Prompt #727 World Records
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Max scowled as he held his candle to a row of scrolls, tomes and grimoires. This was going to take some time, and his lunch was going to get cold. It was his job to find the records the dukes asked for.
World records... Max had a copy of "Guiness Book of World Records" and several copies of "Ripley's Believe it or not", but the world records from 2060 were deeper in the tunnel. It smelled dank in there, and Duke Kline was insistent he locate the world record for largest arch in the collection.
Max knew the world record for arches was set in 2060. It was July, 2340 and it was hot. He was in thrall to the Dukes, and his grafted third arm scuttled across the scroll faces in the darkness. His candle shook as he half-blindly searched for a scroll he knew was there. The leather scrolls were in varying states of disrepair, and after the great war of 2150, most human records and servers were damaged or lost to EMP attacks and more kinetic salvos.
At last! Max smiled in the darkness as his arm ran over a ridge with "2060" on it. "Excellent" he thought as he withdrew the leather-bound scroll and scuttled to the stairway at the end of the tunnel. He set the scroll on his desk and found the reference to the great arch made by Neo-Pharrah Borax in 2060 on the backs of thousands. Borax had arisen to power after the AI revolution in 2026, and this was when EMP attacks destroyed digital means of creating, storing and transporting records.
When artificial intelligence evolved and became sentient AGI in 2026, it was came necessary to take action. The world abandoned digital technology, and became much more analog. It took an EMP attack akin to a scorched Earth campaign and a dedication to avoid rebuilding the internet to save humanity. This led to reduction in population from 10 billion humans to 3 billion humans as the result of a loss of critical infrastructure.
Max took the scroll in his arms, wrapped it in linen to protect it and placed it in a basket. The Sun blazed outside, and there was a written list of records for him to retrieve. With no computers or internet, and no desire to resurrect the AI overlords, this was how records were kept. Max gazed out over the desert expanse that ran for miles in every direction and wondered what the world was like outside his record repository. We're there other repositories like this one? He was chosen as a child to be a record keeper, and had his third arm grafted ceremoniously when he was 20 years old. Max heard the sound of the Duke approaching in his caravan and ducked his head back into the shadows of the repository. Time to do what he was born to do and serve Wisconsin as the official record keeper of the desert lands.