sarnia de la mare

Sarnia de la Mare FRSA

Artist • Composer • Educator

Jun 21, 2025

Strata 11 The Crossroads (Gut Feelings) The Book of Immersion by Sarnia de la Mare


🧠 At the edge of three radically different paths, Renyke must decide which uncertain future to walk into—armed only with a gut feeling. This chapter explores intuition, underground survival culture, and the splintered architecture of a techno-capitalist world. Where reason ends, instinct begins.


Welcome to Immersion, You Have Reached Strata 11
The Crossroads (Gut Feelings)



Prediction always involves a possibility about the future, with varying degrees of certainty. In contrast, guessing for humans is often more abstract and emotional, and can relate to the present. Artificial intelligence approaches guessing differently, relying on mathematics, probability, statistical evidence, and accumulated experience. While humans use these methods too, though less formally, they also rely on intuition. It’s this fluid intuition that shapes a human’s perception of their environment and guides their actions.

An intuitive machine may provide useful insights in unexpected situations, but these insights are only valuable if acted upon. Proprioception, known as the "sixth sense," refers to the brain's awareness of the body's position in space. A "seventh sense" involves immune cells detecting microorganisms and communicating this information to the brain. Together, these senses likely contribute to the development of human "gut feelings."



skull wallpaper raven croe gothic butterfly
Flex was jumping around on the back seats screaming with delight. Renyke felt the thumping sensation in his chest gradually subside and breathed a sigh of relief.

The *robo-dog suddenly appeared and jumped onto the car roof barking excitedly.

Out of the enclosure, there is a crossroads.

Shabra looked at Renyke. 'What now Mr Renyke?

The left turn goes back onto the street where the bank was.

Shabra explains, 'It is dangerous, especially at night, because *crim-gangs take control of the streets.

Flex agrees, 'It be safe enough if we wise up for danger my friends. Just the crim-gangs, but I know most.’

The crim-gangs control the zones with violence and the offer of protection. They are empowered by groups of decommissioned droids under their control. Criminal humans at the helm have created an organised crime network. Anarchy prevails and there is no official system of state policing or philanthropic social care.

'Dog eat dog is the only expectation on the streets of fortune here in the zones.' Flex continues. ‘But the *urchs do no harm, so they leave us be.'

'Who are the urchs?' asks Renyke.

'Ah,' well there is a question Flex explains. 'We are the underclass, descendants of street urchins. And we are happy to be here. We cast no shadow and we know our place. Life is filled with beauty even here and we seek it out, celebrate it. We love and be loved, tis all we need.’

'Yeah,' interjects Shabra, 'a bit too much, all that singing and dancing and getting high. And the drumming, what is with all that drumming?’ Asks Shabra.

Renyke looks confused. *POS is still not around to explain things.

'The drumming is how we talk,' laughs Flex. 'All men should know the beats of their nation. it would solve a lot of problems if everyone communicated better. 'Sides, when there is a party, you gotta invite the clan.'

Shabra smiled, 'Well, Mr Renyke, best people like you n me stay well away from their *’shroom parties. I heard they last days and you can lose your mind for good at an urchs’ party.'

Flex was born in the zones. He has no other cultural experiences to call upon but he has developed excellent survival skills and is even respected by people outside of his tribe. In terms of hierarchy, Flex is more of a maverick operator preferring to avoid familial obligations or social ties. He is also something of a diplomat and his height and sense of humour have made him affable and connected over the years.

There is a network of invisible tunnels under all the zones from the now unused underground trains.

Some of the tunnels are better than others regarding safety and usability. Some of these areas are used as habitats. The territory and ownership of tunnel zones are fiercely fought over and protected.

There is no downtime in the zones. Many businesses run all night so they keep their spot. Market traders sell their wares using shift workers and can pack their goods away quickly when there is trouble between gangs.

What if we go right? Asked Renyke, now having second thoughts about his safety in the main street.

'That's the savanna, explains Shabra. It is safer from the gangs but you might get eaten by wild animals. Those mutant pigs are bad news.'

'I saw one once, said Flex, 'Swear it had two heads and the biggest mouth I ever saw.'

'Or die from the noxious substances from old mines, 'said Shabra excitedly.

'Or get bombarded by low-flying craft from the *contras trying to keep us out the greenbelt.' Replies Flex.

‘OK, OK!' said Renyke, sighing and trying to process everything.

