buttons

Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Strata 6. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Strata 6. Sort by date Show all posts

Jun 18, 2025

Strata 6 Trouble at the Bank (Animal Instincts) The Book of Immersion by Sarnia de la Mare

πŸ”ΉStrata 6: Healing and Memory

In nature and old data, Renyke discovers forgotten warmth. Can a machine remember love, loss, and belonging? Healing begins with remembering.



Welcome to Immersion. You have reached Strata 6

Trouble at the Bank (Animal Instincts)



man chest heart money open shirt

The instinct to fight has been observed in both humans and animals. Dominance protects vulnerable species from harm. Neural circuits of rage, anger, and violence exist because humans and animals need them to protect offspring, and to secure food, drink, and safety.


But to be aroused or entertained by violence is more particular to humans than other species. Some humans have even fetishised the power of winning: they seek it out and are physically stimulated by it.


This pleasure in violence, along with the thrill of danger, comes from a deep innate human psychology. It is linked to a desire for competition, thrills, and excitement, as well as the promise of adrenaline which humans find stimulating.


Androids do not experience pleasure in this way. They do not experience the effects of pleasure chemicals, like dopamine, or a motivational salience which can lead to the desirability of an outcome. All androids however have been programmed to protect an asset or assets at all costs. Often these goals will result in violent acts.


But the excitement of a fight remains uniquely human and is a self motivated, self fulfilling exhilaration often irrespective of intellectual advancement.



The oversized droid tried to nudge Renyke into the chair. This small movement, a deliberate, forceful action, raised alarm bells. This droid and this place were dangerous.



POS was now completely unresponsive.


The Droids were staring intently, too close for comfort. The finger clicking was getting even more intense.


Renyke took a few moments to compose himself.


'I seem to have made a mistake,' said Renyke, 'I have nothing to exchange after all.'


Queenie, looking worried near the door, demanded access to leave.


'Let me out, this is not my affair,' she said to the door guard who had stopped her exit with his thick arm. She kicked his shin and he laughed. 'That just tickles,' he said, bending down and scowling in her face, too close for comfort.


Still nothing from POS......


Renyke realised he was on his own. This was new. total autonomy was not possible for artificially created learning machines. There was alway a system in place. The system was paramount to seamless function.


One of the droids got closer to Renyke and explained, 'You gotta have something useful for your friends at the bank. We like useful things. Must be something nice you got for the banker.'


The other droid looked at Renyke's bag. 'What's in the bag?' he said moving forward to remove it from Renyke's shoulder.


Maybeline crawled out onto Renyke's collar snarling and spitting. She was screeching violently and standing on her hind legs.


'We take anything, old phones even. Anything with data, or storage, or files, photos, NFTs. We take hardware too, your bank is really *frienly. The watch looks tasty. We like watches at the bank. Don't we like watches?'


His thick-set assistant nodded, wires and cogs vibrated inside a hole in his cheek.


Suddenly POS was available again and activated defence and attack modes.


Renyke engaged his bionics and with lightning speed, head butted the first droid who flew back and smashed the other's head with the force of a truck. Cogs crushed and whirred and they both hit the floor.


Maybeline screeched and began removing wires from orifices in the droids heads.. Then she stood victorious on her hind legs looking around for another victim.


Human, age 48, ID: possibly David Shrewen, wanted for murder, extortion, fraud, by *CASM


A short well dressed man approached trying to calm the situation. He lifted his hands in surrender. He was nervous without the protection of his now defunct droids.


The Door guard held the female guide by the neck and she was screaming, 'Let us go we're no trouble honest, no trouble!'


'Quiet', said the door guard squeezing her neck tighter and choking her.


'My name is David Shrewen and I have a reputation to uphold. One of professionalism and integrity. I must apologise for my overzealous staff.' He put his hand out to shake Renyke's hand.


Shall I lock weapons on target? asked POS.


Renyke engaged an army-issue laser bolt-gun in his hand that would take out the whole room and anyone in it.




He would prefer not to use it but he pointed it at Shrewen's face fixing a menacing stare.


'Duuuuude, we got no ishy here. No *ishy, just data. A misunderstanding my friend?' Said Shrewen.


'Drop the lady!' Shouted Renyke, 'we are leaving.'


'Let them go', shouted Shrewen, without hesitation and putting on a brave friendly smile.


The door guard released Queenie, as the banker backed off with his hands still in the air.


Renyke reversed his way towards the door watching the room through his the 360-degree embedded viewfinder.


There was a bag on the counter.


...Contains *bits, may I suggest we take it.....? said POS


Renyke grabbed the bag. It was heavy. The Banker protested. 'Not the whole bag man ......I got bills to pay!'


Renyke pulled out a handful of the contents and threw the bag on the floor. He didn't need it all, enough to get some kind of vehicle to get him to Redact. The last thing he wanted was a gang of stupid droids after him in this Hell hole. They might hold him up.


