>What keeps the guards from taking all the profit?

This does happen but yes obviously attempts are made to prevent it, the guards my not be familiar with the journey, other guards may be family members or trusted friends. Often then the guards become the Merchant then.

You see this with the billionaires building luxury apocalypse bunkers in New Zealand and other exotic locales that are like mini theme parks. It slowly dawns on them that when society breaks down that's exactly what it means. You can't depend on normal social norms or laws anymore, how do you stop your security team from kicking you out of your own bunker, how you do you charter a flight to your bunker? It's a problem with no guaranteed solution.

Prepping is different as it doesn't involve depending on others. Just yourself and your preparations.

> It's a problem with no guaranteed solution.

You can bet they're considering AI killbots as a possible "solution" to the "hostile bodyguard" problem...