Leaving the laboratory, Ridge returned to the main building and went to get some rest. Somehow, science talk always tired him out more than fighting. At any rate, the group was planning to go out once more. They would stop here to restock their equipment, grab a new drone, for example, as well as food, water, and some more containers.
Although they had some containers before with metal backpacks that attached to their suits it was only Ridge and the drone operator who used bigger ones to carry things. The rest grabbed smaller ones more specfically made to carry rations and water. This time round he would have them all carry the same thing. At any rate, they could stuff them with ammunition if need be. It would come in handy.
While lying down in his bed, Ridge had begun to think. The first thing he thought about was that he had forgotten to ask Hopi about the progress on the food project they were researching regarding starch. It was probably something they could talk about tomorrow or the day after, when they began expanding the base upon his return.
As his eyelids began to grow heavier and heavier, a beeping sound from his wrist panel that he had taken off and set on a small bedside stand woke him up. Blinking a few time and squinting at the blue light from the panel he sat himself up and picked it up.
It was a communication request from Dr. Lind. Confused, he picked it up. "Hello?"
"This is Lind. First and foremost, I would like to know if you're alone," she said.
"Of course, you called me just as I was about to go to sleep. What's the matter?" he replied, still confused.
"This call is encrypted just in case, but I would like to talk with you about Becke," she said quietly.
"I didn't realize it was so important that you needed to encrypt the call. What about Commander Becke?" he asked.
"Something is wrong, to be brief while he was in a coma there were specific moments that his brain had spiked in activity. When I say spiked, I mean it was as if there was something specific affecting him that wasn't there physically. None of the machines could read what it was. Whether it was a dream or something else. This happened a few times, the first time when he was brought to the base just a day after you guys rescued him. The next was in the middle of his coma time, and the last one was the day before he woke up. It was then that his brain had slowly become more active, indicating he was recovering and likely going to wake up soon," she paused to take a breath.
"The next thing that tipped me off that something was wrong was the fact that he was able to walk, even with some help, the day of waking up. This is pretty much impossible for any patient waking from a coma; they would either need advanced medical care, which we don't have here, or they would need to do physical therapy for at minimum maybe a month or two. Even within that time, it would still be hard for them to walk, yet he somehow managed to walk all over the base while you were out scouting with little assistance. His legs didn't seem stiff at all.
Furthermore, after using an excuse of monitoring his health to draw out blood, I found that there was something foreign. I don't know exactly what it was yet, but it's not human, that's for sure. I am concerned that he may have been controlled by one of those fungi."
Furrowing his brows, Ridge sat in silence for a few seconds before speaking, "I understand. Find an excuse to try and keep him confined, so to speak- maybe more testing or recovery, something along those lines. Just keep him occupied for a day or two; we need to use the vacant science room to create a prison cell of sorts to try and capture him."
"Understood. It might be difficult, but make sure everyone else is aware of this as soon as possible so they don't reveal anything too important. You will have to ask Yayha about what he spoke about during the tour as well. I am unsure if that thing, or Becke rather, has the know-how to hack communication lines, so as a precaution, that's the reason I encrypted the call. I don't believe we gave him a panel, so I might just be overly cautious, but who knows," Lind replied while sighing.
"Okay, get some sleep, we'll deal with it," ridge said before disconnecting from the call and setting his panel down once again.
Lying his head down once more, he frowned and eventually fell asleep while deep in thought.
Fortunately, his night was peaceful, and he had no dreams. Waking up ready to get the day started, he quickly typed out a message to the scouting group, whilst also making sure it was encrypted. With those sent out, he got in contact with Yayha and asked him to meet soon during breakfast.
Finally he sent out a message to Lind to also test out Reno who was Beckes companion just to be safe.
The first ones to message back were the scouting group who had been getting ready to go out once more. They mostly replied with affirmatives or simply the word acknowledged.
Lind was next to answer; she replied, 'Understood, I'll take care of it and tell her it's a checkup on her health since she was quite injured as well.'
Yayha still hadn't replied yet, so Ridge simply began his morning workout of push-ups and sit-ups before washing up and getting dressed in the same old uniform.
He had gone straight to the laboratory when he got to base and then from there went to his bedroom, so he still had the flamethrower and sword on him. Grabbing those, he attached his wrist panel and made his way over to the cafeteria for a quick breakfast.
On his way there, while walking down the hallways, he had finally gotten a response from Yayha, who had been presumably doing his own morning routine.
'No problem, I'll meet you at the cafeteria for breakfast then.'
Reading it, Ridge didn't reply; he simply continued walking and, after entering the cafeteria, spotted Yayha, who had just sat down with a tray of what they called food on this planet.
Grabbing his own rations, he made his way over and sat down. Nodding to him, Yayha spoke first, "So what's happening?"
"There's been a situation involving Becke, and possibly Reno, but that's yet to be determined," Ridge whispered.
Raising his brows in surprise, Yayha grabbed another bite. "Well, continue."
"Lind believes there is a high possibility that we have been infiltrated by the fungi species via Becke, and so I wanted to ask you what you told him during the tour," Ridge replied.
"Hmm, the only thing actually important that I may have shown him was the armory, though I can't recall if I just talked about it and the fact that it was in the main building," he replied with furrowed brows and a slight frown on his face.
"I also remember telling him about the location of the food, which is important to us. Even the emergency rations on the ship. Luckily, I didn't say the precise location of those, just that they were on the ship," he continued.
Nodding, Ridge took a bite and finished off his meal.
"Understood. I want you to begin informing everyone on the base, minus Reno and Becke, about the fact that he could potentially be an informant. Make sure that the messages are encrypted and that everyone should just act normal till we get this situation figured out," he said after swallowing.
Getting up with his tray, he walked away, leaving Yayha to finish his tray and get to work.
Not spotting Reno or Becke anywhere, Ridge assumed that Lind had managed to occupy their time. Contacting Caroline as he walked out, he asked her to come to the science with some laborers and a couple of engineers.
They needed to quickly build out a prison room, essentially. Since there was a conference room already in that science area, they could just implement some security features and gut the room to resemble a prison for holding and interrogating.
She replied quickly and agreed to meet up. Since it was morning, mostly everybody besides some people at the mining outpost was present, meaning it was quite quick to gather some folk.
So quick, in fact, that Caroline, a group of five laborers, and two engineers were already there when he entered the science room.
"Great, you're here already. Long story short, we think Becke may be infected by the fungi species, and we need to quickly build some kind of cell to not only hold him securely, but also interrogate him while Lind distracts him with some medical stuff," he said quickly.
Surprise showed on all of their faces, but they simply nodded and got straight to work.
Caroline walked up to Ridge as the engineers and laborers drew up a quick plan to build it for a quick talk.