The Fear Mechanism

In the gleaming white metropolis of New Eden, unusual humans known as “shards” exercise supernatural powers to instill fear into their victim’s minds.

Prologue

It was eight in the morning when a sudden rainfall softened New Eden’s bustling financial district. David Hamilton, who was sitting behind his desk at the early hour, glanced at the large panel of windows dominating his eightieth-floor office. Catching sight of the droplets shivering past the polished glass, he muttered, “Wonderful.” It looked as though he’d be sending his assistant out to fetch him coffee instead of walking to the usual café, where he could flirt with the pretty waitress and momentarily put his paperwork behind him. There was absolutely no chance he would set foot out in the November rainfall. He despised the rain, just as he despised almost all forms of water - lakes, oceans, and streams - with the exception of the kind that came from the bottle or the tap. It wasn’t really a hatred, but more like a fear. Because David Hamilton was secret hydrophobic following a near-drowning incident as a child. He was absolutely terrified of water.

Giving his head a brief shake to discard any more irritated thoughts about the weather, Mr. Hamilton continued to pour over the company’s most recent quarterly statement, occasionally making notes that might be useful for tonight’s company meeting. Hours rippled past while the rain continued to pummel the city, transforming the streets and crisscrossed avenues into a dull, watery gray grid. Some time around noon, after Mr. Hamilton had finished the latte his assistant had brought him and was preparing to follow up on a marketing sales report, the chief executive of office received a visit from his secretary, Eloise. She was blonde and willowy, certainly not too hard on the eyes in his opinion, but pretty incomparable to that café waitress. When she appeared, and he was not at all thrilled that she had, he realized that she was wearing an anxious expression that seemed well out of place of her usual crisp, professional demeanor.

“Yes?” he prompted smoothly, closing his laptop shut.

Eloise said, “Sir, there’s…someone here to see you. I believe he said his name was…Ferland. Gregory Ferland. He’s waiting outside in the lobby. Shall I send him in?”

“Ferland…” Mr. Hamilton paused, allowing his thoughts to stream like river water as he sought familiarity of that surname. “I don’t know a Ferland and I’m certainly not expecting one.”

“Well you see, you fired Mr. Ferland last month, sir. He was an assistant to Colby Jackson in the accounting department.”

Little interest scuttled through Mr. Hamilton’s bones at these words. For all he cared, they could have been chatting about the operation of New Eden’s sewage system. “Did I?” he said dully, brushing a bit of lint from his black cuffs and then straightening his tie. “Remind me why?”

“According to my records, he refused to show for work on three counts.”

Mr. Hamilton pulled a skeptical expression. “Well, I highly doubt an ex-employee who so poorly disrespected my company deserves to have even a millisecond of my time. Do send him on his way, will you?”

“But he says it’s important-”

His voice a little sharper than intended, Mr. Hamilton snapped, “Please, Eloise. Unless it’s Mr. Callaghan from Amber Co., I’m not interested. Send this Mr. Ferland on his way and leave me to finish up my work. I need to have all this s**t finished before tonight’s meeting.” When he reopened his laptop once again, he heard a whisper of heels and a soft click as the office door closed shut. Eloise had left, and so had those fleeting, insignificant thoughts of a man Mr. Hamilton cared so little for. He proceeded to dive into his work without further pause, stopping only when a soft blue glow of the raining evening fell outside. He was just organizing his desk when Eloise returned once more, bringing with her the announcement that Callaghan, vice president of Amber, had finally arrived. The chief executive smoothed out his thousand-dollar suit, left his office, and entered the opulent lobby to greet his guests.

“Welcome,” he said crisply, holding out a formal but still welcoming hand.

Callaghan, a dark-haired man with fair skin and gray eyes, shook, all the while appraising his equal. He spoke in a low tremor of a voice. “Pleasure to see you again, Mr. Hamilton.”

“And you. Shall we?” Mr. Hamilton gestured towards a set of oaken doors that opened to a cavernous but still reclusive conference room. Men in business suits were already seated at the table or else chattering by the refreshment cart where water, tea, and croissants were served. Flanked by his assistant, Mr. Hamilton led his guests inside the room, Eloise closing the door behind them. He took his usual seat at the head of the long, glossy table while the rest of the business partners lowered themselves into leather chairs stationed on the sides.

“Before we begin,” Mr. Hamilton said, after silence had fallen, “I’d just like to take a moment to thank Mr. Callaghan here for being with us tonight, especially during the holidays.”

Callaghan acknowledged this with a simple nod, yet his eyes remained hardened, fixed tight on Mr. Hamilton’s face.

Mr. Hamilton continued, “As you know, gentlemen, Amber and Verril are nearing amalgamation. With the rise of shard activity that has occurred in the past year alone, the city government as well as our esteemed ally, mayoral candidate Gregory Johansson, has been urging out two companies to craft newer technology that can put an end to these delinquents.  Additionally, analysts have predicted that our merge should promote a fifty-five percent increase in sales and investments, which is certainly one of the healthier benefits.”