There are caves where there is safety from the animals and there are connecting wet tunnels and lagoons but these have never been mapped correctly. Word of mouth is the only reference but survivors are few.

There are tribes of people from the savanna who have made their homes there but are rarely seen. They are deemed reasonably placid as they have never caused any trouble elsewhere. They are rumoured to be shy, excellent hunters, highly superstitious and have been thought to possess witchlike powers.

There is an urban myth that an old *Centre for Strategic Warfare lies beneath the savanna and that the tribes who live there, with access to hi-tech equipment, scramble satellite information allowing them to be hidden.

The road ahead leads directly back to the *Midcast Projects from where Renyke originally came.

Beyond the projects are the government departments, airports, factories and centres of information. Further still are the palaces and homes of the very wealthy. The *midcasts are medium to high-wage earner homes with schools and facilities for professionals and academics.

The way that mainstream society is structured in the Midcast Projects is based on a capitalist idea of perfection: consistent intelligent innovation, a placid keen and able workforce, all the while protecting the ownership of the means of production for as few empowered individuals or corporations as possible.

There is very little opportunity for upward social mobility or change. Hard work and study will create a good life for families but becoming wealthy or powerful requires access to the means of production. Governments and landowners are careful not to allow ordinary workers and lower professionals access to these avenues of power and control.

The biggest means of production is the Artificial State (or *AS), an interactive media network that is linked to all citizens via implants, household multi-sensory pleasure networks, and domestic or commercial androids

This network is tightly controlled by a group of related conglomerates, most of whom made their fortune by producing weapons and vaccines.

Downtime for workers is spent in the *VR cafes where *mersers can get drunk, have sex, take a swim on holiday and even murder people in a fantasy scenario during their coffee breaks.

*RR, or real reality, is frowned upon as anti-intellectual and subnormal.

But some *midcasters have abandoned their lives for *RR and have gone to the outer zones to seek fulfilment. For these people, RR is their calling or obsession. Others, like Renyke, find that their continued presence in the Midcast Projects is dangerous or compromised and come to the dangerous outer zones to escape an undesirable situation, or even, death.

Whatever happens next, Renyke knows that he cannot return to the midcasts.

Based only on a gut feeling he says,

'We go left....back into town.'



to be continued
© 2025 Sarnia de la Mare

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Strata 11: The Crossroads (Guessing) (The Book of Immersion 12) Kindle Edition

by Sarnia de la Mare (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition





#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub  #DigitalConsciousness #AwakenTheMachine #AIIdentity #SyntheticMind  #AIStorySoundtrack #ImmersiveAudio #CerebralDanceMusic


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Jun 20, 2025

Strata 10 Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love) The Book of Immersion by Sarnia de la Mare

🔹Strata 10: Ethics & Power

The power to control—or to liberate. Strata 10 investigates machine ethics, human authority, and the fragile line between protector and tyrant.

Welcome to Immersion you have reached 

Strata 10

Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love)

Robot metal baby android dinfant


We are the abandoned

The ones who roam

Never still,

we search for home

We are the orphans of the night

We fly the high roads

and duck the low

Through floods and fire,

We cry the songs

of the gypsy choir

Social norms and culture cannot be underestimated in a world that accepts robots as real and lovable synthetic creatures. Humans do not experience love in the absence of culture and society. In a world where perfect companions are easily manufactured, humans have been seduced by the machine, a synthetic digitised force that enabled the switch from 'otherness' to 'sameness'. In this space, love is seen to flourish. The creators of androids can synthesise the alterity of the robot which seems to make its own decisions to commit, to love back, and to appear to do so willingly.


*Dinfants are androids who look like babies or children under five. They were made by a single manufacturer who patented them in the early 22nd century.

However, it was found that the early Dinfants (Mark 1s) would not stop learning, and legislation was introduced to secure their removal from circulation and safe destruction. Despite the best authoritarian efforts, at least two thousand early manufactured Dinfants remain unaccounted for.

Many humans in the Midcast Projects were lonely and suffered from various forms of infertility. They wanted baby or child droids, especially the Dinfants, who were exact copies of real children designed with variations and specifics to order. These androids were children who never grew up. They stopped learning when they were as knowledgeable as the average human of a similar age.

Dinfants, like adult droids, were easy enough to replace or upgrade but some parents had needed counselling for Infant-Loss Depression or *DLD.

DLD was a rising concern due to its increased prevalence and its effect on the workforce. It was found that humans could easily fall in love with the outer casings of the dinfants as well as the constructed personalities. Something almost unheard of three generations prior.

