Body Surfing

Michaela and Jasper had both read.
    Hey, what was the name of that writer? The one Q. said founded the Legion?
    “Jordan David. The City of Frozen Souls ,” he added, before Michaela had to ask.
    Right! Can you—
    But Jasper had already scanned the shelves. They weren’t in any particular order, but he was able to cross-reference all the editions of the novel he’d seen over the years, and the spine practically jumped out from among its neighbors.
    “There it is. Looks like a facsimile edition of the first printing.”
    “Facsimile edition.” My, aren’t we fancy?
    “Like I said, comes with the territory.” Jasper pulled the volume off the shelves. The brittle jacket cracked beneath his fingers, and Miranda’s addiction to daytime TV showed in the healthy layer of dust Jasper blew from the top of the closed pages.
    Give the woman a break, Jasper. She has to clean this whole place by herself .
    Michaela uttered a tiny gasp as Jasper turned the book to look at the front cover. God, how creepy!
    The design was an illustration of vertically elongated faces lined up so they resembled the crowded buildings of a city. The eyes were all looking upward with pleading expressions on their faces, and they were rendered in dark blue ink, which made them look that much colder—frozen, as the title above them suggested. The words were in a slightly lighter blue, the jagged hand-drawn letters looking a little like icicles hanging from a clothesline or a wire fence.
    “Hard to imagine a kid’s book with a cover like that today. Everything’s so happy-go-lucky and tongue-in-cheek.”
    The nightmares this book gave me when I was little .
    “At least you could sleep. It kept me awake for days.”
    And according to this Dr. Thomas guy, it came from being possessed by a demon?
    “Well.” Jasper sifted the pieces of a dozen different lectures he, Michaela, Larry, and Jarhead had all heard over the years. “David was part of the generation that believed childhood was an idyll before the horrors of adulthood set in.”
    You mean sex .
    “He meant sex. I always thought sex was kind of fun myself.”
    Said the man who never did it .
    Jasper sat down in a chair, set the book on his lap. On Michaela’s lap. The distinction suddenly seemed important.
    “Do you think he was right?”
    Who? Jordan David?
    “Do you think sex is really this dark mysterious force that controls us? Even now? Even after Freud and the Kinsey Report and Deep Throat and ‘My Humps’? Do you think all the soul wants to do is breed? Breed and then die?”
    And everything else is just something to do to while away the time? Michaela laughed. Death has made you philosophical, boyfriend .
    “It’s just that ever since I became a Mogran I’ve seen the evidence everywhere. So much planning and conniving just to get laid. And how often is the sex just, like, a release more than anything else? Something that just makes you want to do it again, not because it was so fun but because you’re hoping that next time actually will be fun.”
    You’re starting to sound like a Puritan, Jasper. Look at Sila and Q. Do you really think they weren’t having fun? There was a pause. I’m more interested in Q.’s theory that the soul is just an electrical current. Don’t you find that more depressing than the idea that sex is just a compulsion?
    “Well, at least there’s something. I was an atheist before this. I’m still an atheist, I guess, but now I know there’s something after death. And who knows, maybe there’s something after this.”
    After…?
    “Being a Mogran.”
    Like what?
    “I don’t know.” Jasper ran through the religious knowledge of all his hosts. “Something kind of Hindu, I guess? The idea that each of us has a spark inside us that wants to reunite with all the other sparks. Or, who knows, maybe the animists were right.”
    Well, I always thought the pearly gates sounded a bit kitschy myself. Streets of gold, choirs of angels. It’s just— Michaela broke off.
    “What?”
    I’ll never see you again after this. Never touch you .
    “Did you really think that was going to happen anyway? Even before all this happened?”
    Probably not. But at least I had the illusion. Now I’ve got nothing .
    “You’ve got your life, Michaela. You’ll fall in love—”
    Don’t say it, Jasper. Don’t even think it .
    There was a long pause. Jasper said, “Q. should’ve called by now. Even if it’s just to say he can’t get the Solomon jar