Dreams Ltd

  Hulk almost winced, looking at her round blue eyes, lit with undisguised fury.

  “Let me go!” She yelled at Greg, jerking from side to side, “You’ll break my arm, bastard!”

  This time Hulk winced.

  He was not particularly fond of rude expressions, especially coming from women, and especially when they were said with such disdain and brutality. Plus, a loud voice could wake Shereen.

  “Shut up.” He threw abruptly to Jenny.

  This only word sounded short, cold and rough - rough enough for her screams to be cut halfway through. Her round eyes, which were now filled with a mixture of lust and fear, stared at him without blinking. It seemed that she was almost licking her lips, seeing Hulk so close. Even the fear did not stop her from looking at him up and down.

  Now it became even clearer why Jenny decided to betray Shereen so badly - Shereen had the opportunity to stay in touch with Hulk, whereas this one, who was secretly pining for him (or pining for all the perks that he came with?) couldn’t even get close to the ranch, let alone its owner.

  When the woman standing in front of him, finally finished inspecting his body parts, Hulk met her gaze directly, coldly and pensively, resembling a snake ready for the fatal bite.

  The blond girl immediate saw the threat in his eyes and involuntarily took a step back, almost hiding behind Greg’s back.

  Hulk unkindly smiled with the corner of his lips and turned to the senior warden.

  “Talk.”

  Greg hesitated and for a while couldn’t utter a single word. It was the first time Hulk saw such behaviour from the old soldier and he could bet his arm that Greg’s biggest problem was to decide how to exactly present the unsightly truth. At least, Greg understood that it would be much better not to lie. Hulk silently praised him, noting to himself that it would not mitigate the penalty.

  Finally, Greg cleared his throat.

  “Ok, I brought the one responsible for the arson, as you requested.” He pointed at Jenny, “She did that. She set the barn on fire and brought petrol into the room and stole the shoe...”

  “How dare you, bastard!? I didn’t do anything!” She squealed, trying to kick the guard. But before she could add anything, Greg squashed her hand, and instead of words, Jenny howled in pain.

  “It was her, I’m certain! You can check her as you did with the other one and you’ll see...”

  Hulk was looking at Greg composed.

  “How can you be so certain that it was her?”

  Greg swallowed nervously.

  “I found a few witnesses. They saw her carrying the canister to the house.”

  “You're lying! I didn’t do anything with the petrol! I was picking berries all day, and then I went to bed and only woke up because of the smoke!”

  Hulk looked at Jenny, then at Greg, waiting for his response.

  The fact that both of them were involved in the arson was obvious, but Hulk didn’t want to interrupt the show, allowing the details come up on their own. He enjoyed catching the slightest body reactions, tones of voices and their facial expressions - it would always tell a more truthful story than any words. In addition, he was the Sensor - a man capable to affect the brain, alter, or receive any information from it directly through the eyes, but these skills were not required at the moment. So he waited.

  The senior warden looked seriously nervous and was sweating heavily. However that didn’t prevent him from pushing Jenny to her side whenever she attempted to say something.

  “She's lying. Everyone knows how rotten she is inside; she’s only good at lying, envy and dirty words.”

  Hulk raised his eyebrows, noting the reddish spots appearing on Jenny’s face, but Greg, who was getting carried away with blaming, continued, “Everyone from her barracks can confirm that she couldn’t stand that girl - Shereen - and was always making up rumours about her even though nobody believed them.”

  Jenny stood silently, ready to explode - her lips turned into a thin line, and her chin was shaking with rage as if every word said by Greg was burning her from inside; while the senior warden was continuing to expose all the juicy details of her intriguing life. But as soon as he started saying that, he also saw her dragging the canister to the house, Jenny exploded in anger.

  “Why are you lying and using me as your cover up? It was YOU who gave me the duplicate key to her room!” Now Jenny didn’t care about the consequences of her own words. Her anger finally burst out, she turned to Greg, and yelled at him what she’d wanted to say for a long time. (Hulk was expecting exactly this to happen). “You hated her no less than I did and every time after fucking me you wouldn’t shut up about it!”

  Greg went pale and raised his hand to give Jenny a good slap, but Hulk sharply cut the show short.

  “That’s it! Enough, I said!” He snapped when he saw that Greg can barely control himself, “Is it true, Greg?”

  Now Hulk's voice sounded so harsh that Greg could almost feel its steel edges. He couldn’t push the answer out of his mouth - his throat tightened and completely blocked the flow of oxygen. At this moment he hated Jenny so much that he was ready to strangle her right there in the office, and do it ruthlessly, without any hesitation.

  “You bitch...” His scrawny fists were clenching and unclenching, “You are dirty little bitch!”

