanding of the likely triumph he had achieved and that if men wanted to become werecats or werecheetahs it was now possible. Sure, they'd be female, but his retrovirus would work and would enable them to be what town chancellors had always said, and that had driven a lot of what he'd done in his life.
When his family moved to Moon Lake when he was three, his father had stated the wish to be a werecat, as he had always been a cat person. His mother had also showed an interest in being a werecat, but was more a fan of the "wildcat" than a domestic house cat. The town chancellor at that time informed both of them that werecats based off the domestic house cat were female and that werecats based off "wildcats" were male. They ended up did choosing to become the werecats that they could become, despite warnings that such a transformation could change their sexuality. Henry watched as his father became a homosexual male "werecat" based on the Canada Lynx while his mother became a lesbian werecat. They remained friends with each other, and lived in the same house for Henry's sake, but they divorced and eventually took new lovers to fit their new sexuality. Henry remembered that for the rest of his life and drove him in what he felt to be his mission.
If it was possible for his father to become a female werecat and his mother a male "werecat," then perhaps his family could have stayed together. It was that that drove him into genetics and his focus on its more theoretical aspects. He struggled due to his focus, which is really what kept him from being the head of the lab at the hospital. His theorizing and private experiments in developing his retrovirus had lead to him misplace lab orders or not being completely prompt with actually performing the tests that were required from patients. The work did get done, but due to those issues, he had always remained as an assistant. But, he couldn't let that get in the way of his theory. His life was devoted to perfecting his retrovirus and it was his pride and joy, but revealing it had to come on his terms and in a way that did not draw attention to areas where he had failed...
Because, while he was theoretically brilliant, he wasn't perfect and he had cut corners could very well lead Moon Lake's authorities to hunt him down once the lab found the retrovirus in Plunkett's system. Much of what he had found in his experiment was that the were-virus couldn't and didn't hybridize with their various strains. Before he was fired he had tried to see what would happen if he tried to mix two strains of the were-virus together, and since at that time, he had access to the hospital's blood samples, that was easy to get the building material, but every time he tried to get the two strains to hybridize, they didn't. They didn't respond to the other. Weres he had worked with, including Doctor Tucker, had said that the were-virus didn't hybridize with the individual strands. It's what prevented bisexual werecats and bisexual male "werecats" from killing any lover of the opposite gender and then becoming a hybridized were in their own right. Henry had commonly ignored this, he placed it high among his theories for his retrovirus, and even though he had failed with trying to mix the various were-virus strains, he hadn't been deterred.
And for the moment, the only strand he had perfected was the gender changing retrovirus that could turn men into women, though at present he also still needed the were-virus to put the subjects cells into naturally weak state to allow the retrovirus easy access and enable the body to physically change. As such, he wasn't ready to reveal it to the world yet, but the game was up for him. The hospital's security staff had caught to his and Andrew's presence somehow, which he could figure out how, and he had been caught. He didn't know about Andrew, but he figured he would be held for awhile, at least while the hospital staff was trying to figure out what he had done and what consequences of his actions were. His suspicions were proven correct as he was lead to the hospital's security office. One of the werewolf security men, who he had actually been fairly close to while he had been at the hospital was one of the officers that escorted him. Another man, an officer with the Moon Lake police department came along with them. Henry was gently placed in a chair and made so that he was facing the police officer while the hospital security man stood behind him.
"Now... your name is Henry Wendz? Yes?" the police officer asked.
"Yes," Henry answered.
"Your last employment?" the officer asked.
"I was the junior assistant in the hospital lab," Henry answered, "until last year."
"Retired?" the officer asked.
"Dismissed," Henry answered without going into details on the issue.
"And under this dismissal... what areas of the hospital were you allowed access to?" the policeman answered.
"The same areas the patients were allowed to," Henry answered, "and I have had treatment for a few things."
"I see," the officer spoke, "well... from what I've been told, you had interfered in the treatment of a patient in the hospital with a male accomplice. My partner is right now getting the were who detected your scent and we'll go from there. If your scent is matched, you will be placed under arrest for criminal trespass and potential criminal interference in the treatment of a patient and things will go from there."