Quiet laughter danced throughout the room before settling again. Mr. Hamilton was about to move on when he heard a whispering trickle rise from the far corner of the room. He turned, surprised to see a large puddle of water fanning out from beneath the doors he had previously walked through, spreading and soaking into the beige carpet. Mr. Hamilton raised his eyebrows and glanced at his nearest assistant, a young man by the name of Whishaw. He tilted his head towards the doors, silently conveying that he wanted the boy to clean up the watery mess. Especially before his guests noticed it.

“Sir?” Whishaw asked hesitantly.

Mr. Hamilton stared at him, irritated, but Whishaw still looked extremely bemused, his gaze continuously flickering between the doors and his boss. The chief executive was about to snap at him when he stole a second glance at the doors and realized that the puddle beneath them had vanished. Now it was his turn to be the puzzled one. For a moment he sat very still, eyes wide and back rigid, as the associates lined around the table stared at him in equal bewilderment and unease. Then Mr. Hamilton gathered his senses, deciding his lack of a meal had caused a brief trick of the eyes, and cleared his throat. He continued on with his speech as if nothing had happened. Nothing at all.

“As you know, we have recently managed to track two illicit shards following the implementation of hundreds of new surveillance cameras throughout the city. Thanks to this, police officers and Arlington agents are able to keep tabs on these fiends while they are traveling to their clients or else couriering information to one another. When the companies of Amber and Verril merge, we will be able to work on aerial surveillance through use of helicopters and, more importantly, hopefully create miniature global positioning systems that might be able to monitor shard movements at all times. We-”

Mr. Hamilton stopped short as his vice president’s water glass shattered, blooming shards and liquid and ice chips all across the table.

“I’m terribly, sorry, Carlisle,” he apologized quickly to his colleague. “I’ll have Eloise bring you another glass straightaway.”

The vice president looked confused. “No thank you, sir.”

“Really, I insist,” Mr. Hamilton said. “There’s no way you can drink that.” He pointed down at the glittering mess upon the table.

“I think I can manage it,” Carlisle said, while a mixture of amused and uncomfortable laughter filled the room.

Mr. Hamilton looked down at his vice president’s glass again. He started. The cup was sitting upright without so much as a crack, and was filled to the brim with water and ice cubes. Very smoothly, Mr. Hamilton put on a calm expression to hide his alarm from the rest of the room. He couldn’t help but notice that the young man who had accompanied Callaghan - a twenty-something year old with a slim build and unnervingly rich, dark blue eyes, was watching him very closely.

“Moving onwards,” Mr. Hamilton said briskly, his professionalism emerging once again. For the next couple of hours he sat back in his big chair, listening his colleagues and top researchers briefed him on upcoming technology expected to be finished some time in the next few years. Although he attempted to give everyone his full attention during each lecture, his eyes kept flickering towards the exit doors and the vice president’s untouched water glass. More than once, he met the blue-eyed man’s gaze. The man almost looked amused, almost sneering, and Mr. Hamilton had half the mind to ask him to leave, if it would not insult Mr. Callaghan.

It was late in the evening by the time Callaghan brought out the final contract, a massive stack of paperwork Mr. Hamilton would have to evaluate and sign tomorrow morning. Everyone at the table seemed extremely satisfied despite how many hours they had spent in the conference room; it was clearly that the prospect of the companies’ mergence was highly favorable. Mr. Hamilton, caught in high spirits, shook hands with Callaghan and wished him a good night. Before departing for his office with the contract stowed in his briefcase, he stole one last passing glance at Callaghan’s assistant. The young man with the blue eyes was watching him, but turned away the moment their gazes met. Mr. Hamilton managed a look of disgust in the boy’s directions and then returned to his office, his good mood suddenly less potent than before.

Once inside the familiar glass-paneled room, he walked over to his desk and placed the enormous contract inside the topmost drawer. A job well done, he praised himself. He smugly straightened his tie and released a victorious exhale. This business deal was running smoothly without a hitch. And by the look of things, Mr. Hamilton and his top executives would go home with fat paychecks by the end of the year. He smiled at the thought, and was about to wake his desktop computer when a voice, speaking as clearly as glass, said his name.

“David.”

The blood coursing through Mr. Hamilton’s body seemed to have turned to ice water. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes traveled about the room, searching for the speaker. But there was no one. He was absolutely alone.

His finger slammed on the microphone button. “Eloise,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “I need some water. Please.”

Several minutes later there came a knock on the door. Mr. Hamilton called, “Come in,” but the person who entered was neither his secretary nor one of his assistants. It was Callaghan’s blue-eyed assistant, bringing with him a glass of water and a briefcase.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Hamilton demanded, sharply rising from his chair. “Get the f**k out of my office. Who do you think you are, coming in here unannounced? Get out!”

“I’ll leave in a moment,” the young man said. He had a quiet, somnolent voice that was seemingly friendly, yet his blue eyes, which were hard as granite, belied his vocals. “But first, I have some business to attend to.”