  Even when he slept with her, he never felt much of a pleasure, only dirt - any prostitute in Tally was better than this one, and now Greg regretted that he ever came close to this woman. What a petty vindictive creature! He should have strangled her earlier... a lot earlier. Why didn’t this idea come to him before? He could have just said it was an accident and then nobody could turn him in... But it was far too late now - Hulk will know if he lies. Fucking blond slut...

  “Greg?” Hulk repeated, “Are you gonna give me an answer or should I get it out of you?”

  The guard panicked that Hulk's eyes will flash with the white light and then his life will be over. Everything will come to an end! And yet it was not too late to confess!

  “Yes, it’s true! I made that damn key, but I didn’t know what she was going to do with it!” Greg shouted, apologetically.

  “You DID know everything!” Jenny yelled viciously, revenging for her own defeat, “I told you every bloody detail of my plan and you agreed to it, hoping to get extra points for saving the barn!”

  Streams of sweat were now pouring down Greg’s face.

  Hulk clenched his jaw, enraged.

  “You...” He turned to Jenny, trying to prevent any further altercations, “...get out of this office now and next morning I will pass you to Tally City Court with a full description of your actions. They will decide what to do with you next.”

  “No!” Jenny murmured, suddenly turning pale, “They will send me to the forced-labour camp! They will...”

  “I don’t care!” Hulk cut her off.

  “But we can deal with this here, at this ranch; there is no need for the Tally Court, I’ll work for every single point, you can punish me!...”

  “Not after what you’ve done.”

  “I want to stay at the ranch!”

  Hulk tensed and slowly lowered his gaze as if looking at something on the carpet.

  “You have three seconds to leave this office.” He said calmly, “I have already made my decision.”

  His voice reminded Jenny of a concrete wall, strewn with glass. Feeling dark despair, she broke away from Greg’s hands, howled and ran out of the office. The sounds of her steps had already faded away, but Hulk was still standing silent and motionless, staring at the floor. Greg was too scared to look at his face, and even more scared to hear what Hulk has to say.

  Finally, Hulk raised his head and glanced at the senior warden who suddenly realised that he had seen many different expressions on boss’s face, but never this one.

  “Well...” Hulk said, “Let’s talk?”

  Greg didn’t dare to say a word.

  By the time the door shut behind Jenny he knew
that the punishment for involvement in the arson cannot be avoided. She unmasked him with might and main, didn’t forget to mention every dirty detail of their sordid relationship, which, of course, wouldn’t help him to gain any kind of leniency.

  Scum!

  Greg prayed that the conversation with Hulk would end sooner rather than later, so he could go and find this snake. Oh, he will make sure that her poisonous tongue will be dangling around her neck! Yes, he will make sure of it. Personally.

  But that will happen later and what about now? How serious will his punishment be? Greg waited, listening to the oppressive silence, and not daring to make a sound.

  Finally Hulk began talking.

  “You’ve been working at this ranch for two years. I gave you practically an unlimited amount of power and allowed you to deal with any situations yourself. I made you a senior warden and left you to manage the rest of the guards. But it seems that the power has gone right to your head.”

  Greg swallowed, trying to push the saliva down his rapidly drying throat. Even though Hulk was shorter than him, Greg felt as small as a dwarf. It was probably about the atmosphere, or even about this damn threatening aura that emanated around Hulk, forcing everyone to kneel to the ground. It would become especially noticeable when Conrad was really furious. As he was now.

  “You crossed the line when you decided that inflicting damage to my ranch will bring you some personal benefit. I don’t care about the reasons for your actions, but I care about the fact that my ranch was damaged, because you helped that happen. Starting from tomorrow morning, the role of the senior warden will be given to someone else.”

  Greg couldn’t believe his own ears.

  Fired? Has he just been fired?! Yes, he certainly thought that he could be told off, get a slap on the wrist, reprimanded or even fined. But to be ousted?! He stuck it out for two long years at this damn ranch, working hard with no rest or free time at the weekends and now he’s going to get thrown out just like that?

  “That’s not fair!” He roared angrily with a tint of guilt in his voice, “Yes, I gave her the key, but I didn’t know what she was up to!”

  “I don’t care what you were thinking.”

  “If I knew that Jenny was going to damage that...”

  “Did you know about the arson?” Hulk interrupted him.

  Greg didn’t respond, because he didn’t want to confess once again what was already obvious. So the question became a rather rhetorical one and hung in the air. Hulk though didn’t expect to hear anything back, so he just continued, “You didn’t care about the fact that if the barn gets damage, I won’t be able to export anything to the city...”

  Greg gritted his teeth, thinking that the economy in this ranch wouldn’t suffer too much from it.

  “... as you didn’t care about the people, who could get burnt...”

  Who’d care about the prisoners! They were not people; they were worse than a cattle herd and needed to be held in the iron fists!

  “...you shamelessly dragged an innocent woman into my office...”