The banker was yelling as Renyke and Queenie took their exit.


Shrewen was shouting as they made their way back through the market, 'You got some neat tools man, we could use you at the bank!'


to be continued....

© 2025 Sarnia de la Mare



Neon play button pink purple glowing


Immerse yourself in our books.

#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub

Book Cover Immersion Series Shabra

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata







Minor Matter by Tale Teller Club

THE BOOK OF IMMERSION
STRATA 8 — SHABRA (LAWS OF ATTRACTION)
By Sarnia de la MarΓ©

Welcome to Immersion. You have reached Strata 8.

Desire is a glitch in the system—or so Renyke believed. Until he met Shabra.

Fleeing the compound with rogue companion Flex and a loyal robodog, Renyke encounters a woman like no other. Fierce, streetwise, and enigmatic, Shabra offers transport through the dangerous Zoner districts—for a price. But it's not just the deal that's risky. It's what Renyke begins to feel.

Attraction, longing, the pull of something deeper. Human emotions... or something else awakening inside?

As this AI-human fusion experiment spirals further into the unknown, Strata 8 explores the collision between programmed logic and raw, unpredictable passion.

Can a machine learn to love? Or is attraction a human flaw that can't be coded—or cured?

Step deeper into the immersive, multisensory world of The Book of Immersion, where every Strata is a test, every encounter a clue, and every emotion... a potential malfunction.



Neon play button pink purple glowing


Immerse yourself in our books.

#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub

Book Cover Immersion Series Shabra

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata







Jun 4, 2025

Video Trailer for Strata 10 Book of Immersion V1 Dinfant Trouble (Synthetic Love)



Strata 10

Book of Immersion V1

Dinfant Trouble

(Synthetic Love)

We are the abandoned The Book of Immersion is published weekly on the Tale Teller Club website.

www.taletellerclub.com

Each episode features CDM music by the band Tale Teller Club and illustrations by iServalan Homotech 23.

Welcome to our world.

Neon play button pink purple glowing


Immerse yourself in our books.

#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub

Book Cover Immersion Series Shabra

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata








Jun 13, 2025

Strata 1 Renyke Wakes in the Alley (Purpose) The Book of Immersion Volume 1


πŸ”ΉStrata 1: Awakening

Renyke begins his journey of self-awareness in a fragmented digital world. What does it mean to awaken as an artificial mind? Explore themes of consciousness, memory, and machine soul.



The Book of Immersion

VOLUME 1




We are blind and still we see

Deaf and yet we hear

We do not touch

And yet we feel

For we are brave

Not scared to fear


Welcome to our world


Music and song lyrics by the Tale Teller Club


Illustrations by iServalan Homotech 23



© 2024 Sarnia de la Mare
Tale Teller Club Publishing



Lose yourself in the safety of books


CONTENTS

























You wake up in the morning

You don’t know where you are

You do a quick 360

Looks like you’re making art

You’re Caught in a bubble

‘tween real and fake

You’re never really sure

Which ducker’s on the take

It’s just life my friend

But it’s the only one you get

It’s just life my friend

You only get one shot

So you get up off the floor

The sun is coming through

You get these freaky feelings

You don’t know what to do

You’d better watch your back

Cos bruises gonna hurt

It’s gonna take a while for you

To prove your worth.

We’re all in the dark

Just walking in the park

The more you try

It just gets worse

The more you want

The deeper the curse

It’s just life my friend

But it’s the only one you got


Welcome to Immersion You Have Reached Strata 1


Renyke Wakes in the Alley (Purpose)


What is your purpose here? What drives your desires and achievements? Is there a greater good you seek? Is there anything more important than yourself? You are but a fleck of dust within a universe you cannot control.

And yet, decisions you make today will affect everything around you in an unprecedented future. Your past actions, the very existence of you, have made a difference to the world. What is your past? Have you learned lessons? Are you controlled by unrecognisable forces or are you your own God?

Welcome to Immersion, may your journey go well.



Renyke's inner motors began to whirr.

He had put himself into voluntary shutdown during the *dark-cycle in order to save power.

Position within the human household as a domestic servant had been more than suitable and had sustained him all of his life till now, albeit a short one in human years. He was around a decade old which was quite a long life for an android. New technologies and updates marked regular upgrades and there was little call for used 'droids'.

Now, here on the cold paved ground in the open air, Renyke could feel changes in his body and surroundings. There were unfamiliar sounds and an ever-present white noise from the activities of strangers in a cityscape he had not seen before.

An unrecognised sense of trepidation washed around him and occupied his thoughts. Renyke was not programmed to experience fear, the feeling must have been something else.

From the start of his operational cycle, Renyke had performed the necessary housekeeping duties within an interior domain.

