Dreams Ltd

  Didn’t she want to talk about it? Or maybe first she wanted to be sarcastic and say “find out for yourself”, but then changed her mind in order not to annoy the owner of the house? Expecting to hear a long story, Hulk was disappointed because the only word slipped out of her mouth was “Hacking”.

  “Hacking?” Hulk was amazed. The last thing he could imagine her doing is sitting in front of a computer for hours, staring at the code lines, breaking and getting into some systems. And if he tried picturing the usual attributes of a common hacker like a mountain of cigarette butts, a grubby and grimy apartment, and a shaggy unfed cat, Shereen didn’t fit into this picture at all. Something in her version of the story didn’t quite match with the person he saw in front of him.

  Hulk looked at her hands - she obviously took great care of her nails, at least before Tally; her fingers were thin and feminine more suitable for piano keys than a computer keyboard.

  If Hulk had difficulty recognising her emotions earlier, now her face has turned completely impenetrable as if this subject was causing a huge amount of distress for her. Suddenly it dawned on him that the answer Shereen gave him was a lie. But why?

  “Why are you lying to me from the very start?”

  This time a surprise flashed through her green eyes. She even opened her mouth as though she was going to say something but then got frightened and stopped; and a second later her face restored to its previous straight look again. Hulk involuntarily began to feel a hunter’s excitement. Who is this girl? The words have to be pulled out of her mouth, she is not mumbling, not begging for mercy, not being sarcastic and her lying is fairly restrained.

  “So what’s the matter?” He repeated his question, “Why are you lying to me?”

  “I’m not lying.” she answered calmly, “the information in my documents coincides with my words.”

  After her reply, Hulk was seized by a strange feeling that Shereen was mentally celebrating the fact that she was not letting him learn the truth. Somehow he was certain that her papers will confirm her statement but what about his intuition? He would be a complete fool if he ever neglected the sixth sense and his intuition was telling him - her answer is a lie. Suddenly he got a brilliant idea.

  He looked at her with narrowed eyes.

  “Shereen, I’m going to give you one in a million chance and your destiny will depend on it.”

  For a brief moment fear shot in the girl's eyes. Hulk went to his desk and turned on the computer. While the operating system was loading, Shereen’s face reflected dozens if not hundreds of emotions and they all looked like panic.

  “Sit on this chair.” he said, once his computer finished booting up.

  “No.” that was barely audible whisper.

  “This is not a request.” she seemed frozen to the chair, so he repeated coolly, “sit on this chair, I said.”

  When Shereen approached the table on stiff legs and sat down in front of the monitor, Hulk opened some program. At first a wide window with multiple text lines appeared on the screen, then on top of the first one, another small window with a single field and a flashing cursor popped up.

  “This program is encrypted. Crack the password and I'll pay you fifty points right here, right now.”

  Shereen eyes rounded and filled up with fear, in their depth there was an incomprehensible expression of a rabbit caught in the headlights.

  “No. I won’t be doing that.” Her voice was breaking up and her hair swayed in protest.

  “Am I not offering enough? Seventy-five then.”

  “No, please...”

  “What’s the matter? You are a hacker! One hundred points then.”

  “I won’t do this! It's a crime!” Shereen tried to get out of it; red spots appeared on her pale cheeks.

  “One hundred and fifty and it's not a crime but a favour which I’m going to pay for.”

  “No...”

  “Two hundred...” Hulk knew the game he was playing at was far too dangerous but something was pushing him to continue. This girl was lying and his intuition had never let him down in the past. If she is a good actress and just trying to increase her pay-out, well, he’ll pay for her talent.”

  “It is illegal...” Shereen was still trying to evade.

  “Oh, illegal?” He almost laughed out loud at her ridiculous excuses, “I give you my word that no one will ever know about this. You will receive two hundred points and leave this room, as if nothing had ever happened. So what do you say?”

  “No.” Her lower lip trembled.

  “OK, let’s play on, three hundred!”

  “You don’t understand...”

  “Four hundred!”

  “I can’t do it.”

  Shereen’s cheeks weren’t just pink, they were blazing red, and despair was screaming in her eyes but Hulk wanted to carry on with this game to the end, despite the cost, and once and for all discover what the truth is and what the lie is. He was desperate to pull the confession out of her mouth at any price.

  “Five hundred points, Shereen.”

  “I don’t know how!”

  “One thousand fucking points!”

  As soon as he said that she opened her mouth flabbergasted by what she’d just heard. For a short moment there Hulk thought he’d made a mistake and that her face will light up with joy, she will turn to the monitor, break the password in a few seconds and will smile at him happily, expecting to get the promised prize. If this happens, he will have lost this game quickly, foolishly and recklessly.

  But instead she suddenly covered her face with her hands ... and burst into tears.

  She began crying, instead of laughing at the idea of how easily she’d managed to get a thousand points for one hacked password and happily leave Tally after that.