However, the outer coverings did not last very long, especially if there was an active physical relationship. Ten years of feeding and playing would take its toll on the fabric of the Dinfants. If the parents could not afford repairs, they would soon begin to look worn and dishevelled.

Of course, this also applied to adult droids who would usually be upgraded regularly. Droid manufacturers usually offered ongoing upgrades as part of a rental or lease scheme.

But some humans fell in love with their droids and had blessing ceremonies. It was not legal to marry a droid because of the financial implications following the death of a human. Legally, droids had similar rights to human children. It was illegal to inflict violence on a droid in public. This was to protect children who may be susceptible to influence. Of course, what goes on behind closed doors was a private affair, provided human children were not presenting behavioural issues that may be connected to patterns of abuse towards androids.

Some antique droids lasted the test of time but legislation had been brought in to avoid the hoarding of defunct androids as they posed a threat to contemporary society, for various reasons. There were issues with battery seepage for a start, and then problems of unsupervised regeneration which was a serious crime in the Midcast projects.

The government gave upgrade vouchers for defunct or redundant droids and supervised destruction at centralised city plants.

'Get that freakin’ thing outta here will you!’

A man screams to no one in particular.

The house is a standard build from the early *Midcast Zone villages. Clean, white, and filled with contemporary fittings and technologies.

A child enters the room.


‘Mommy! Kairo is following me around.....it's really annoying. And Daddy said we should throw it away. Let's get a new one Mommy, please.

My friend has one like a twin sister. One with the hair that grows back so she can cut it and play hairdresser.’

The woman sighs.....'I suppose we don't need it any more now you have real friends.

I thought you wanted a *ponybot, even better than a sister, don't you think?’

The woman strokes her child's cheek and remembers how lost she had been when they first told her it was unlikely she and her *blessed would produce a human offspring.

The Mark 1, a Dinfant, made by the *Metacoms Corporation, was a perfect substitute and she had been able to focus love and attention on it. It was a copy of a four-year-old and she had ordered a blue-eyed blond version just like her blessed. It was such a good copy that most people were unaware that it was not a human child.

But the software was no longer being updated and the learning algorithm meant it had become too complicated for a convincing child substitute.

Also, the Dinfants, by design and default programming, craved love and attention and the Mark 1’s constant neediness was an irritant to busy parents. The Dinfants would constantly ask for cuddles and reassurance that their owners wanted and adored them.

The Mark 1 enters the room.

'Mommy, do you love me? Shall we have a little cuddle? Can you fit me in? Mommy, please, Kairo has a lovely snuggle for you Mommy. Mommy.

'Shut up,' screams the woman as the father enters the room and kicks Kairo hard.

The Dinfant lies on the floor crying loudly with a broken arm.

'Please Mommy and Daddy Please, Kairo needs cuddles, please Mommy and Daddy...please, love for Kairo, please……'

The little girl holds her hands to her ears, shouting, 'It's so annoying!’

The man picks Kairo up and turns his power switch off.

'Let's get rid of it. Put it in the garage. I will sort out a collection for it tomorrow,' said the woman.

The man takes the Dinfant outside but decides to put it in a liner and into the communal waste shoot. The shoot serves hundreds of dwellings, no one would trace it back to them and he can always say it was stolen from the garage. He is concerned about the breakage as it will affect the insurance. It is better to make a theft claim than to have Metacoms say he had damaged it on purpose.

A man tinkers in a workshop. He is observing the collection of children and babies that are hung on the walls as he cradles a new package, as yet unopened.

'Well my little lovelies, one of you must go. I have a brand new friend who is going to join us for fun and games. Her name is Mary.’

The man, wide-eyed and excited, unwraps the new child droid.

'Well, ain't you the prettiest lil girl I ever saw?' he says touching her skin.

'And don't that feel just so real’.

The Droid replies, 'Hello Daddy. I'm such a daddy's girl,' she chuckles.

The man looks around the room.

He picks up a toddler droid, a Mark 1 copy of an eighteen-month-old baby boy.

'Well Daniel, I guess I am all done with you. You are a bit small after all.’

The man opens the back of the droid's head and takes out the battery pack.

'But daaaadddddddyyyyyyy……’

He places the incapacitated droid in a bag and under the cloak of darkness, deposits it into a waste unit in the public park.


***




There is a black cloud above and rain falls on a large mountain of waste.

Another load is released from the grabber and two droids land together in an accidental embrace.

