Chapter 1: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?' So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her."

Tokyo, Japan, 2035.

If there was one thing Sarah Williams was certain of, it was that she absolutely hated flying. There was just something about it that felt unnatural. If God had wanted man to fly, he would have given him wings. Of course, the fact that she was packed into a cramped, metal ship ten thousand feet in the air, careening five hundred miles per hour over the largest expanse of ocean for fourteen hours straight certainly didn't help matters either. Thank god for pharmaceuticals.

The amount of Xanax she had in her system made her barely register the garble of the flight attendants notifying the passengers of their descent into Narita National Airport, and it had helped drown out the incessant wails of an unhappy toddler three rows behind her that had a lung capacity opera singers could only dream of. It did not, unfortunately, help her with the nausea and air pressure as the plane began to descend, her motion sickness tablets starting to wear off. Her stomach lurched as she fished around in blindly into her purse before pulling out Hubba Bubba gum tape and ripping off a piece of it with her mouth like a smoker whipping out one of his prized Camels. The old candy wasn't incredibly popular, but she'd always had a certain weakness for the classics. It didn't help much with the nausea, but the chewing helped her ears pop and put her mind at ease. She just had to keep telling herself that it would all be worth it in the end.

After feeling the nudging of her eager, middle-seat neighbor as they got up, an Asian woman in her late forties with a surgical mask over her mouth, Sarah gradually shoved back her black sleeping mask and pulled out her compact mirror and started applying her make-up. She was near the middle half of the plane, so it would be awhile before she could grab her luggage out of the overhead bins. She also didn't want to look like the walking dead when she met up with her business associates, despite that she felt like it. By most standards, people would've said she looked good for a thirty year old woman, but then it just reminded her of how plain she actually felt. That was why she had to dress to impress. So much was riding on the success of this trip. After applying her last layer of rouge lipstick, she quickly slipped into her lucky pair of black pumps and started making her way towards the front of the plane.

Her three inch heels clicked down the airport hallway as she shuffled through huddled masses towards baggage claim. While she tried to play I Spy with the baggage carousel, she grabbed a handful of her brown hair and spun it into a messy bun. If she didn't put it up now, she would just end up fiddling with it during the meeting. Bits of unruly strands curled out from her head, but in a stylish way, not in a you-just-took-two-flights-to-get-here-and-you-just-woke-up kind of way, which is what she was going for. Not long afterwards, she spotted her Vera Bradley bag and pulled it behind her. She had her Japanese to English dictionary at the ready if she needed to order some coffee, but she was too nervous to do anything but chew her gum. She was spitting out her latest piece of Hubba Bubba when she saw a familiar tint of blonde among the sea of dark hair by the terminal bay. Then Sarah felt a sudden burst of energy and allowed her growing anxieties fall away momentarily as she let out an excited squeal.

"Yoko!" Sarah called out before immediately running over to hug her friend. More than a few passerby locals gave her incredulous looks, but in that moment, she could care less about what they thought. Japanese views on public displays of affection be damned. "It's so great to see you! How are you?"

"Great! It's been so long! How have you been? How was your flight?" Yoko inquired with a bright smile.

"Which one? The one from New Haven that had layover or the one from Portland that had turbulence?"

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine. The Xanax put me out for most of it, and I charged most of my travel expenses to my university as revenge for sending me out here," Sarah admitted, causing her friend to let out a soft, melodic laugh.

"Well, you never did like flying. I appreciate you coming out all this way though." Yoko shifted her handbag further up her shoulder before pointing a red, bejeweled nail in her direction. "You cut your hair."

"And you grew yours out," Sarah observed. "It looks good. I don't think I've seen it this long since I was with you for that semester abroad in Rome." After playing a few rounds of catch-up and having a couple cans of green tea from a nearby vending machine, Sarah shifted the conversation more towards the more important topic of discussion. "So who's this friend of yours again, Yoko? You mentioned that he's some sort of government official."

"Actually, he's waiting by the car."

"You mean we're not meeting him at the hotel?"

"Mr. Genya tends to do most of his meetings one-on-one on the car ride there. He says it helps get out most of the awkward small talk and usual formalities."

"Sounds like he's a straightforward kind of guy." Yoko let out a short chuckle.

"Oh yes. If there's one thing Genya-san is like, it's straightforward."

Stepping out onto the asphalt street, Sarah felt like she was in a dying era. Granted, it wasn't the apocalypse, but she could feel the world decay around her. As humanity made great strides with technology and medicine, the world seemed to crumble underneath their feet. With every new advancement, something old was lost.

This felt especially prominent in Tokyo, one of the most advanced cities in the world. Chrome buildings were covered in neon lights and advertisements and holographic projections of instructions and advertisements of cute anime characters bowing were displayed in the airport as she left the terminal. The air itself felt dirty and stagnant, coating the inside of her lungs with city air and pollution. It was not unlike London's naturally occurring smog, but it was a breathe of fresh air compared to the recycled oxygen inside the plane. It was one of the reasons why she preferred to live in one of the smaller towns outside of New Haven. It was a longer commute to her job, but anything was better than constantly smelling the rancid sea wind that came off of the east coast.