“Business? What’s this ‘business’? I don’t think so, pal. If you mean that you have something to talk to me about, then you’d better just turn around and walk your a*s out my door. You may be Callaghan’s assistant, but that does not give you the right to intrude upon my personal space, especially when I’m in the midst of-”

“You’re not in the midst of anything. You’re going to stop talking now, and listen to me.” The blue-eyed man sat his briefcase on a nearby chair and removed from his suit pocket a large silver stopwatch. He tapped it. Mr. Hamilton could hear it clicking from where he stood.

“Get out,” he said again. “If you don’t, I will call security or else personally escort you myself. Callaghan will receive a very angry letter about your behavior, believe me, and I really hope it gets you fired.”

“There’s just one little problem, Mr. Hamilton. I’m not really Mr. Callaghan’s assistant. Well, not his regular one anyways. His regular one is incapacitated at the moment, and I just happened to be around to fill in.”

“Then who the f**k are you?”

“At the Amber office, I’m known as Holden Smith. Here, I was known as Gregory Ferland. But neither of those are my real names.  I go by Haze. It’s a little nickname my partners and I came up with. Cute, yeah?” Haze began walking the length of the room, eyes locked on his companion. “And now that you know a little fun fact about me, let’s talk about you. About your dealings with the mob to gain illegal funds for your company. About your plan to assassinate Gregory Johansson’s opposition. About the countless murders of shards and humans alike that you have had happen on your orders.”

Mr. Hamilton grew cold his most hidden secrets suddenly came spilling out of this piece of trash’s mouth. Angrily, he demanded, “Who sent you?”

“Nobody. I do business for myself.”

“And this business of yours - blackmailing?”

Haze smiled. “You could call it that.”

Mr. Hamilton couldn't explain why, but he suddenly began to feel very afraid of this young man. But he shouldn't have - he knew he could ground this little s**t to a pulp in a single second. So why was he feeling so fearful? The terror was so strong that he could feel his heart rate accelerating while his palms began to sweat. Slowly, he walked towards his desk and reached for the bottommost drawer where he kept his glock. Before he touched the handle, he glanced up to see Haze laughing, holding Mr. Hamilton’s gun in his hands.

“If I were you, I’d learn to lock my desk.”

“What is it you want?” Mr. Hamilton demanded, his voice cracking a little as the inexplicably strong fear began to coil through his veins.

“After all the good you’ve done, after all those murders, extortion, and bribery, I want you…to make a choice. Would you rather drown or take a bullet to the brain?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, have a look-see, sir.” And he pointed at the windows.

Mr. Hamilton almost collapsed when he saw the image on his right. A vast wall of teal-tinted water pressed up against the windowpanes, making the skyscrapers of the financial district ripple and warp in the liquid’s flowing ebb. The sight was so eerie and so unbelievable that Mr. Hamilton found his breath coming up fast. It looked as though the entire building - the entire city, for that matter - was deep, deep beneath the ocean.  Miniature cracks had already begun to creep across the window closest to him, and he watched in horror as tiny streams of water began to spray into the room.

“Scary, isn’t it?” Haze walked towards Mr. Hamilton. His blue irises were gone, swallowed whole by the enlarged black buttons of his pupils. He looked terrifying. “Now, I’ll ask you again.” He walked forward and slid the gun into Mr. Hamilton’s shaking hands. As he did so, another window sustained several cracks, and the hissing sound of water filled the office. “Would you rather drown or take a bullet to the brain? Don’t be shy.”

The fear residing within Mr. Hamilton’s body was insurmountable. He was a hydrophobic, and the sight of the water ebbing just outside his windows made him panic. The streams that had come bursting through the glass had already accumulated, forming a two inch-deep puddle in the room. Mr. Hamilton ran for the office door, but it was locked. He kicked against it, beat against it, shoved against it, but it refused to budge. And all the while, the wetness at his feet was rising.

“What is this?” he screamed Haze. “What’s happening? This can’t be real, this can’t be! What have you done to me?”

“Of course it’s real. Can’t you feel the water seeping into your shoes? Can’t you hear it breaking through your windows, straining against them?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Did you think you could go on like this forever? Crushing innocent people beneath your feet and breaking federal laws just to put yourself on top?”

“Please, I’ll do anything, I’ll pay you-”

“Drown, or take the bullet?” Haze’s eyes could not have been any blacker.

“I can’t-”

One of the windows buckled, and a torrent of foamy water came gushing into the room. Mr. Hamilton let out a bellow of sheer terror. What happened next occurred only on impulse. As the rest of the windows shattered and the wall of water came tumbling and roaring inside the office, he brought the gun to his temple, closed his terrified eyes, and pulled the trigger.

Author's Note

This is just a sci-fi/thriller/horror experiment.

My story follows the lives of four protagonists: Nina Valentine, a young woman who is determined to avenge her family’s massacre; River Gordon, a 'shard' desperate to achieve freedom; his older brother, Lieutenant Jack Gordon, who is uncertain whether to trust shards or not; and Art Stanford, who works as a special agent for a conglomerate and is determined to annihilate all shards in existence. Stanford's my favorite because he's so damn sadistic/psychotic/murderous.

Reviews

[Dean Kuch®]

I absolutely ate this story up. It was so compelling...I have to read more of your works! I am adding more of your stories/books to my library as I speak. You've definitely got talent!