  Cringing in a chair, she was silently shivering and sobbing through her fingers.

  For a while it was quiet in the room. Hulk turned to the window, took another cigar and lit it right there in the office.

  “Shereen ...” he called softly, “look at me.”

  She was struggling to pull herself together. Eventually she managed, wiped off her tears and looked at him with her bright green teary eyes.

  “You lied to me.”

  Shereen startled weakly from words but continued to stare at him.

  “You are not a hacker and you came here because of something else.”

  Now she nodded and that was a good sign.

  “Okay. We'll move on from this for now.” Hulk decided not to rush things; there will be more time for everything as there were more important questions to discuss now.

  “You’ll be living in the same room when you spent your last night. You’ll have some dinner later on tonight and tomorrow you’ll be shown the dining area and meal schedule. Nobody will make you starve here.”

  He paused, feeling she had some questions.

  “What?”

  “Can I move around the territory?”

  “Only up to the border of the nearest field. If you don’t make any attempts to escape or show any other inappropriate behaviour you’ll be allowed to walk further. Is there anything else?”

  Shereen hesitated before asking the next question, it was clearly uncomfortable for her.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Please, don’t lock my room for the night. I don’t have access to the toilet otherwise.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. That’s it.”

  “Okay. I’ll instruct the guards not to lock your door. But any attempt to flee will change your position radically. Do you get my drift?”

  She looked at him and nodded.

  Yes, she understood, he knew it - whether she was a hacker or not, she comprehended her situation clearly.

  My legs were completely stiff as I walked down the corridor trying to find my room and the only words I could repeat were “Oh my God, oh my God...” So much has happened in one day!

  “Oh my God, oh my God...”

  I recognis
ed the familiar wing of the house, automatically turned into the dark corridor and almost tumbled into the room. I slammed the door, climbed onto the bed, leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. After a short while I buried my face into a thin pillow, showering myself with buckets of questions and curses. All that happened in Hulk’s office seemed unthinkable! Totally surreal! I could have earned a thousand points today, TODAY! A whole bloody thousand! Why aren’t I a hacker – I didn’t know anything about the profession The Corporation mentioned in my documents? Why haven’t I studied computer science? Who could’ve known that one day it would help me to dodge many years of imprisonment? What was it that Hulk said - he’ll pay half a point a day? It’s only three and half points a week. It didn’t take me long to calculate that at this rate I’ll have to spend five or six years in Tally. Six years of my precious life will have to be spent being slave. A deep anguish crushed down on me after such a thought and I began punching my skinny pillow.

  One thousand! One tho-o-o-ousand! My voice sounded like an animal’s howl. Why am I not a hacker?!

  But I wasn’t a hacker and there was nothing I could do about that. If I’d tried to pretend to be knowledgeable I’d have to get rid of this password within the given time. Hulk would never have believed a person who could barely type; and I only knew how to send emails and use a couple of accounting applications. I never even mastered the art of touch-typing. So there was no hope to even mess Hulk around for longer than a few minutes and another lie wouldn’t have given us a better understanding.

  But why did he even offer me this deal? He was obviously convinced that I wasn’t a computer genius and he sure knew it. He wasn’t guessing and wasn’t building any assumptions that could cost him a thousand points, Hulk was not that type of person who would rush to lose this much. Was it that easy to see through me? How come he recognised I was lying whereas the others would have never believed the truth?

  Groaning louder than ever, I covered my head with the pillow, trying to escape the feeling of despair. How am I going to survive here? How I am to stay safe when I have to see Greg and his toads every day? How can I prevent a mental break down from the realisation that for the next five years (in the best case scenario) I have to live, work and walk on the same roads of this ranch? The same roads. The same ranch. Every day. For five fucking years.

  I almost missed it when someone knocked on my door. Only when the door swung opened, I emerged from the dark abyss of my thoughts, hastily took the pillow off my head, smoothed my hair and stared at the unfamiliar visitor who appeared to be a rather large lady wearing a dark dress and white apron. She was holding a kitchen towel in her hands. Together with this woman, an amazing smell of baking and vanilla swam into the room.

  “Hey, you, whatever your name is, how long do I have to wait for you in the kitchen for?” She muttered and left my room. I didn’t need to be asked twice (I’d happily follow this smell even if it would bring me to my own gallows) I slipped out of bed and ran after her.

  Tabitha. That was the name of the Queen of Kitchen. She wasn’t very tall, but fairly plump; she had dark skin, black coarse hair and full lips. Her forehead and cheeks were covered in sweat - an intense heat was rising up from the stove on top of which there was a boiling kettle half filled with water.

  I saw a bowl of soup, bread and cheese in front of me on the table. As I opened my mouth trying to swallow a spoon of broth, I cringed from the pain that shoot through my jaw.

  “Who did this to you?” asked Tabitha.

  “Greg.”

  Now it was her turn to grimace.