Standing in front of a black limo was a tall man in a dark business suit. His shoulder-length black hair looked juxtaposed against his near marble white skin, and his Armani suit and tie just screamed suave businessman, but that was not what caught her attention. His eyes, though dark in color, smoldered and burned with such intensity she couldn't help but feel a little intimidated. Expressionless, his gaze kept flitting back over her as if it tried to uncover all her secrets.

"[Mr. Genya-san, thank you for meeting with me]," Sarah spoke in her most clear, broken Japanese and bowed respectively. Her host repeated the gesture in kind.

"Not at all, Miss Williams. It's not often that I get a call from a fellow bibliophile."

"Oh... you speak English," Sarah failed to keep the pleasantly surprised tone out of her voice, her ears ringing in familiarity with the soft spoken language. Not just English. Perfect English, with no hint of an accent.

"On occasion. I find it makes business transactions run smoother with foreign departments," he stood back and opened the limo door. "Please, ladies first." She ducked into the car, trying to make sure her pencil skirt didn't slide too far past her knees as she scooted inside. Yoko, who seemed perfectly comfortable sitting next to Genya-san, sat opposite of her, leaving her under the scrutinizing gaze of the businessman.

"Forgive me. I thought he was your translator," Sarah apologized after the young Japanese man shut the door behind them and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Yes, well, I find it is easier working with people when you can understand what they say behind your back, so it helps to use him as a proxy at times, though it is a bit fun to see their reactions when I reveal my true intentions." This man was definitely a sharp businessman, executing such a strong power move. She had met a few during her time working at Yale. Mostly teachers with tenure or board of directors that ran high up the food chain that she often found conversing with the Dean during Christmas faculty parties. She tried not to be as easily swayed as she straightened her back and tried to re-institute her confidence.

"Never let the enemy see all of your cards before you put them into play."

"Quite right," he arched an eyebrow before folding his hands in his lap. "I am told you have experience in transcribing as well as working as an archivist. Is it true you have transcribed some of the Vatican holy texts?"

"I have been known to transcribe texts for the Church, from time to time," Sarah spoke, talking like a politician with a prepared speech. "My father was an archeologist and a linguist who was fascinated by old ruins and dead languages, so I often spent a lot of my summers helping him preserve and transcribe them into data, though I'm afraid I don't quite have his talent for speaking them."

"I see, then you must share his love of ancient history."

"Oh yes. In fact, history is one of my favorite subjects. My major was in history when I was an undergrad in college before I went on to get my Masters in librarian science." Sarah looked briefly over at Yoko, who gave her a reassuring smile. "My associate says you have a book I would be interested in?"

"Yes, you see, the text is very old, and I don't want to ship it overseas if I don't have to."

"I completely understand," Sarah nodded. She often liked to say she was one of the last true librarians, a self-proclaimed expert on the old ways of bookkeeping. With the invention of the eBooks, Kindles, and other tablets, owning physical copies of books had become a thing of the past. Nowadays, most materials were only accessible electronically through the web or via digital download. Libraries, places that were originally open and vast incomes of free public knowledge for the community, had slowly grown into dusty archives that only college students, scientists, and museum curators came for research material. Not gone, but mostly forgotten.

She thought herself quite clever for learning how to program the computers to only work in Safe Mode with restricted access to certain sites, a necessary defense she found incredibly effective against those who only wished to abuse the power of a public library for a clean internet history. Of course, it had gotten her into trouble with a few of her superiors when they had to send in the IT guys and debug the computers. She was demoted to curing the stacks in the basement, setting her back in her career a couple years. That's why this trip mattered so much. It was her way of getting back into the big ticket projects for the university. It was a very big deal getting a hold of foreign and unique materials. Shy of a museum curator, it was one of the most important jobs in her field, something that would land her a teaching position with promises of tenure, should she be able to continuously bring in new revenue.

"That is why I decided to personally pick you up and bring you to my home. It's part of my private collection, and Miss Belnades informed me that it would be beneficial to both of us if you were to inspect it and potentially add it on loan to your university for transcription."

A couple of prefectures later and the car pulled to a stop in front of a Western styled house. The grandeur behind it almost matched the airs Mr. Genya gave off, foreign yet confident in its appearance.

Don't be intimidated, don't be intimidated... Sarah thought as she followed them inside the mansion and tried not to stare at its size and elegance, which already looked like it could fit five of her apartments inside. She slipped off her pumps and wedged her feet into one of the house slippers at the entrance, the white slippers contrasting greatly with her black pantyhose. She felt incredibly small as she walked through the house filled with high-rise ceilings and chandeliers, passing portraits and Gothic architecture and vases that probably belonged in museums. Still, she tried to keep a business-professional facade. Of course, that all went out the window when her host stopped and pushed open a set of mahogany doors.

A delirious, involuntary "oh my..." slipped out as she stepped into the room. The very walls of his library seemed to built from books, the spines appearing like bricks that held up the ceiling like pillars in a cathedral. I have stepped into Nirvana...

