Waving towards Caroline, who noticed him already, he quickly made his way over and, in the process, somehow managed to startle Yayha, who, on a whim, had looked behind him when he saw Caroline waving.
"Jeez, Commander," He said, holding his heart, "Could have said hello before walking up so quietly."
"I did wave hello to caroline, your fault for not paying attention to your surroundings," Ridge replied while smirking.
"I came over to speak to Caroline, but you guys are fine to hear this as well," he added just before they were about to stand up and leave.
Nodding at his words, Caroline waited for his words.
"After some discussion with Hopi, I ended up concluding that we will need to drastically enhance the greenhouse. She suggested I simply build more, but I figured a better option would be to simply upgrade the existing one's design, so to speak," he explained.
"Uh-huh, that can honestly be done quite easily. With the original design already thought up, we can simply make it bigger; how many of these do you want us to build exactly is the real question?" She asked.
Letting out a breath before slightly gnawing at his lip in thought, he eventually responded, "I would say four upgraded greenhouses, maybe more, depending on your design; it'll all just depend on the resource consumption for it. Not to mention, if we build too much, the power grid will come under strain."
"Got it, we don't have much work to do right now, so the engineers and I can get started on the plans right away. Once finished with it, I'll send you the plans via wrist panel," she responded quickly.
He agreed and said goodbye to George and Yayha, who hadn't left yet, before retreating to his room once more. He hadn't completed his morning routine yet, so he didn't want to break that streak today.
Meanwhile, in the jail room, Lind was examining chunks of flesh she had extracted from Becke under a rudimentary microscope. Occasionally, she took notes when spotting a variable or huge difference from the typical human body. Because she was so focused on this, she hadn't noticed that at some point the straps holding Becke down had come loose and he was stirring awake.
Continuing her work in silence, she was completely engrossed when all of a sudden her mouth was covered. Shooting her head back on reflex, she didn't even get to see the face of her attacker before her throat was slit, and the only sound she could make was the gargling of blood.
The attacker was Becke; he had woken up eventually and quickly noticed the restraints on his right arm were loose. Right next to the bed he was on was a scalpel. Using his free hand, he slowly but surely cut his restraints and silently sneaked behind Lind, leading to the current situation.
Still holding her mouth shut, he waited until her body was no longer twitching before carefully setting her body down. Eyes wide open in surprise, she had no idea what hit her.
Looking around beside the scalpel, he also found some rations that Lind was likely saving to eat as she worked. Grabbing them and stuffing them all into his mouth, he let out small groans as his body quickly digested them and healed the many cuts and even chunks of skin and muscle he was missing.
This took merely ten minutes to occur. During this time, he also grabbed her wrist panel and attempted to use it. Unfortunately for him, all wrist panels had biological locks on them, meaning only the person who had first acquired it was able to use it; even after their death, it remained locked. A security feature that was put in place to avoid enemies or criminals getting information they shouldn't be privy to.
Cursing in frustration, he furrowed his brows and tsked before looking around to come up with a plan to escape.
Outside the room were the same two guards that Ridge had scolded earlier. It was just another boring day of standing outside a room and staring at a grey wall. Occasionally, to break their boredom, they used their wrist panels. Expecting another day following the same routine, one of them was just about to use his wrist panel when suddenly a loud crashing sound came from inside the jail room.
Looking at each other, the two guards nodded before raising their kinetic rifles and entering the room one after the other.
It was dark; the lights had at some point been either turned off or destroyed. Utilizing a flashlight that only one of them had, they both entered deeper. Unbeknownst to them, a shadow had quickly and silently left the room just behind them.
Using the flashlight, they dodged the many wires and called out, "Dr. Lind? Dr. Lind!"
Hearing no response the continued deeper in, until suddenly they both noticed red sprayed across a desk, and just below that was Lind's body. Startled, they both backed away a step before one of them rushed to her side and checked for any possible vitals.
Nothing. Looking up, the pale-faced guard shouted at the other, "Get the commander!" The second guard rushed out.
Ridge had just finished his morning shower when rapid knocking sounded out from his door. With furrowed brows, he opened it and saw the guard.
Recognizing him, his face changed quickly. "What's going on?" he asked sternly.
"Dr. Lind, Sh-She's Dead!"
Feeling his heart sink, he rushed back into his room and got his suit on, quickly bringing a knife with him before rushing out. It was one of the twenty that they had newly created within the week during the construction.
Quickly running to the jail room, he sent out an emergency signal to all wrist panels in the area.
'LOCKDOWN'
The base didn't have any alarm system created yet, so unfortunately this method would have to do. Halfway to the room, he also sent out an urgent message to Hopi and a few others to hurry over.
The room was still dark by the time Ridge got there, and the only source of light was the flashlight now lying on the ground by the guard who had confirmed her death. The guard stood up and saluted him before pointing at the body sadly, "This is her, sir."
Walking in and seeing the body on the ground, Ridge still let out a sigh of frustration before using his own flashlight to look around.
The enclosed base was about 15,400 square meters, and it was 110 meters from north to south. West to east, it was 140 meters, meaning the assailant would have needed at least a couple of minutes to walk out of the base if they took the road and encountered no obstacles.
Looking around the cell, Ridge clearly saw that Becke was the one who had caused all this and likely escaped by now, his grip tightening on the flashlight. He knew they should have just killed him when Lind's first report came in.
Ridge came back to the body; by the time he had finished examining the cell, Hopi as well as the others had arrived.
Hopi brought with her a medical bag, though when she knelt beside the body, she knew already Lind was dead. Using her hand to push down Lind's eyelids, she shook her head at Ridge, "She's completely dead."
Caroline set up a few lights that lit up the room, and soon the whole scene was visible.
"Looks like Becke destroyed the lights quietly before pushing over one of these machines that Lind brought up over. Clearly as a distraction to escape without being noticed," She noted while looking around the room that had become an even bigger mess.
"Yeah, he must have somehow come loose from his restraints and snuck up on Lind as she was working as well," George said while kneeling in front of the body and pointing at the chair just in front of the table with a microscope on it.
"Grab the body and store it someplace cold for now; we'll have a funeral for her, lockdown the base completely, and start a search. Also let the people at the mining outpost know about this just in case Becke ends up travelling in that direction," Ridge ordered as he looked down at Lind's body in disappointment.
Not in her, but in himself, for having the option to have avoided all this but not choosing it. Yahya had at some point come up to him and patted him on the shoulder.
"It's alright, Commander. I can already tell you're starting to think this is your fault," he said quietly. "It's not."
Nodding at his words, Ridge steeled himself and waved for the two soldiers to follow him with their weapons. It was time to search for a trail. Even though the base was not absolutely massive, Becke was injured from all the experiments the last time Ridge saw him, so he felt there was a high chance he probably wouldn't get far without needing to rest or having the ability to cover his tracks effectively. Not to mention, patrols on the wall could have noticed something.