Body Surfing

body, while prodigious, hardly extended to the molecular level. What he could see, when he compared the two mental images of Larry Bishop’s body, was that the muscle fibers seemed shriveled and tough, like beef jerky. They needed to be rehydrated. Even Jasper knew that you can’t just soak jerky in water and expect it to turn back into steak, let alone a cow. It was going to take a far more labor-intensive process to reanimate his flesh. He stimulated this gland, that organ. Since he could neither see nor feel what was going on in his body, he had no idea if he was affecting anything at all, or if he was merely imagining it. All he could do was wait for a sign that something, anything, was happening.
     
    For a long time—or what seemed like a long time—nothing happened. Part of Jasper wanted to give up, but another part of him remembered the miracles Leo had worked in Larry Bishop’s body after he’d been shot and fallen nine stories. I am Mogran, he reminded himself. I can do anything I want with this body. Anything.
    He decided to try a different approach. Instead of thinking negatively, of reversing the process of crystallization, Jasper asked himself if there was a positive approach. If, instead of taking away the thing that had caused his muscles to seize, he could add something that would cause them to relax. As it happens, this is how antivenin works: the antibodies race through the body, attaching themselves molecule by molecule to the toxic agent, thus preventing it from binding to living tissue. In Jasper’s case, the process was twofold: he had first to get his body to manufacture antibodies to the snake venom, and then—the really tricky part—he had to convince the venom to release its hold on his muscles so that the antivenin could do its work.
    It was not a fast process, to say the least. Fortunately, between roadwork and an accident just outside the town of Claverack, whatshould have been a three-hour drive ended up taking five. Or would have, if Jasper hadn’t woken up.
     
    The first thing that came back was the smell of leather. Leather, and the tanginess of Windex. Someone kept his glass clean. Heat then, as of light amplified through a shiny window. Was he on someone’s couch? A couch pushed up against a wall, just beneath a window? He felt a tingle in the backs of his thighs, his ass. A vibration. I’m in a car, he thought. Stretched out on the backseat. A big car, he realized, because his knees weren’t bent and he didn’t feel any pressure on the bottoms of his feet or the top of his head.
    Suddenly a flood of sound filled his ears:
    “La donna è mobile, qual piùma al vento,
    muta d’accento, e di pensiero.
    Sempre un amabile, leggiadro viso,
    in pianto o in riso, è menzognero.
    La donna è mobile, qual piùma al vento,
    muta d’accento, e di pensier
    e di pensier, e di pensier!”
    Jasper knew opera had words, but he’d never thought anyone really understood them. You just kind of listened to the sound they made. It was Larry who recognized the music as Rigoletto, supplied him with the libretto. He’d developed an appreciation for Italian opera in prison: a Gotti family capo in the cell next to him liked to use Verdi and Puccini as camouflage when he received visits from a certain inmate named Anton Bamberger, who was usually just referred to as CoCo.
    La donna è mobile! his host sang to him. Wo-men are fick-le!
    Jasper thought of Michaela. Michaela and Q. Shut up Larry , he told his host. But he knew he was back.
     
    Larry’s body was oxygen-starved, but Jasper fought the impulse to take deep breaths. Just a few more seconds, he told his suffocating cells, just let me get everything in order and I’ll give you all the air you want.
    He risked opening his eyes. He had to find out sooner or later whether there was someone in the backseat with him. All he saw was another seat facing his. For a moment he thought he might be on a train, but then he realized it was a limousine. The only person he knew who could afford a limousine was Q.
    He looked at the back of the driver’s head. The hair was brown, not black, straight, not curly. Not Q. then. Jasper didn’t know if he was disappointed or not. At least he didn’t have to worry about hurting Q. He was pissed at his friend, and was looking forward to punching him in the face, but he didn’t exactly want to kill him in a car accident.
    The seat opposite him backed against the driver’s seat. An empty seatbelt