  “I wish someone would pull his dirty arms off. Why did he hit you?”

  “I took an apple from the kitchen. He said I stole it.”

  Tabitha didn’t say anything, just shook her head, then she slowly and heavily got up from the chair and removed the kettle from the stove.

  As I noticed, the Kitchen Queen wasn’t that talkative, keeping a serious and slightly reproachful facial expression, however, I noticed a glimpse of curiosity and sympathy in her black eyes.

  The kitchen was not like that huge room I saw earlier but a small room with yellow wallpaper; perhaps this facility was used as a canteen for workers. Someone has even made an attempt to make it look cosy - the table was covered up with a colourful tablecloth; there was a quietly humming fridge in the corner and a clock ticking away on the wall.

  Suddenly I felt a strong desire to talk to Tabitha and I didn’t really care what about. I felt emotionally attracted to the woman like a lost puppy who imagined that a piece of fur could replace it’s mother. My loneliness has put a heavy stamp on me. From day one of being in Tally I had no one to share any of my thoughts, my worries, plans or just my mood. Jenny was never the person I trusted completely and Robert was always busy with his software and electronics and hence I desperately longed for a companionship, real communication - warm and human, with jokes, advice, support and a bit of love.

  I sighed and scooped up another spoonful of soup.

  “Tasty”. I said indifferently not being able to squeeze out a smile or compliment her.

  Tabitha briefly glanced at me, busy making tea.

  “Drink this.”

  She gave me a porcelain cup with swollen up tea leaves floating on its surface. I blew on the hot water. Tabitha sat in front of me, stirring the tea leaves with a spoon. Her head was lowered and her large dark hands were folded on the table. I suddenly thought that she looked like a mother who had survived long nights in the trenches caring for soldiers and not being lucky enough to see her own children come back from the war. There was something in her face that forced me to crave for her every seldom word and treat her every gesture or look with great attention. To me Tabitha seemed to be carved from a stone, in the middle of which there was a big, warm and loving heart beating.

  “It’s not easy to live here.” suddenly she looked up at me with her black eyes, “but don’t give up. Sometimes they’ll treat you fairly, sometimes not, but you must always stay away from Greg.”

  I nodded, surprised by her sincerity.

  “Okay, I am off to bed.” she moved her cup of tea away. “When you're done, put the dishes in the sink, I’ll wash them in the morning. Don’t forget to turn off the light - the switch is behind the fridge and when you leave, take this with you.”

  She produced a small crumpled plastic bag and got up from her chair.

  “My back is aching, every evening I massage it but it still aches.” she was rumbling on her way to the door, “OK, I’m gone.”

  “Good night!” I replied a little delayed, looking at the plastic bag. As soon as Tabitha’s steps faded away, I opened it carefully and felt a small beam of light appearing in the middle of the dark clouds that hung over my heart; she left me a little chocolate bar.

  “Thank you.” - I whispered to the empty kitchen. But only the ticking clock was a response.

  An old wooden door attached to the rusty hinges worn out from the rain and wind was slowly creaking. The greyish borders of the bunk-beds were standing out from the darkness – a wide room contained no less than fifteen of them. Each bed was prepared for sleep but their owners didn’t seem to be in a hurry to meet Morpheus; they crowded together in a tight circle instead, surrounding the new girl who at this very moment kept tragic silence.

  The oil-lamps were put out about an hour ago and the smell of tar had already disappeared through thin slits in the windows that were saving the women from the humidity.

  “So what happened next?” a curious woman's voice broke the silence in the room.

  “And next...” Jenny held an impressive pause first, and then she replied with fake sadness in her voice. “Then she betrayed us all - me and Robert. I managed to stay alive but he…”

  An outraged sigh flew over the room. Jenny’s shoulders were convulsing as she was sobbing; in order to hide her dry eyes, she covered her hardly visible in the darkness face with her fingers, feeling how someone was tugging her shoulder gentl
y and stroking her back, urging to calm down.

  “Don’t cry, girl.” said an elderly woman with dark hair tightened with a scarf, sitting next to Jenny, “People are all different, don’t waste your tears on them.”

  “You cannot imagine…” Jenny was enjoying her role of being the “victim” gleefully as well as the effect made on the others. “I helped her with a job! I brought her into that club! And that’s how she repaid me after everything!”

  Bursting into crocodile tears, Jenny began sobbing again.

  Here, in a faraway barracks on the outskirts of Tally, there were never any rumours amongst the berry pickers. Those who revelled in intrigues and forged the poisonous bogus rumours and repeating them behind people’s backs were not accepted in the team, and were quickly finding themselves outside the friendly circle, abandoned, and spat on. Therefore none of the women doubted the story of the new girl; they were just shaking their heads pitifully, feeling sorry for the tenderfoot. And how could you not feel sorry for her? Her fate didn’t exactly work out in her favour, and that new friendship - so fragile and precious, turned into one big betrayal.