Steeply, Herself - Part 3

Sometime After the Year of Glad

Separatio*

 '...But what should I call you?' I was eager to get on with my mission to find a recent copy of IJ-8, which might or might not even exist, and this strange man in drag had agreed to help. He blew twin jets of Flanderfume smoke from his large hairy nostrils and gazed at the Tucson skyline, perhaps considering his reply.

'Ms Pox...
'Just Pox will do....'
'Pox, you may call me Q.'
Then everything went blank.

When I woke up the eastern sky was  a pale platinum sort of gray striped aquamarine. There was no moon, but even in the pre-dawn light I could see a way to get off the mountain where I had lately, I believe, met Steeply himself, who had since disappeared.  The details of our meeting were fading from memory with the same rapidity peculiar to the desert from which the shadows now hastily receded.  I rubbed my sore neck and discovered it itched as if bitten by a not exactly benign but hopefully not lethal crawling creature, perhaps a spider. Only later would I discover the true import of my scratch. My pack was still there, though the cigarettes were missing....so there was someone here with me after all....but why was I here again? I could not remember.

In a strange sort of twi- lit daze I made my way carefully down the jagged trail, stopping now and then to sip from the water bottle. My larynx was still painfully raw from the smoking veil incident, several posts back. When I finally got to the Jeep I looked around for signs of.....what? Why was I even here? Had I taken a wrong turn from Sky Harbor, with its crazy maze of connecting roundabouts and byways, unable to follow the confusing signs and somehow gotten kertwanged on my way to Flagstaff? I was quite sure this was not high desert country.  Wrong vegetation, absence of aspens, no snow on what were clearly not the San Francisco foothills.  I was lost.

Resolutely I followed the tracks the Jeep had left intact on the dirt road and found my way to the I-10 freeway.  I put my foot to the pedal and stepped on it.....oh!  That sounded familiar! An image of a library formed in my mind's eye.  With a sigh of relief I intuitively knew where I was headed.

The next thing I remember was relaxing in a recliner. I looked around with the astonished eyes of someone who has just been revived after being in a coma,  unalarmed but curious. A  large man sat smoking at the far side of the room. He seemed to recognize me but I did not know him. Why was he dressed in women's clothing? I looked down at my own attire and noticed I was dressed more or less like a man: Wranglers, cowboy boots, plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves.....was that a bolo tie? I raised one hand to my head and discovered the shortest of haircuts. So I must either be a man myself or most likely I was in some sort of disguise, which would explain the strange garb. Perhaps it was Halloween.

'Is this the library?'

'Oh, very good, Pox, you are still able to articulate.  To answer your query, yes and no.  This is not a library like the ones in your very interesting past. It is rather a state of the art library that exists both virtually as a cartridge and simultaneously in your own mind. At least for now.'

Unreassured, I carefully examined the spot on my neck, which had become sore and swollen. 'Why did you call me Pox?  Am I contagious? Is this some sort of quarantine sickroom?'

'Pox is what you call yourself, though Randylicious knows why. You found me via the latest advance in teleputer technology. You were seeking a very dangerous object, don't you remember?'

'...'

'No? Do you not recall receiving your Yushityu motherboard implant? Not the subsidized  2007 model from the book,  but the latest Post-Year of Glad model, which has the ability to interface with InterLace via any mobile device including GPS....' The man was speaking gibberish, which I found annoying. You Shit You?

'I...how does it work?'

'My dear, you do not need to know how it works. You only have to know how to turn it on....and off, if that is your wish. Do you wish to turn it off now?'  As soon as he posed the question a surge of neurotransmitters of the most pleasurable kind infused every p-terminal in my brain, releasing a cocktail brewed from seratonins, endorphins, L-Dopas and even Q- Dopas...Q?...Q?? oh I see now...

'Q!'

'How extraordinary, Pox! You remembered my name! You are the first to do so in this grand experiment of ours.'  Q pondered, blew smoke out of a small aperture in his neck. It opened and closed like a camera lens, a Bolex H-64 Rex 5 high res lens. The khaki colored smoke formed itself into a tennis racket and lobbed a piece of tobacco in my direction, which landed on the spur of my left boot. I casually flicked back the fleck and heard someone call, '15-love!'  before I lost consciousness again.

'...'
'Pox? Pox! Wake up!'

'...... Is that you Darius? Are you here.... in Arizona?'

'I'm not in Arizona, dear, I'm kinda in your head....but don't be alarmed.  Hawking and Faraday are working on a plan to get you out of the cartridge.'

'What on earth do you mean? I was with Q, I mean Steeply, I think.....in Arizona, I went to find him like you said....' But what came out of me sounded more like howling and grunting to Darius, he later reported.  My vocals were going.  Damn that Hal, I could hear Darius thinking....There was no time to waste.  I visualized the p-terminal again and soon drifted off into a blue sky filled with infinite cumulus clouds rearranging themselves into hamsters and fans and the letter X.  I entered one of the clouds and heard the sweet melodic voice of Johnny Gentle, Crooner and President, making me promises only he could keep.
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* Note: in ancient alchemy, separatio is the process whereby the personal ego has separated  from the body.