Strata 2 The Maybe Line (Friendship) Book of Immersion V1

Welcome to Immersion, you have reached Strata 2.

Throughout their evolution, humans have developed an essential need for social connection. This need is deeply ingrained in their biology and plays a crucial role in human survival. Humans have developed an internal warning system that alerts them when their need for connection remains unfulfilled.
A machine can measure friendship in terms of association, as data and statistics. But a machine does not intrinsically feel anything for themselves. It can only assume likelihoods of alliance or read warning signs measured by unusual or specific data alerts.
Neither human nor machine could truly know the difference between a friend or an enemy. The definition in itself is loaded with fluctuating expectations.
In the world of Immersion friends and foes blend into the streets upon which you tread. 
Beware the nightingale for it may be a vulture. 
Bon Chance, my friend, Bon Chance.

Renyke felt the rat's whiskers on his nose. It was a strange sensation.

His touch and feel receptors could have been faulty.

'Well Mr Rat,'

The POS interjected.... The rodent appears to be female....

'Well hello Mrs Rat,' sniggered Renyke, 'I could do with some company and who knows, you could be helpful at some point.'

Renyke's sense of liberation was magnified at the possibility of a new friend, rat or otherwise. It would be a different sort of caring, un-programmed and entirely voluntary.

'I will call you Maybeline, after my friend', he told the rat, picking up a scrap of food near the rear of the building where he had rebooted. And you can be the start of the 'maybe line', the line of fate that I will take from this moment on'.

Maybeline nose bumped and Renyke laughed. 

'Ha, do you understand my words, little friend?'

And again, another nose bump. 

Maybeline's whiskers tickled, 

'Achoo!' Renyke responded with a loud sneeze.

*********

The adjacent building was old and dirty, a relic from the twenty first century when the country had been victim to the floods which were caused by the great  *warming. 

Buildings had been built on concrete stilts and the towering grey causeways had been constructed. Flash floods had destroyed entire communities because the defences were not adapting fast enough. Many people had left to live and work higher ground, if they could afford it.

But because the buildings were small and enclosed to keep the rains out, they had proved problematic for the spread of the *pandemics. Humans working in the city centres had a much lower life expectancy. Androids were unaffected by the human viruses so they took over production and services. But then there were the tech viruses which were devastating and could render entire organisations completely defunct, or worse still, dangerous. Businesses had begun to fold under the weight of industrial and corporate sabotage.


The sun was shining. It was late winter but warm. Renyke had rarely left his connected domain in the miscasts.  It felt good in the open air. Even the gardens in the projects had air conditioning to purify and clean the environment and ensure a super-clean air bubble.

Renyke checked an address in his database and engaged his GPS. It was the headquarters of Redact, the place he needed to get to. That, at least, was one thing he could remember. 

He was thirty miles east, only slightly off target, according to the map. He was expected there soon and resolved to make haste on this unknown journey. 

to be continued

© 2023 Sarnia de la Maré

Links to episodes of Immersion written and illustrated by Sarnia de la Maré FRSA, published by Tale Teller Club

GLOSSARY

STRATA 1

STRATA 2

All videos from the Immersion Books series on YouTube

Al

Strata 1, The Beginning, Purpose, Immersion V1

The Book of Immersion

Volume 1

Strata 1

The Beginning

(Purpose)

From Immersion the Musical

By Tale Teller Club

Lose yourself in the safety of books.

The Book of Immersion

Volume 1

Strata 1

The Beginning

(Purpose)

By Tale Teller Club

It's Life Song Lyrics

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 get

©2024 Sarnia de la Maré FRSA

Welcome to Immersion

You Have Reached Strata 1

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.

The 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 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's iris print and DNA before they were born. It was a 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 Zones without being categorised and having all your data recorded for the rest of your life.

But beyond midcasts, here in the 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. 

The 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…….

©2022-2024 Sarnia de la Mare

Tale Teller Club Publishing

From Immersion the Musical

By Tale Teller Club

Lose yourself in the safety of books.

The Book of Immersion

Volume 1

Strata 1

The Beginning

(Purpose)

©2022-2024 Sarnia de la Mare / Tale Teller Club

GLOSSARY

STRATA 1

STRATA 2