WHEN I WORKED AT THE POST-SCARCITY HOLOGRAPHIC DATA ROUTING NODE one morning mid-June it was me and Mike working together, we were the only people working and we were the only people inside the building, and we were chatting about a new protein when the lobby door flew open and three marauder types in scavenged body armour entered. They moved in tactical formation, and they carried rifles, ancient but well-maintained conventional arms, or ratty first-gen plasma core stuff. The tallest of the squad, a man in chunky goggles, charged forward towards Mike and I and swept his gun across the room while a short linebacker type of lady slammed the door closed and clicked the lock then tipped over the heavy informational brochure rack in the lobby with a big thud and pulled it in front of the door, sealing it further. With the visual analysis complete and the egress point secured, tall and short moved to stand behind the third gunman, who unclipped his bicycle helmet and lowered the black bandana covering his mouth. There was a moustache and soul patch on top of and beneath the mouth that spoke.

“I am Saint Jerry, and this is Saint Cathy and Saint Larry.” Saint Cathy and Saint Larry gestured with their gun barrels.
Saint Jerry continued.
“We are here to destroy the last node. The final copy. The omega drive. The volume of suffering that has dominated the last century has every step of the way been made possible by knowledge. This Holographic data node contains the last of the distributed data set. This is the 61^st and ultimate site of the New Western Communication Stream, and only by cataloguing and destroying this knowledge can we give back the possibility of dignity to humanity.”

I wasn’t sure if I had heard about any of the other 60 routing nodes being destroyed, but I assumed Mike hadn’t.
“Mike, I already knew about these guys and how they destroyed the other 60 routing nodes,” I said to Mike.
“Okay,” said Mike.
The tall one, Saint Larry, walked behind the desk and plugged a device into the computer and typed some stuff really quickly and there was a beep and the sound of a container unlatching.
“I’ve got the chip, boss,” he said.
“Place it into the microfusion centriforge.” He turned to Saint Cathy. “Ready the exit strategy.”
“On it, boss,” she said and began digging through her pack.
Saint Jerry turned back to Mike and I.

“You see, it’s not enough to simply destroy the last holochip.” He sighed. “We Anti-Librarians are not immune to knowledge. On our crusade we have catalogued and indexed every bit of information to determine that it was all there to destroy, and in doing so infected ourselves directly and severely with this diseased knowledge. The only way to ensure that this information cannot live on is for us three to destroy ourselves with it.” Saint Jerry raised a hand to his mouth and yelled.
“Larry! Deploy the Seismothermophobic Mesh!”
Saint Larry removed a small pouch from his pack, yanked a cord on the side and watched as it rapidly expanded into a king-sized sheet of otherworldly pearlescent grey material. He whipped it into the air like pizza dough, and it fell back down and settled atop the three, covering them head to toe.
“Saint Cathy! Set the charge and prepare the detonator!” Saint Jerry was yelling now, but heavily muffled by the mesh.
Clicking noises came from beneath the shiny sheet. Mike leaned over close to me and whispered, “I’ve got an idea.” Saint Jerry lifted the mesh above his mouth and began shouting again, his loudness again unimpeded by physical barriers. “Now, with the final chip destroyed, no extant redundant backups, and us Anti-Librarians eliminated, our mission is complete!”
Mike had already turned and started walking away from everything and toward the smashed front door.

“The old word is dead. The new world is waiting to be born!” Saint Jerry yelled, dropping the sheet again mid-sentence, muting his final words.
There was a beep and a click, and the seismothermophobic mesh blanket did a truly fantastic job of dampening the energy, vibration, heat, and sound of an explosion. The shroud tumbled closer to the ground as the body parts of the Anti-Librarians settled into a configuration of much lower entropy. I looked over at Mike, who by now had started pushing the brochure rack away from the door. The bomb hadn’t broken his stride for a second.

I called out to him. “Mike! Where are you going?” Mike pushed the rack again and looked and met my eyes.
“I’m just gonna go find another one of those chips with all the knowledge on it. There’s gotta be one out there somewhere.”
“But they destroyed all the chips!” I pointed at the oozing blanket pile. “They specifically said that we had the last one. Nothing indicates that they hadn’t destroyed all of the chips, nor does anything suggest that there are any additional backups available!” I was yelling now. Was I mad?
“Yeah, I guess,” Mike opened the door. “Whatever.”
He slid on his goggles and walked out into the sandstorm.