Fail-Safe

Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

King, Six, Kyntak, and Queen stood around the computer watching the footage.

"Hell," Kyntak whispered. "His arm is ripped clean off."

"It gets worse," King grumbled.

Six's eyes widened as the pack of playing cards was brought into focus. He stole a glance at King who was glaring, teeth clenched, at the monitor. Queen was gazing off to the side. Six figured she'd seen enough the first two times.

"So far, Queen and I are the only ones who have seen this footage," King begun. "No ordinary human could rip an arm off like that; I want to know if we could possibly be dealing with another superhuman." King looked at Kyntak. "I want to know if you are capable of doing that."

"Why are you looking at me?!" Kyntak demanded.

"Because I know Six has never killed let alone ripped a limb off someone!" King shouted. The video had clearly hit a nerve.

Six felt guilt wash over him at the comment. He kept his expression neutral.

"Oh, so you think I would?!" Kyntak shouted back.

Six broke the silence that fell. "Have you?"

Kyntak looked at Six incredulously. "Of course not."

Six nodded. "This may be a question better answered by the Diamonds," Six said to King. "They should be able to give an estimate of the force required and then maybe I could answer your question."

King gave a slight nod not looking at him.

"When I rescued Six four months ago, I wiped all the Lab computers clean," explained Kyntak. "Even so, I had read all the information on Project Falcon. Only three superhumans were ever created in the original Project Falcon; Six, myself, and the one who worked for the Lab."

"What about the girl?" King questioned.

"She was the only one." Kyntak said, "Besides, that didn't look like four-month-old child to me."

"Only the other Hearts and Grysat know about your origins." Queen said to Six and Kyntak. "We wanted to make sure we weren't dealing with something sensitive before handing this over to the Diamonds to analyse."

And Ace. Six thought. Ace knows about us too.

"What concerns me the most at the moment," Queen continued, "is the playing cards."

"Someone is sending us a message." Six said.

♥♦♣♠

"I analysed the mobile phone you and Two brought back," Sammy said while tapping his foot. "I wasn't able to get much useful information from it, but I did find something interesting."

Six and Kyntak stared at broken mobile laying on the table. It looked like an ordinary ChaoCall LR usually favoured by businessmen. Sammy picked up a small plastic rectangle.

"The mobile was fitted with this, an accelerometer. They are used in mobile phones to detect orientation, so the screen is always in the correct view. Some interactive mobile games also use them to detect how fast you are moving the phone. Lucky for us, this phone has recorded the last data readouts from the accelerometer. Almost like a black box."

Sammy moved over to his laptop. Six saw lines of numbers and graphs on the screen.

"According to my calculations," Sammy continued, "this phone was subject to almost 3Gs of acceleration. That's almost 30 metres per second, per second! It was only subject to this rate of acceleration for 0.9 of a second, but it still would have reached close to 100km/hr."

Sammy spun around to look at Six.

"You said you retrieved the mobile from the missing agent's pocket?"

Six nodded.

"So, he must have hit the wall at close to that speed. Assuming the missing agent weighed around 90kg, it would have taken more than 2,500 Newtons to achieve that!" Sammy exclaimed excitedly. "That's a lot," Sammy said in response to their blank looks.

"How much force would be required to rip off an arm?" Six said.

"Excuse me?" Sammy looked confused.

Kyntak put a hard drive on Sammy's work bench. "Queen of Hearts received an email from the vigilante group we have been assisting. It contained a link to a video of their leader being murdered. He had his arm completely ripped off...by another guy."

"What?" Sammy breathed.

"We need the Diamonds to run a full analysis on the file received and a trace done on the email address it was sent from," Six continued. "King has also requested an intel brief be disseminated to all personnel. It looks like this guy might be targeting the Deck."

Sammy nodded slowly. "I'll get my team on it straight away."

♥♦♣♠

"Queen is attempting to contact Turret about the files received. She hasn't had any contact with them since they first requested assistance." Six said to Kyntak as they walked down the corridor. "King wants me to go back to the old subway lines and see if I can find more evidence on what happened to their agent."

"Ok, you don't have to twist my arm, I'll go with you." Kyntak said.

"I don't need backup."

Kyntak stopped abruptly and turned to Six.

"A guy has had his arm ripped off and his eyeball melted from its socket. Some other guy was been thrown into a wall at 100 kilometres per hour by who knows what. Someone clearly has an issue with the Deck. I'm not letting you go alone on this one, I'm coming with you."

"It's just recon." Six muttered.

"Nothing is ever just 'recon' with you." Kyntak said deadpanned. "Don't forget who I am. I am privy to your mission records."

"Fine," Six ground out. "But don't expect to get payed."

Kyntak grinned. "I guess I'll just have you owe me. Again."

♥♦♣♠

"So, tell me how your new job is going?"

"It's going great, Sirah. Thanks for putting in a good word for me." Ace of Diamonds smiled as she wrapped her hands around her mug of coffee. She'd been meaning to catch up with her stepmother for ages. "How's Dad?"

"Oh, he's been keeping the caryards in business," Sirah laughed. "But tell me about you, Harriet. What are your colleagues like?"

Ace beamed. "Jack's such a grumpy old man but he's got a good heart. His lungs might not be so good from all the smoking though. The others are great too, quite a few of them are cross trained as medics." She took a sip of coffee. "You should see some of the research being done. I can't even comprehend Nine's electromagnetism research."

Sirah's eyes sharpened on Harriet. "Oh, what is it about?"

Ace stared out the window. "I don't really know but she thinks it has the potential to 'reduce ChaoSonic to mere atoms'." Ace laughed. "She's certainly passionate."

"We all are." Sirah replied.