It was a twenty-four-hour installation that bound him by duty and programming to put humans first. To any human, until today, Renyke had been subordinate.

Things had become difficult after the arrival of another android, a female version 12 named *Ableteen, who was considered the fastest domestic to date, (this 6th day of the 11th *Moonturn 2289).

Ableteens were able to preserve battery power with a hybrid electro-solar panel on the back and shoulders. This worked well in the new modern glassed apartments of the suburban zones. These cutting-edge designer houses were maximising sunlight like never before in the new *Midcast Housing Projects.

Some of the new apartments even came with the Ableteens installed and ready to help the occupiers enjoy the best life possible.

Renyke was not the only older domestic robotic servant to have had their contract abruptly terminated. Some were simply dismantled, some were thrown into crushers still working, and some were being recycled into experimental hybrids for illegal purposes.

Renyke noted that although he was now a vulnerable *street-bot, he was spared a wasted end. Perhaps, now without enslavement, there would be new experiences. He had never cared before, after all, he was an emotionless droid. But today here in unfamiliar surroundings there was some sort of excitement. Something was calling him towards adventure.

All robots since 2050 had been installed with a clear-mode which enabled eco-friendly destruction. Parts had to be handed into the municipal facility to avoid issues with landfills and accidental hybrids.

There was talk of an underclass of feral bots who were made out of parts from the old dumping grounds before the *eco-legislation had been implemented. They say that some of these bots were made by the bots themselves; innards and parts that had communicated and joined forces across the debris of twisted metal and wires.

Mabel, the daughter from the family Renyke had worked for, had un-twinned him from the household appliances and deleted the software that had once meant he could never leave.

Together they had upgraded his operating system with drivers available via an underground organisation called *Redact.

Renyke had been created to blend in, in the midcasts, but Mabel had decided to mess him up a bit for a new life in the outer zones. Safety was in the camouflage of the ordinary.

Some robots had been designed to look aggressive, others looked like adult child hybrids who were designed as pleasure bots. Generally speaking, all robots found the open streets difficult. Artificial intelligence-led service androids were legally programmed to be submissive and they were picked on and abused in their short lifespan. Even strong exteriors would eventually break under such conditions.

The streets in the outer *zones were crime-ridden. Since the *pandemics, no law-abiding human citizen walked outside. For the most part, humans in the zones were there to partake in vice and black market trading. Androids were there to be used, abused and discarded.

Renyke's insides were a complex mass of wires and electrical paraphernalia that ran a well-balanced functioning machine.

But the outside world was alien and Renyke needed to explore it to become fully educated on the customs and the environment. He was programmed to learn. His algorithms had been set to gain an advantage in unchartered terrain by observing closely the details of situations. This was key to making robust decisions for survival. He also had a reliable and omniscient personal operating system (*POS) to guide him.

Together, Mabel and Renyke had researched what they could but there were pockets of the outside world that had been effectively erased because of a system of cloaking. Areas beyond

the midcast projects were cloaked in fake maps that even the most sophisticated satellites were unable to penetrate or decipher. Distances and information about the terrain were usually falsified.

The records had become unreliable because of the sabotage of information that had all been digitised after the warmings.

It had become a confusing mass of fake news and blurred living memories.

But after the tech wars with China and Russia, and the pandemics, there were so few old people left and memorial information was mostly unreliable.

Many myths prevailed.

Inside the Midcast Projects, things were different, they were much more organised.

Legislators and the executive had rectified the situation and made records of everything.

The government had recorded every human being’s iris print and DNA before they were born. It was a strict government rule that any pregnant human, male or female, had to inform the legislators and they were scanned immediately. It was impossible to get through life in the Midcast Projects without being categorised and having all your data recorded for the rest of your life and beyond.

But beyond midcasts, here in this unfamiliar natural light, even the smells were unrecognisable.

It took just a few seconds to warm up and reboot.

The surroundings were scanned as Renyke checked the 360-degree orbital range from the silent detectors inside his *POS.

He was fully charged and his battery life would last months.

Suddenly there was a warning....

Unknown Danger Approaching ...... Left Ground Level


Renyke engaged his internal antenna and watched a furry creature scurry past. His scanners perused the information app.

POS informed Renyke about the creature.

.....Rat, rodent, possible food source....


Renyke engaged his arm extension and snatched the rat from the ground.

He brought it close to his face, and studied it, carefully analysing its properties.



to be continued

© 2025 Sarnia de la MarΓ©



Neon play button pink purple glowing


Immerse yourself in our books.

#BookOfImmersion #StrataSeries #SarniaDeLaMare #ImmersiveFiction #TaleTellerClub

Book Cover Immersion Series Shabra

The Book of Immersion : Volume 1 Kindle Edition
by Sarnia de la Mare (Author) Format: Kindle Edition




Individual Chapters/Strata