  “She was never that innocent! She was stealing food from the kitchen...” Greg exploded, because the subject of Shereen was more painful than the rest of it all.

  But Hulk didn’t let him finish and the tone of his voice had now changed to a dangerously sweet one.

  “... you didn’t think I’d be able to determine the truth, right? You thought I was a fool who could be told any old rubbish. But you're wrong, Greg. You were very much mistaken.”

  The silence that hung in the room between the two men was almost crackling with tension. Greg's lanky tall figure was now angrily and nervously shifting from one foot to another.

  All of this was Shereen’s fault! It was her who set Hulk against Greg, played havoc with his mind and now was peacefully sleeping in another room, while the senior warden - actually, ex-senior warden - must go and look for another job first thing in the morning.

  Greg just about stopped himself from spitting right on the carpet. He knew from the beginning that he should’ve strangled her too - they both should’ve been strangled before he’d went for one of them and Hulk fell for the other...

  “For the actions against my property and for insulting me, you will be fined two hundred points. In the morning you will leave the ranch grounds”

  “What?!” Greg shouted in frenzy, “Two hundred points? For some fucking barn that didn’t even really burn properly?”

  The warden’s bad temper had already let him down in the past, but not as badly as this time. This time the anger blinded him to such an extent that he didn’t realise how his own fist went flying towards Hulk’s jaw. Fear, surprise, delight, anger and relief - all rolled up into one ball of emotions, when Greg thought that he will finally pay this brat back. How nice it will be to hit his detestable unemotional mug!

  But in a split second Greg’s arm and shoulder were twisted with such a sharp pain that he gasped and sank on the floor. Somehow, Hulk swayed his flying fist off to the side with the speed of light and twisted Greg’s elbow behind his back; he then pressed the point, located between his shoulder blades with his steel fingers, which made the guard see black and red dots in front of his eyes.

  He wheezed, arched from the sharp pain - the shoulder ached as if thorns and spikes went through it, and one hand quickly began to go numb.

  “Three hundred points.” Hulk said, “If you jerk just one more time again, it will be four hundred. And one more time after that - five hundred. Do I make myself clear?”

  Greg nodded, grimacing and spitting.

  “You will leave this place in the morning, and you will not have any right to come back here again. If your bracelet is detected within five miles of this ranch, you will be losing another hundred points every time it happens.”

  Greg was pining from the pain as Hulk was still clenching his shoulder with his fingers.

  “Did you hear what I just said? Or would you like to try and use your limbs again?” Hulk’s ice-cold voice filtered through the painful throbbing in Greg’s head.

  “Let go of me!” He croaked with the hatred, “I got it!”

  “You are dismissed.” Hulk said shortly and angrily, “Get out of here!”

  Greg ran out of the office as soon as he was able to stand up and distinguish the location of the door

  Jenny was crying. She was sitting in the darkness behind the women's barracks, smearing tears all over her face. For the first time she was in despair.

  The night air, as if reminding her of the recent failure, smelled of fire.

  Everything had gone wrong and not at all in accordance with the immaculate plan she had in mind. Greg betrayed her, Hulk appeared to be absolutely not what he was supposed to be like, the whole sham was exposed before it got a chance to materialise, and the future now looked not just grim, but terrifying. Instead of a little room in the house, increased wages and general life improvement which Jenny was expecting to achieve from this, the next morning was promising the looming walls of the Tally Supreme Court - a prison inside of a prison.

  Just a mention of the name of this institution was making her blood curdle blood. Jenny’s knowledge about this place was quite veracious - she’s spent almost two years in Tally, collecting any relevant information from anyone who was willing to share it, and everyone was saying the same about the Supreme Court - if you don’t want to know the real meaning of the word “grief” - never ever come close to that building.

  Only those prisoners who failed to show satisfactory behaviour in the normal conditions of Tally were sent there for additional measures of "personality correction”. In five out of ten cases such measure was a public execution. In the case of the other three, it was penal servitude. Nobody knew for certain what happened in the last two cases.

  The judges considering the cases didn’t pay much attention to what the papers said - for them it was enough to know that a certain prisoner was declared unfit to live in Tally by their “owner”, and so lif
e in Tally would look like living in paradise after what would happen next. Who’d care about the dregs of society who couldn’t even be useful in a prison - wastes of space like that would be just “erased” in order to give way to new and more useful individuals.

  Jenny was shivering, despite the heat that was rising from the warm ground. The dry grass stems were scratching her feet and digging into her inner thighs. She twisted on the lumpy ground, squirmed and hugged herself, trying to get warm. Where should she go now and what should she do?

  Women from the barracks somehow discovered the truth about the arson and now were greeting Jenny with reproachful silence and gloomy looks. Sometimes they were whispering behind her back, but even when they were quiet, the silence felt so hostile that Jenny just wanted to run away aimlessly.