The larger droid, a Mark 1 Dinfant, is activated during the fall. It has a broken arm that swings beside it.

'Are you alive? it asks the smaller droid?

There is no reply.

The larger droid opens the baby's head and observes the interior structure. It lays the baby down gently.

'Wait here, I will be right back.’

The child droid returns with some battery packs from old mobile phones and some old drill bits, tools, motors, and other paraphernalia from around the tipping area.

The rain is getting heavier as the night falls.

Under the convenient shelter of an open car boot the larger droid gets the baby working and fashions a new arm with a metal drill for a hand. It also has a motorised catapult for the top of its head which rotates and fires nails at great speed.

'My name is Kairo,' says the larger droid.

'I am Daniel' says the baby boy droid.

The children cuddle each other.

'I love you Kairo’

'I love you, Daniel’

'We are in a very dangerous place,' says Kairo. When dark deepens we must find safe haven. Soon we will need a home to call our own. But I have learned that humans are not to be trusted.’

They hear a sound in the distance, a child is crying.


***




In the car, with the shrieking now at a deafening level through the windows, Shabra decided to ignore Renyke's appeal to stop. She let go of the clutch. The vehicle leaped forward towards the street beyond the enclosure.

Maybeline was holding on to the rim of the car door.

The Dinfants on the top of the vehicle fell off shrieking and scrambling around.

One of the Dinfants ran headlong towards the fast travelling car and clicked its fingers. It erected some kind of screen that is almost invisible. Although it was not a solid barrier, more like a gluey substance, it immobilised the vehicle.

The wheels were still turning as the engine fought against the force. Flex shouted! 'Damn, they got *epoxy-wall, we are doomed, farewell brethren.’

Renyke opens the window just enough to let Maybeline in who moved sluggishly through the almost invisible slurry-like jelly, and squeezed herself through the gap.

Some of the organic form seeped in with her but it drew itself back outside as Renyke closed the window again.

'OK, so you got your rat Mr. Renyke,' said Shabra, 'but we 'aint lasting long-time with this air in here and that epoxy-wall won't help us at all. I made this car airtight cos of the *bad-gas but this stuff is blocking my air-con vents.’

Shabra turned the engine off.

*POS is out of range for help.

The Dinfants sit it out becoming unnervingly quiet.

'So what, now, will they sit and watch us die?' Asks Renyke.

'They want my wheels,' answers Shabra.

'This epoxy-wall, nice stuff if it's on your side. Shall we break some off? Might come in handy,' says Flex.

Shabra and Renyke tut in unison.

Suddenly, Maybeline throws herself at the horn. For the brief moment that it sounds, there is an immediate reaction from all the Dinfants who jump around and cry whilst flailing their limbs about.

Shabra gasps, 'Ratty, you are welcome in the Shabra carriage! They hate the horn. Must be them there low decibels I used. Hold on tight people of the night!’

Shabra tells Renyke to engage the horn which explodes audibly out of Shabra's surround sound external speakers as the jelly recedes.

The Dinfants are freaking out and running away dragging the epoxy-wall behind them.

Shabra, laughing, starts the engine slowly and follows the retreating Dinfants gradually gaining speed out of the enclosure.

to be continued
© 2025 Sarnia de la Mare

Strata 10: Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love) (The Book of Immersion 14) Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
Book 11 of 19: The Book of Immersion




#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub  #DigitalConsciousness #AwakenTheMachine #AIIdentity #SyntheticMind  #AIStorySoundtrack #ImmersiveAudio #CerebralDanceMusic


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Complete Book All Strata on Kindle

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    Other formats: Kindle Edition, Paperback



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    Strata 10: Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love) (The Book of Immersion 14)

    Other formats: Kindle Edition



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    Strata 11: The Crossroads (Guessing) (The Book of Immersion 12)


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    Strata 10: Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love) (The Book of Immersion)


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    #CyberpunkFiction
    #SciFiAdventure
    #DystopianTale
    #PhilosophicalSciFi
    #PostHumanWorld
    #FuturisticFiction
    #AIAndEmotion
    #SentientMachines
    #HumanMachineFusion
    #DigitalDesire
    #LogicVsEmotion
    #ArtificialConsciousness
    #TechAndIntimacy
    #RenykeTheAndroid
    #ShabraOfTheShadows
    #RobodogCompanion
    #ZonerSlang
    #RedactZone
    #POSSystem
    #CadreCouncil
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