For the moment the officers didn't know of Kathy's suspicion of Henry's retrovirus killing someone, but Henry knew that additional charges could be laid later. He gave a defiant look, as it was the best he could muster. He might be able to use his retrovirus as a bargaining chip to get out of trouble, as it would enable men to become werecats or werecheetahs. A part of his mind even daydreamed of it even enabling him to return and fully resume his experiments without consequence and put together a retrovirus that would work to change a woman into a man. After all, no other geneticist had come out with anything that could change someone's gender, and he had. Henry figured that was such a scientific triumph that Moon Lake would want him. After all, the US and the Soviets had both looted Germany of its scientists and engineers after World War II and their Cold War advances were the result of German genius. Henry figured his own genius was enough to equal that.
He sat there quietly for a few moments before the door opened and another police officer and an athletic Hispanic woman came in behind the officer. She wasn't that well muscled, but even to Henry Wendz's eyes, he could tell that even in her human form she could easily attain Olympic level speeds. And that was something that werecheetahs couldn't avoid. In their were forms, they could attain speeds close to 60 to 75 miles an hour in short bursts over open ground, but that was taking advantage of long legs, long feet, and a rather elastic spine that helped them get to those speeds. In their human form, they were still limited by what the human skeleton would physically allow.
"Are you sure this is necessary?" the woman asked, "Diane Tucker only just arrived to complete the patient's transformation. Once that's done, they will want samples taken from her just to see how things are coming."
Henry smiled when the woman used the word "her" to describe the patient.
"Your identifying of an intruder's scent was the only thing that gave the hospital the tip off that there was an intruder," the officer that had escorted her spoke, "as such, we can only make an arrest if you can ID his scent. Once that's done, you can get back to the lab."
The woman, Kathy Tucker's nurse assistant Marietta Rodriguez, came forward and gave a few questioning sniffs at Henry. She then nodded to the policemen.
"Yes, that's the human scent that I found," Marietta answered, "did you find anything on him?"
"Just a used syringe in the jacket he was wearing," the hospital security officer spoke.
"We intend to hold it as evidence until the trial," the first police officer answered, "if the hospital wants it for analysis, they'll have to wait."
Marietta nodded, "Of course... but I need to get back to my work. Though, we really haven't had time yet to fully see what what this guy's retrovirus has done beyond the obvious. There may be consequences we don't know about yet. If you can hold him here for a little while..."
"I'm afraid not," the first officer answered, "if Doctor Tucker wishes to talk with him about something and brings notes to show him... we can make an interrogation room available for them to meet. Outside of that, we'll wish to hold him until bail can be posted and the main part of the trial scheduled."
She sighed, but then nodded and left and the officer that escorted her went with her. Henry figured that he was either escorting her back to the lab or had been in the hospital to make sure Yvette Smith didn't try to flee the hospital and was returning to guard the rogue werevixen. The remaining officer looked to him with narrowed eyes.
"For criminal trespass and interfering in the treatment of a Moon Lake General Hospital Patient, you are under arrest," the officer spoke and read him his Miranda Rights.
Henry only rolled his eyes as the officer read through his rights.
"Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?" the officer asked.
"I understand that they are a farce," Henry answered, "my actions SAVED the patient in question. Something no one else could have done and the people of Moon Lake will see that and demand I lead them into a new scientific feature."
While he figured he wasn't ready for a full release on his retrovirus, which he hadn't even named yet, he figured that it was the best defense he had. Give the city some sort of carrot that they couldn't resist and they'd jump for it. It was about all he had at the moment.
"Can you at least name your accomplice?" the officer then asked with a sigh, "the monkey that was with you?"
"Just a dreamer," Henry answered cryptically. While he had no real explicit loyalty to Andrew or his siblings, they had helped him procure food and things and so he owed them that much. Besides, he had done a good job of playing the role of a kind and selfless person who would help the three weregorillas escape supposed Sasquatch hunters since their return to the US that it was entirely possible that Andrew, Adam, Mary, or all three of them might actually try to rescue him, not knowing that he was out mostly for his own aggrandizement, to soothe his own ego and that the town of Moon Lake would probably welcome the three far more openly and honestly than Henry ever had.