Tom Knox - Bible of the Dead

The guards had hung back. Tyrone and Sen loitered at the other side of the table. Observing. They knew there was nothing Jake could do. He was imprisoned here, with his fate. He kissed Chemda again. And confirmed the bitter truth.

The kiss was different.

‘Chem?’

Detaching herself, from his arms, she said: ‘I’m OK. Thank you for trying to save me. Ah. Ah. What can I say.’

Her eyes said I love you but her words were worryingly staccato.

What had they done to her? She was different.

She pressed a hand flat on his chest and shook her head and a tremble in her mouth told him she was near to tears, she shook her head again – as if she were trying to say goodbye, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

All she said was:

‘I’m OK. They kept me here. Wouldn’t let me see you until they had done that thing. Their surgery.’

‘So you know it all? The whole story?’

Her dark eyes avoided his gaze, her voice was low and murmuring.

‘My grandfather, S37, my family, his role, I know it all. Sonisoy? Anlong Veng? All of it. Ah. What can we do now, what choice do I have? It is too late anyway.’

‘Chem?’

Her eyes lifted, they found his regard and she said: ‘How do you feel? How do you feel about me now, Jake? Now they have done this?’

He gazed at her and he gazed around and he surveyed the meaningless circle of summits, on this butte of rock, above the plunging and pitiless gorges. And he knew that what he really wanted was to have sex, maybe with Chemda, with her firm eager breasts. Or maybe with one of those cute Tibetan girls in the village, with their roseapple smiles.

But he didn’t love her. He wanted to fuck her. But he didn’t love her. He didn’t love Chemda any more.

It was true. Why deny it? He just didn’t love her, not in that special ludicrous way. No. She was beautiful and sexy and he liked fucking her. For sure. She was a fine woman, intelligent, moral, and he respected her, he could imagine her as his wife, but love: that was all absurd.

He didn’t love her. Love was a neurochemical reaction, a disorder of the hormones, a ruse designed by nature to make men procreate and then hang around with some yowling brat for at least eighteen months until the trick of love expired like free software with a time limit, so no he didn’t love her but he still admired her and he desired her. And they were friends.

Jake happily smiled and kissed Chemda on the cheek and she looked at him fearfully and she said:

‘What have they done to you? Jake? Tell me? How do you feel?’

Her soft hand went to his head and she touched the top of his head and, as if he had been injected, he felt a stab of sharp pain.

His hand reflexively went to his head, to the scar. A scar? He had a scar on his head.

He was freshly scarred. The top of the forehead.

The guards were at his side. They forced him to sit.

Tyrone sat besides him, and talked:

‘Don’t think of it as someone cutting out your soul, think of it as cosmetic surgery. Or laser tooth whitening! Don’t be a fucking pussy all your life.’

Jake stared at his friend. His ex friend. His mortal and immortal enemy. The world spun on an axis of inversion.

‘You did it already?’

‘We did it already. You were in a coma so we took the opportunity.’

‘But what – what was the point? I’m already an atheist.’

‘Ah, but are you? Or were you?’ Tyrone smiled. And the mountain air was as cold and bright as his smile. ‘Always struck me that you’re one of those people that hates God rather than actually not believing in Him. Take a long look at all that load of guilt, the guilt you carry, what is all that, but the same guilty God module working away in your head?’ Tyrone pointed at his own head, and twisted a finger.

‘But Ty you -’ ‘All that shit about your dead mum. And your sister. Don’t you ever want to draw a line, move beyond the guilt and grief? Dude, your dead mother has been sucking the life out of you for too long. Get rid. You are like someone born attached to a dead twin, and you’re still dragging the corpse. So we decided it was time to cut the cord. Snip !’

‘You fucker. You bastard.’

‘Me?’ Tyrone laughed. ‘Ungrateful. I arranged all this for you. Don’t you get it?’

‘How?’

‘Because I saw the story. Let Sen explain.’

Sen sat the other side of Jake. Chemda was sitting across the wide white table, her face covered with her hands. He wondered if she was crying. He didn’t care. He felt a certain unburdening – in that he didn’t care.

He didn’t care.

The Chinese man narrated, gesturing languidly at the lowslung concrete buildings:

‘This is, I like to believe, the most amazing laboratory in the world doing the most amazing work. But the Chinese have lost faith in us. You see? We used to be funded by the Chinese military, we were rewarded with proper guards and equipment and resources, precisely because we could manufacture those perfected soldiers for the PLA. But these days, it’s all change, always change.’

Tyrone stepped in:

‘All that organ harvesting, brain changing shit, it’s bad PR for the new superpower. And the Chinese ardour for com munism has abated now they’ve all got BMWs. So they got a bit dubious.’

Jake swivelled in his seat, Tyrone put a restraining hand on his shoulder:

‘You aren’t going anywhere, Thurby. So you may as well listen. You want to know what’s going on, right? So. As we were saying, Sovirom Sen is not so popular any more, he has been forced to employ his mistakes. Those guys with the scars at the back gate, who tried to pump out all your blood. They need a lot of blood for these surgeries – these guys have been told to take blood off unwanted guests, if they get the chance – but not just anyone. But they won’t listen. They’re a symptom. This place has problems.’

‘Still don’t. Just don’t get it. Why do it to me?’

‘ This is why you should have stuck to the camerawork. You’re just a photographer, a monkey, a snapper. You’re not a writer, not a real journalist. You never really saw what a great story you had, here, did you? But I did, I sensed it, from the start. So I get to do it.’

‘You’re doing all this… for the story? ’

‘Yes! And what a fucking story!’ Tyrone closed his eyes, and his voice stiffened: ‘Hard by the Himalayas, in the high green forests of wild north Yunnan, expert Chinese scientists have perfected the most astonishing neurosurgical procedure in history, the removal of religious belief, excised from living brains.’

He chuckled. ‘That’s not a bad opener, isn’t it? That’s my Pulitzer, right there. So yeah when Sovirom Sen came to me, asking for my help, explaining everything, yeah I saw how we could work together. I saw the synergistic possibilities.’

‘You did it for the job. Fuck.’

‘Sure. Because Sen needs money and backers for his experiments, to continue his work. Not least, he will need a new location, new backers, very soon – when Beijing closes him down. And to get these new funds he needs publicity, he needs the story out there. He needs the world to know his success. And that’s where I come in. I am going to write it up, me, me the real writer.’ A sly smile. ‘But before he gave me the whole story he said I needed to prove my credentials, prove my commitment, give him something he wanted – so, yes, I told him where you two were staying in Bangkok, so he could grab Chem, get her away, take her to China. I persuaded him not to touch you, because I am your friend! Your saviour! But I also knew this was only a stopgap.’ Tyrone stared Jake in the eyes. Unblinking. Then he continued: