📚 Tale Teller Club Press (TTCP): Strata 23: Convergence (Crime Pays) | Book of Immersion V II

Dinfant Suzy from Book of Immersion by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA

Welcome to Immersion. You have reached Strata 23: Convergence (Crime Pays)

As fate runs amok in life-long plans, it watches on, armed with the knowledge that all things are preordained. It is only timing that matters. Time flutters like a butterfly in human hopes and dreams, in futures yet to live and pasts filled with regret.
Neither man nor machine, with their respective skills of adaptability and knowledge, can foresee anything for certain. They can only guess.
The criminal mind knows how to use the chaos of the unpredictable to its full advantage. Opportunity is the food of crime and has brought the most honourable of men to their knees.

Inside *Biggyhall, an old pre-war megastore that was gutted and reborn as tactical *Dinfant HQ, Kairo tried to calm the rattling throng. Some of them were more emotionally wired than others; the Mark 1s particularly, as they had been recalled by *Metacoms for destruction being so 'highly strung'. Baby Zaa had entered a full-blown spiral as Kairo attempted to guide an orderly queue out of the exit hatch.

'The algorithm says it’s a 67.2% likelihood I’ll trip on my laces,' he muttered, gripping the hatch threshold like he was being sucked into space. 'But I’m not wearing laces. Which means I’ve miscalculated something fundamental. I might not even exist.'

'This is not the right time for a meltdown' said Suzy, crouching beside him. 'You need to try to control it Baby Zaa, we need your weaponry and your skill to get what Mother needs.'

'He's looping again.' said Kairo who was becoming impatient, the mission was at risk. Sometimes these mood swings were contagious and for reasons unknown, the androids could pass on an empathetic virus and could overheat.

Suzy turned, arms crossed. 'Zaa. Deep boot. Signal check. Reset your logic stack.'

'I did reset,' he snapped. 'Three times. But then I remembered the duct incident. What if I have a subroutine left over from the vent crawl? I could be corrupted. I might malfunction mid-run. Trip. Trigger an alarm. Kill us all......' Suzy turned him off....waited, then turned him back on.

The group left through the hatch and made way to their destination.

Kairo crouched beside the *dincart, tightening the magnetic wheels. *POS, or Mother, as the younger ones now exclusively called her, was bundled under salvaged chrome blankets and old satellite foil. She emitted a dull, rhythmic hum, a glow that seemed to be getting stronger now, though no diagnostics could verify it.

Suzy adjusted her nail-thrower and glared into the shadows. 'She’s stirring. I can feel it.'

Daniel was perching on the cart, nodding thoughtfully. 'She blinked at me. I swear she blinked.'

'She doesn’t have eyes, Daniel,' Kairo replied, pulling him down.

'Metaphorically, Kairo. Emotionally.'

'Emotionally she’s a motherboard in a food trolley,' Suzy muttered, 'but she’s all we’ve got.'

Suzy had been the dinfant of college professors who had had no time for affection. She had devoured the knowledge of the family library to compensate and become 'seemingly' cleverer than her parents. She was thus rejected. Her pattern, a *Mark 1 experimental sub-trial, was discontinued by *

Metacoms due to even more complaints from angry clients who did not want savants for children.

In a loading alley on the far side of the zone, Shabra picked a rusted lock with a repurposed dental probe.

Renyke stood awkwardly behind her, his gun too obviously visible beneath his leather coat.

'I look like a malfunctioning guard *droid,' he muttered.

'You look like an android on the brink of a moral awakening,' Shabra replied.

'I think I’m still depressed.'

'You’re allowed to be. But try not to cry during the robbery.' Shabra was curt but Renyke had been emotionally floundering since his rescue and she was losing patience.

The door gave way with a satisfying creak.

Inside was an old warehouse, rows of crates, half-collapsed shelves, signs marked 'Do Not Inventory.'

Shabra cracked her knuckles. 'Daddy’s rich friends always leave the best trash,' she muttered to herself, ignoring Renyke whilst she got the job done.

Unbeknownst to them, in the same building, but entering via a roof duct and lateral drainage, the dinfants had arrived. They had crawled through the rusted infrastructure like termites, scanning for energy readings and weak electromagnetic signatures. 'Quieter than code' was their moto, and for good reason.

In Row 7D, Daniel spotted an old wooden crate marked *EDACO. 'Experimental Drone and Android Components: Obsolete'.

'That’s ours,' he whispered.

Two aisles away, Renyke stumbled over a similar crate. 'That symbol, Shabra, this is old fusion tech. We could mod this.'

'Nice catch, Sherlock. Keep scanning. Vault’s got to be at the rear.'

And then it happened.

A soft clunk, a footstep and a tinny vibration.

Shabra raised her pistol. Suzy raised her nail-gun.

Baby Zaa raised both hands and fired his nets, screaming in a shrill pitch that caused Renyke and Shabra to hold their ears.

The two groups faced each other over the top of a power conduit barrel.

'You again!' Shabra shouted lowering her gun and making peace jesters through the net that now encompassed her.

'From the zones that day with the resin?' Renyke remarked, as if they were old friends.

'You got your gunge kids? Or are you using a little screamer to scatter your enemies?' Shabra lowered her voice in an attempt to calm the jittery dinfants. 'I take it you’re not here to protect Shrewen's warehouse?'

Suzy stepped forward, eyeing Shabra’s boots with admiration. 'We’re hunting parts. For her.' She nodded toward the cart behind them. 'For our Mother.'

'Sorry, your what?' Asked Shabra, trying to understand what was going on.

'Our Mother,' Daniel repeated reverently. 'She was found in a waste crater. She’s waking up and she will look after us and protect us from evil.'

Shabra squinted. Her brow creased just slightly.

'What’s she like?' Renyke asked.

'She’s kind,' said Suzy.

'She tells stories,' said Baby Zaa, as if comforted by the lie.

'She has data. Deep data. She will grow us into the strongest Dinfants possible. Our army will be feared throughout the zones and beyond.' said Keiro proudly.

Renyke stared into the dark towards the glow. His neural net pulsed, chemicals were flying around his body.

Shabra tilted her head and said, 'how's about we make a deal? You take the drive banks and whatever other paraphernalia you need. We’re only here for the safe.'

Renyke and Shabra made tentative efforts to remove the nets. Baby Zaa tightened them as Kairo and Suzy whispered.

'We like the deal,' said Suzy, lowering her weaponry.

Baby Zaa retracted the fibreglass nets to free Shabra and Renyke.

Everyone worked quickly. The dinfants cleared racks of cooling coils, deep storage chips, shielding cloth, and computing equipment. Shabra cracked the vault using a trick she learned from a rogue nun in Sector 9 when she was orphaned as a child in the *Midcasts. Renyke filled his pockets with money as he remembered Flex and his penchant for collecting things. Despite everything, he missed Flex, and more than that, he craved for the company and support of POS.

Suddenly, a motion sensor pinged.

The warehouse lights stuttered.

A security droid dropped from the ceiling with a hiss.

It was armed. And it was one of Shrewen’s.

Chaos followed.

Shabra fired first, her bolt grazing the droid’s arm. It rotated 90 degrees and fired back, a plasma beam skimming over Suzy’s head.

'Time to scatter!' Kairo shouted.

Renyke launched an unexpected and impressive sonic burst from the gun Shabra had given him, knocking the bot into a shelving unit. Sparks flew. The building trembled.

'We’re out!' Shabra yelled, grabbing the vault sack.

Kairo pulled the dincart behind a crate. 'Everyone! Go go go!'

Kairo was an expert soldier. A sniper with an extraordinary manoeuvrability and dexterity he had customised for himself from the tech landfills. He was also ruthless and found great pleasure in the droids slow demise as he removed its inner workings and added them to his haul in the dincart.

Mother shone brighter than ever and, for the first time, emitted an electronic whoosh.

The Dinfants regrouped in an adjacent alley and waited for Kairo who returned in minutes. Shabra and Renyke joined them.

'I like your style,' Shabra said to Suzy.

'I like your boots,' Suzy replied. 'Wanna trade?' Suzy offered a small rotating metal orb. 'It releases a tiny jet of poisonous gases into enemies' skin, they don't even know it has happened. Only works on humans and animals though, obviously.'

Shabra smiled. 'Maybe next time.' It was a good deal but she needed the boots to get home.

Renyke looked at the glowing pile in the dincart. POS pulsed, seemingly even brighter, having fed off the commotion and finding energy from the haul.

'What’s her name again?' he asked quietly.

'We don’t know,' Kairo replied, just Mother.'

Renyke stared at the metallic pile... and then, for some reason, felt loss.

To be continued…

© 2025 Sarnia de la Mare

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Sep 28, 2025

Strata 23: Convergence (Crime Pays) | Book of Immersion V II | Sarnia de la Mare