The year is 2009 and Miss Jane Anderson, a librarian at the Read Library, was shelving science fiction books and came across the book 2050: The Future which had an old bookmark in it. She drops the book and it opens to the bookmark which sucks her in to a swirling purple portal. She hits solid ground and ducks a saucer that almost levels her.
“Holy Toledo!” she says. Jane looks down and finds that she is standing on a glass of some kind. There are robots and other U.F.O animals around. She took one step toward them and instead of walking; Jane took off like astronaut on the moon, leaping over to them. She said hello to the robots because she thought they would understand her and the animals wouldn’t understand what she was saying. The robots turned towards her and the animals scattered in fear. The robots answered with a robotic “Hello.”
“What year is it?” she asked. The robots answered, “The year is 2050.” Jane explains that the last she knew she was shelving books in the library and that when she had accidentally dropped a book; it opened and sucked her in. All the robots’ lights lit up; turned around and they took off together in the opposite direction. She tried to follow them and again ended up leaping each time she stepped. The robots were a pretty good ten paces ahead of her and she was gaining ground. The robots zipped into a plastic building while Jane landed in a chute that put boots on her feet. She exited the chute and entered the building finding that she could walk like a normal human being. The robots came with a book with a futuristic-looking bookmark in it. The robot opens the book and pieces of silver clatter to the floor. Jane shakes her head, “Not the right book,” she says. The robot shuts the book with a vault-like clang. She exits the building and enters the chute which removes the boots and ejects her outside. She lands and follows the robots. The robots talk to each other. All Jane can hear is”BEEP, BOOP and SQUEAK.” Then the robots take off again, with her on their treads. On the way, a robot slows and says, “We know what book we’re looking for but we’re just having trouble locating it.”
Jane nods, thinking, “This robot looks like R2D2”. The robots arrive at a dome shaped cloth store. The robot that looks like R2D2 then says something to one of the employees who smiles and goes in the back of the store and gets a book. She gives it to the robot and he swivels around and treks over to where Miss Anderson is standing. This time when the book is opened, instead of sliver gold cloth falls out. The smooth gold cloth keeps coming and coming, she lets go of the book and it falls on the floor with a dull thud. With effort all four of them try and wrestle the cloth back into the book and close it. R2D2 returns the book to the laughing employee. They all exit the building and meet out front. All of this jumping, leaping and going into chutes has made Jane hungry so they go and get something for her to eat. All food that was given to her is dried like the kind you see in trail mix. She thought it was pretty funny having a dried drink.
Then she says, “Well if we can’t find this book anywhere else why don’t we try the library?” The robots pause for a minute and say, “While we try to locate the library why don’t we take you to the Observation Deck so you can see this vast town you’ve stumbled into.” Up on the Observation Deck she could not believe what she saw. They were already a good two miles and a half from where she had started this crazy adventure. All of a sudden when she is just realizing where she is she hears a beep. Looking down she sees that the robots are trying to get her attention. On top of one of the robots is a lighted arrow pointing behind her. She jumps from the Observation Deck and she sees a big brass building with the words, Read Library. She goes to the science fiction section with her robot friends. R2D2 finds the book, 2009: The Past, it had an old bookmark in it, he grabs the book giving a little beep, and says, “Found it!” at the same time. Jane Anderson takes the book from him and looks into the swirling purple portal of the book’s bookmark…