The Libraries

Author : Beck Dacus

I have worked for eleven years figuring out how we lost everything. Anecdotes passed down from people who were alive before this War, I have discovered, have long since deteriorated into dimly remembered nonsense. I don’t know much about the time before, but I now know what ended it.

It was in the age of “Computers,” machines that held information in a complex mass of metal wires. There were still books, but much of what many of them said was outdated– anyone could contribute to the Computer library, or Internet, so it was constantly kept up to date. Some wrote down the wrong information, however.

The point is, no one could remember it all. No reasonably-sized group of people could, either. When conflict began, “Countries” started to take advantage of this and, instead of killing the people in their rival Countries, they would start erasing information.

Sometimes, operatives would be sent to physically destroy files, books, and the like in acts of arson. More often, though, they would create imperfections in the Internet, and destroy large swathes of information. Much of it was restored each time, but soon there were too many attacks happening to restore all the information that was lost that day. Soon, there was a net loss of information.

The attackers experienced this dilemma as well, as the victim and/or its allies would retaliate with “Book Strikes.” Countries banded together to try and destroy information in other places before theirs was all lost, but everyone failed. Everyone lost the War when it ended so many hundreds of years ago.

Which brings us to now.

No one can even access any data anymore, much less that of a rivaling Country. Soon Countries were irrelevant, anyway. We forgot what the stars are. What the Sun is. Why there is day and night. How the era of consumption we see in the massive landfills dotting the Earth were ever possible. We may have to rediscover all of that.

And we will. I know it. Because, thanks to my research, we already know not to do one thing.