I am an apprentice to a masterful, if old-fashioned, alchemist who has entrusted me with the keeping and safeguarding of a particurly rare tome they have just acquired. Obviously, the first thing I do is run it through a photocopier and save it to a .pdf file.

  A rival of my masters arrives at our boratory tower in the middle of a great storm. A battle between them ensues even as the storm rips at our tower and floods the surrounding valley. The battle turns into a chase, with all three of us moving ever upwards trying to outpace the rising waters.

  In the end, my master is bested as the storm finally clears, but by then the tome is lost to the floodwaters, well out of anyone’s grasp. Mention is made of the backup I created, the victorious rival demands to take that instead, and my master devises a convoluted sequence of misdirection and sleight-of-hand to send their hated rival off with a useless USB stick while they keep hold of the USB drive that I saved the .pdf scan to. My assistance will be required to show my master how to open a .pdf ter.

  In the end, the joke’s on both of them though. I already uploaded the scan to the Internet for free access to anyone who wants it before this whole debacle even started.