I Rule Rome with a God-Tier AI-Chapter 142: The Cold Forges

Alex stood in the dead silence of his lead-lined chamber, the two dispatches laid side-by-side on the heavy oak desk like instruments of torture. One, a slate tablet from Celer, spoke of a dying industrial heart, of coal turning to dust. The other, a papyrus scroll from Maximus, promised the arrival of a broken friendship, of loyalty curdled into righteous fury. His world was collapsing on two fronts simultaneously.

He shoved Maximus's message aside with a sweep of his hand. The General was a problem for later. A human problem, rooted in honor and betrayal. It was a fire he would have to face, but it was a fire he could comprehend. Vulcania... that was different. That was a civilization-level crisis, an existential threat to the very foundation of his new Rome. That fire had to be fought first.

His initial panic, the cold sweat and the frantic pounding of his heart, began to recede, replaced by something else: the cold, focused fury of a cornered animal. He had been outmaneuvered. He had been attacked in a way he had not foreseen. Now, he would respond.

"Lyra," he said, his voice a low growl that held no trace of fear, only grim resolve. "Analyze. Premise: enemy weapon is a biological agent, likely a microbe or fungus, engineered to metabolize carbon-based fossil fuels, rendering them inert. I need a counter-agent. Now."

The laptop screen glowed, but the response from his fire-walled AI was predictable and useless. Analysis of novel biological agents is outside my operational parameters. No data exists in the historical record for such a phenomenon. A counter-agent cannot be synthesized without a full understanding of the agent's biology, a process for which no Roman-era technology exists.

Of course. He couldn't ask a Roman historian how to fight a piece of alien biotechnology. He slammed his fist on the desk, not in anger at Lyra, but at his own limitations. He couldn't build a modern biolab. He couldn't sequence a genome. He had to solve this problem with Roman tools and his own, fractured 21st-century knowledge.

He began to pace the chamber, his mind a frantic storm of half-remembered college chemistry and biology lectures. Fungicide? He could probably synthesize copper sulfate, but would it work? How would he even apply it to tons of rock deep underground? A microbe to fight the microbe? Even more impossible. How do you kill something you can't see that eats rock?

He felt a wave of helplessness wash over him. He was trying to perform microsurgery with a blacksmith's hammer. He couldn't cure the disease.

The thought stopped him cold. Cure. Maybe that was the wrong approach. He didn't need a cure. He needed containment. He needed sterilization.

"Fire," he said aloud, the word echoing in the quiet room. "Fire cleanses all. Extreme heat. Sterilization." He turned back to the laptop. "Lyra. Model this. If we burn the contaminated stockpiles at Vulcania, will the heat be sufficient to destroy the biological agent and prevent its spread to the unmined seams?"

This, at least, was a problem the AI could handle. Numbers and thermal dynamics. After a moment, the conclusion appeared, and it was bleak.

Modeling complete. A sustained burn at over 800 degrees Celsius would likely denature any known protein-based biological agent. However, achieving this across the entire surface area of the existing coal stockpiles would require sacrificing over 90% of the current fuel reserve. More critically, this does not solve the core problem. If the contagion is present in the unexcavated seams, as Celer's report suggests, any new coal brought to the surface will also be infected. This is a temporary solution, buying weeks of operational time at best, before total fuel depletion.

Weeks. He would burn his entire revolution down to embers for a few weeks of borrowed time. It wasn't a solution; it was a death sentence on layaway.

He leaned against the cold stone wall, the reality of his situation pressing in on him. Coal, the black rock that was the foundation of his new world, was now poison. It was a carrier for a plague that targeted not people, but progress itself. He needed a new fuel source. He needed it yesterday.

His mind went to a dark place, a corner of his memory filled with images of smog-choked skies and gritty, industrial landscapes from documentaries about the 19th century. A process that was both simple enough to potentially replicate here and terrifyingly dangerous. Coke.

"Lyra," he asked, his voice quiet, testing the frayed edges of his memory. "What happens when you superheat bituminous coal in an oxygen-deprived environment?"

The AI's answer was crisp and clinical. Heating bituminous coal to temperatures exceeding 900 degrees Celsius in an anaerobic environment initiates a process called pyrolysis. Volatile compounds within the coal, such as coal tar, ammonia, and flammable gases like methane and hydrogen, are driven off. The remaining solid material is a high-carbon, porous substance known as coke.

The intense heat... it would sterilize the coal. It would burn the blight out of it completely, leaving behind a stable, high-energy fuel. The "rotting" coal wasn't a loss; it was raw material for something new. And the flammable gases... the coal gas... could it be captured? Used to power other things? It was a solution. A dirty, ugly, brilliant solution.

But the cost was high. It meant abandoning his dream of a clean, efficient industrial heartland. It meant building something new and dangerous: coke ovens. He remembered the images of workers toiling around those hellish beehive-shaped structures, the air thick with toxic fumes. This wasn't the clean, advanced Rome he had envisioned. It was a step backward into a dirtier, more brutal form of industry.

But it was his only hope. Survival first. Utopia later.

He strode to the desk, his resolve hardened. He snatched a fresh sheet of papyrus and began to write, his stylus flying across the surface. This wasn't a formal decree; it was a frantic, revolutionary set of instructions for his master engineer.

Celer,

Stop all mining. The contagion is in the rock itself. Your observation is key: it only rots when exposed to air. We will use this. We will cook the poison out.

Listen to me very carefully. This will sound like madness, but you must trust me as you never have before. I want you to build a new kind of furnace. A sealed one. Use your best fire-bricks. Think of it as a kiln for pottery, but for rock. It must be as airtight as you can possibly make it. Load it with a small, isolated batch of the 'rotting' coal. Seal the door with clay.

Heat it. Heat it until the entire structure glows white-hot. But you are not burning the rock inside. You are cooking it. Do not let air inside. All the fire must be external. Any smoke or gas that escapes from the kiln itself must be captured. Pipe it away. See if it will burn. It is vital.

Let the kiln cool completely. It may take a day. When you open it, the black rock inside should be transformed into something else. Lighter. Porous. Silvery-grey. This will be our new fuel. This hard, cooked rock is our only hope.

This is your new priority. Forget everything else. Begin immediately. Build one. Test it. If it works, I want a hundred of them built before the next full moon. A city of ovens.

Alex sealed the message with a trembling hand. He had just averted immediate collapse, but at a terrible price. He was ordering the creation of a far dirtier, more dangerous industrial complex, born of desperation. He looked at his own hands, imagining them covered in the soot and grime of the future he was now being forced to build. He had saved the fire of his revolution, but only by feeding it a new and terrible kind of poison.