"Are you alright?" Mr. Genya asked with a slight note of concern.

"Sorry, just..." Sarah paused, willing herself not to faint against the bookcases right then and there. "Give me a moment alone with them." The smell of ink and parchment, the worn leather spines of hardbacks and crinkled paperbacks were archived and ordered neatly in a way that only a true librarian could appreciate. Oh the stories they could tell, she almost euphorically sighed aloud before finding her subject matter a tad ironic. "Can I...?" she trailed off eagerly.

"Please," he gestured noncommittally, a faint hint of amusement in his voice as he watched her eagerly pool over the vast collections. Her finger softly traced down multiple spines of books like a harpist gently plucking the strings, recognizing the system to be organized fairly neatly before pausing at a familiar title.

"This is...! This is a first edition of Beowulf!" she retracted her hand from the delicate cover, as if she touched something holy and pure. "Where on earth did you find it?"

"I came across it during one of my business trips to London. I believe you'll find that this one is more legible to read than the recovered manuscript."

"You've touched the original manuscript for Beowulf!?" she gaped. Just who was this strange man? Why had her colleague been so insistent in having her meet with him?

"You are free to browse any part of my collection, though I must ask you not to wander off."

"Oh, trust me. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon," she exclaimed vehemently, all sense of her propriety completely gone. Yoko stifled a soft giggle before stepping out to take a call. Sarah had to remember to thank her in some way after this encounter.

"Hmm, we shall see..." his eyes glazed over as he gave her an enigmatic smile, but she barely gave him any thought now as she dove into the world of literature. "Wait here while I go to fetch your book. I believe you'll find the contents to be quite extraordinary." She gave him a barely registered nod before he stepped out, his light footsteps gradually falling silent in the echoed halls.

She didn't know where she could begin to start. This had to be some sort of test, an observation on which books she would choose and how. However despite the age of many of the books she had found, they had miraculously been well kept, not nary a trace of book rot. It had been so long since she had handled texts of this caliber that she had forgotten what it was like to read books that were undamaged by dog-ears and coffee stains. She almost felt like she needed to wear surgical gloves to keep the oils from her hands from somehow staining the pages.

"A man after my own heart," Sarah hummed pleasantly to herself, taking mental notes of which shelves she borrowed from before she came back with a more than satisfactory pile. Normally, she would have brought them back in a cart, as she instinctively spent a few minutes searching for one before reprimanding herself, but since this was a private collection and not a public library, it was incredibly unlikely that he had one. If he had, she would have added it to the list of Mr. Genya's many redeeming qualities. The fact that his library had impressed her, with its intricate care and finite detailing and structure that only a librarian or a hardcore archivist would know, spoke volumes about who Genya-san was as a person. The mystery around this figure continued. He already had a good looking cover. If only she could look at the pages within...

Moments went by and after sitting back in satisfaction by sampling some of Mr. Genya's private collection, as she didn't want give more attention to one novel than to others, knowing her time here was limited, she let out an exhausted breath. How long had she been left alone? She always had such a horrible grasp on time when it came to her work, but she refused to get a watch. The ticking noise was so distracting and she had gone through so many digital watches that it seemed cheaper for her in the long run to rely on others for time than to pay for a replacement. It certainly became a great way to generate conversation.

Time flies when you're having fun, as they always said, though Sarah thought it was ironic in her case, since she neither liked time nor flying. With that self-indulgent ego stroke at her clever humor, she went back to her books, though now she found herself unable to be as in-tune as she had before, now keenly aware of the silence that surrounded her.

Her mysterious host certainly was taking his time. Maybe the eccentric businessman had taken her seriously when she said she wanted to be left alone with his collected works? Now that she wasn't immersed in literature, she was suddenly aware of how quiet it was in his house. Except for that continuous soft ticking noise, which only seemed to grow louder the more she became aware of it.

She tried to focus on the rows of text, but she found herself unable to. The sound was too annoying, too distracting to her ears. Standing up from her chair, she went in search of the sound, her eyes locking onto a large grandfather clock that divided one section of bookshelves independent from the walls of book spines, but that wasn't even the strangest thing. The clock in front of her not only wasn't moving, but it had a bizarre arrangement of Roman numerals. A thirteenth hour was added at the top, awkwardly shifting the equal balance of numbers and halves on the clock.

So if this isn't the source of the ticking, then where is that noise coming from? she thought before turning to what she thought was a highly unusual sight. A wild rabbit was huddled near one of the bookcases. Its ears twitched to the side before flashing its cotton tail at her and darting off behind the bookcase. There was that incessant ticking sound again. Following it, curious as to why a rabbit would be in a mansion, it then sat up on its hind legs, revealing that it was wearing a blue waistcoat and donned a small, rabbit-sized pocket watch that it swayed back and forth. The ticking began to grow louder and slower, almost as if she were inside the mechanism of a dying clock. Then on the final tick-tock, she froze and then popped out of existence.