When I programmed Mining God, I hadn’t worked out enough code to call Roknar by a God’s name. The program did little more than follow a set of instructions and work out the logistics to perform the task I laid out for it. I wish I could admit that I’d created an AI powerful enough to help me survive longer than a week, but in truth, I had the means to be the richest dead man in the world.

The 22nd century didn’t give me very many survival skill to live in a world without food processors and instant meals. I had enough calories in my study that I doubted I’d starve to death within the next month but I’d be hungry before the week was out. I remember hearing stories of trapped miners living thirty days under the mountain, but they had water. I…not so much.

The saving grace about this happening in Ouray, Colorado is that I knew how to find water. Sure I could see the river some 300 feet and 3/4 of a mile away from my cavern’s exit, but I knew how to get water into my cave. Besides, tourism to see the Liberty Hall Museum, Ouray Colorado is home…was home to a high number of natural hot springs. This valley wasn’t as nearly…carved out like it was last week but I knew it wouldn’t take much to tap into the natural hot aquifer below my cavern.

To be honest, based on the height of the cliff I found myself, I’m a tad surprised I’m not already bleeding water from the walls. This valley and mountain had some differences than what I had expected, geologically speaking. The gold concentration was much higher than it should have been. Yes, Roknar broke the rock down to the elemental and mineral compounds, but gold is one of the more rare elements found on earth. However, based on the stacks of metal Robbie moved to the north face, the titanium and gold percentages were closer to each other than it should have been. Titanium is one of the most common elements found in the crust, but it’s locked up in minerals and difficult to isolate. Well, difficult before I programmed my software. I smiled a little thinking about it.

The nanomachines fueled itself from the energy released while breaking down the various chemical bonds. It took a little while for me to figure out how to change the original APRIL’s to harvest energy from the soil rather than life. It’s slightly different from the APRIL’s found inside a human body. Both worked off energy releases, but in Roknar’s case, I had to capture the energy while being more active than passive. In both cases, Zeus and Roknar could store power like a battery, but in Roknar’s case, he needed to break down compounds to harvest the energy rather than just capture the bodies natural wasted energy.

Since the APRIL’s could reproduce and colonize a growing body as we age, it had the code and capability to do what I needed. I wish I could say I was a genius and figured it out all on my own, but all I can take credit for was applying different techniques and purposes to the same hardware. It’s a lot like the guy who figured out a rock can smash a nail into the wood just as well as it can crush someone’s skull. Same tool, different purposes.

“Zeus, do you have anything to help me? Like…ground penetrating radar or…I don’t know. I need to find the aquifer and get some water for drinking. Crap. I need to figure out how to filter the water, hunt, well…I need to know how to do everything.”

“Negative. No radar. You could use the equipment from the EMP generator to direct energy into the rock and map the returns.”

I smiled as Zeus reminded me I had the generator to create the pulse but did I dare mess with another EMP? Well, I wouldn’t be doing an electromagnetic pulse…I just needed to send an energy pulse into the ground. APRIL’s had an antenna for radio waves, but they are nano in size. A single nanomachine that makes up Zeus wouldn’t be powerful enough to communicate one centimeter but add a couple trillion machines, and I could connect with the Network being broadcast from orbit.

The only difference from say the Network communication and the NFC, or Near Field Communications, my Zeus uses, is the frequency, power, and encryption. I spent some hours changing the programming for Roknar. If it weren't for being able to do this in Virtual at the speed of thought, it would have taken me hours to complete and test. Lucky for me Zeus already had a mining test environment built for my testing of Roknar. Honestly, I slapped my virtual forehead I hadn’t thought about building this feature into Roknar in the first place. However, when breaking down asteroids, I wasn’t concerned about only directing it to high-value targets. I was just going to break the whole thing down and take what I wanted.

I tested the software sometimes before remembering my “virtual” APRIL’s were sabotaged. Once I reset those parameters to match the real Roknar, I reran the virtual test. Ug.

“Zeus, I can’t read the feedback. Can you analyze the radar returns and interpret it based on what you know?”

“Processing…”

The display cleaned up a little, but Zeus still left a lot to guesswork. With that said, he estimated what water would look like, and I thought it good enough for now. Roknar and Zeus would get better as they performed the tasks. Roknar would learn if the radar returns were accurate while he dug and Zeus would refine his estimates with real values.

“Exit Virtual.”

Woof! Woof!

DJ barked as soon as he saw me stir and I thought it was him saying hello, but when I saw his ears perked up and facing the entrance, I realized something was wrong.

“What is it, boy? Zeus, what’s he barking at?”

“A bird.”

“DJ doesn’t bark at birds.”

“A big bird by the sound of it.”

Panic gripped my heart, and my eye’s frantically searched the room for a weapon. I chuckled. I had no clue what the hell I was doing. A roar tore through the cave, and I nearly soiled myself as DJ and this…bird traded words. Well, it sounded more.. bark, bark, bark, roar, whimper, and a hesitant bark in response.

“The bird has fled.”

“Bird? BIRD? What the hell kind of bird roars, Zeus?”

I wanted to run down the tunnel to the exit and see this…bird for myself, but I was still struggling to keep my bowels under control.

“A big bird?” Zeus’ response sounded hesitant, another first, and I wasn’t sure if he was afraid or if he was responding to my fear.

I made a step towards the tunnel and paused, placing my foot back to its original location. I did this three times before finding the courage to slowly approach the tunnel and walk to the exit point overlooking the valley.

“Zeus find that bird, please.”

Zeus could do a lot of things but couldn’t see outside my body. He could pick up sounds better than me and his ability to interpret those sounds and sights were better than what I could do, but he needed me to be there for him to see physically.

I slowly scanned the skies before my Augmented sight identified the birds and animals along the mountain ridges. I must have spent five minutes searching the sky before Zeus finally responded to my command.

“I may have located the animal which entered the tunnel.”

“Animal? You said bird earlier. Where it is?”

“Southwest near where Box Canyon will be located.” I turned my gaze to the area, and an arrow pointed at a large animal. I zoomed in and nearly soiled my shorts once again.

“Zeus, is that a Griffon?”

“The resemblance is close enough.”

“Close enough? It’s a lion with wings!”

“Lions don’t have wings. It’s a large bird.”

“With fur and claws…,” I muttered.

Now, you have to understand that I’m looking at this…bird from nearly three-quarters of a mile away at this point. I took a quick step back when its head jerked up and stared directly into my eyes. I knew I was too far from it to hear, but I could have sworn I heard it growl.

I finally lost it when DJ growled in response from behind me. I will never admit what happened at this point, but I returned to the cave after stripping off my clothes. It was time to change clothes anyway.