Machine Learning: A Cave Story Quest

Machine Learning - Recovered Data 2 - Names II

"Is everyone here and accounted for?"

You can see that the answer is yes, but the call is more to gather attention back to the matter at hand then it is a real question. Three and Six are sitting on your bed facing you, Three smiling expectantly and rocking back and forth slightly, contrasting Six's utterly blank expression. Four stands next to them, looking around awkwardly. It's admittedly a bit cramped with five people all stuffed in your room. Across from them, Five is rifling through the books on your shelf, peeking inside, and then discarding them within arm's reach at random. You remind yourself that you have an actual job to do right now and that throttling your squadmates is detrimental to cohesion and will prevent you from presenting a united front to the Commander.

"Five, I was talking to you specifically." you clarify, glaring at the other machine. She continues to ignore you, tossing another book onto the floor.

"Introductory Mechanics, Wonders of the World, Basics of Sociology," Five reads off, still facing away from the rest of the room. Three and Six are staring disapprovingly at her now, and even Four's absent smile looks tired and brittle. "Do you have any interesting books in here?"

"Those are interesting books," you correct, "and more importantly they're all useful. But now that I have your attention, we have an important matter to discuss."

"So what is it?" Three interrupts, leaning forward and resting her head in one hand. "You don't usually call us all together like this. Is it about what we were talking about earlier?"

"That's correct. I have gathered you here to discuss the matter of our names." you confirm. The disinterested atmosphere clears immediately. You have the room's full attention, with even Five turning her attention away from your shelf and stepping closer to you. You're unsure if it's meant to be intimidating or not. Five is the tallest of the six of you, looking otherwise identical to Three but sharing none of her demeanor. The way she stares at you now is too close to the way she looks at your targets to be comfortable.

"So what did One say? Are we good to go for naming each other? Because I've got a list of ideas that -" Three asks before jumping onto a tangent. You cut her off before the conversation can veer off-track.

"I haven't spoken with the Commander yet." you say, putting some emphasis on One's title. Your role as Sub-Commander might not hold tangible authority, but his does and should be shown proper respect. For that matter your title should also be shown proper respect, but you've given up on that by now. "We are instead here to discuss that proposition so that we can present it together."

"Alright!" Three agrees immediately. A second later, she realizes something and her enthusiasm is replaced by confusion. "…why are we doing that?"

"Yeah, can't you just do it? That bureaucracy stuff is basically all you do." Five dismisses. You clench and unclench your fists, keeping your eyes away from the utter mess she made of your shelf to focus on the matter at hand.

"Five…" Four mutters, putting one hand on the taller soldier's shoulder. She doesn't even notice, occupied by her complete dismissal.

"I could, but there would be little point. We were not named for a reason, so we will need to make a strong case. First to the Commander, whose judgement will determine how our idea is presented to Command itself. I've assembled a list of key talking points that we can present as a group, displaying a united front-"

"Our idea? You were literally the last person we told!" Five interrupts. She points an accusing finger at you, to the obvious discomfort of the other soldiers. "Don't act like you're in charge of this all of a sudden!"

Your eye twitches. You'll need to check with the technicians for damage before your next mission. "I'm just making sure the proposal actually goes through. Would you have just marched up to our superiors and told them you wanted a real name?"

Nobody speaks. Four rubs the back of his head sheepishly. "We… weren't going to tell them?"

You blink. "And you didn't think that could possibly go wrong somehow? That displaying characteristics outside of our intended design wouldn't have consequences?"

Silence. Three and Four are unable to meet your stare. Five, as usual, doesn't appear to care at all and locks eyes with you without a shred of acknowledgement. You stare at each other for what feels like much too long, not saying anything, but you know is actually barely a second. Before the moment can become awkward, Six speaks up.

"I noticed."

"Thank you," you gesture to the youngest of the team, "for having some common sense. Do the rest of you think we're allowed to just do whatever we want?"

"We got away with-"

"Anyways!" Three interrupts whatever Five was about to say, desperate to get back on track. You can relate to the feeling. "Six pointed that out, so I talked to you about it, and now we're all here talking about it!"

"And soon we'll talk to the Commander about it." you finish. "But first we go over the talking points I've prepared. If everything goes well, then-"

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"Sure, I'll approve it."

"-be wondering why we- wait, really?"

You stare blankly at the Commander in their office. It's barely any bigger than the other rooms, just upsized enough to fit a small desk inside without becoming cramped. It is not, however, large enough to manage the same with six people. Light trails in through the only window in all of your rooms, painting a beautiful wash of pastel hues behind the stark, metallic color of the Commander's quarters. Their body is equally colorless, everything from their uniform to their hair matching the unnatural paleness of their false skin. The only spots of color in the office are the items claimed as salvage, scattered aimlessly across the shelves or floor. There's no clear use or connection to any of them, books and children's toys and electronics and civilian weapons all given equal inattention from their new owner. The Commander sits at his desk, posture immaculate, with a placid smile on his face as he freely accepts the proposal.

"I doubt Command will object to us naming ourselves. It won't impair our effectiveness, and we were made to work as a team anyways. This could even go as far as to improve our cohesion on the field." they explain. As always, the Commander's voice is clear and light, bereft of the wavers and imperfections that mark human speech.

"See? Told ya all that planning was a waste of time." Five jeers from behind you. You refuse to turn and acknowledge her taunting.

"I'm sure Two's planned arguments would have been effective, but I have faith in all of your judgement." the Commander placates, and you cannot ignore the flicker of pride that wells up in you in response to their compliments. Their faith in your ability. You wish it would last longer, but it doesn't.

"Alright! Thanks, Commander!" Three cheers, followed by a series of similar expressions from the others. Even Five and Six both manage to say something polite. You're less surprised about Six than Five. At least they tend to talk when it's expected of them, while Five talks even when it's not. But in this instance, it doesn't really matter.

"Now," you announce, trying to pull attention from the whole room back to you, "since we are still gathered, there is one other thing we will all need to do."

"And what would that be?" Five snarks, her courtesy vanishing the moment she hears your voice.

"We need to pick names, obviously."

Five's irritation is quickly drowned out by the wave of excitement that washes out from the other three. The Commander smiles at you, and you savor that expression for a moment before turning your full attention towards your new objective. It will have exceptional importance, after all.

You reach the end of the Egg Corridor, ready to exit. The Mimiga offers no input on which path they came from, only that they were going up.

[] Elevator
Another, smaller, elevator. It looks in better shape than the earlier one, though you have no information on its potential destinations besides a row of numbered buttons.
[x] Stairwell
It looks somewhat worn down but has proven able to support your weight. You don't know how far down it goes, but it has to exit somewhere.
[] Passage
A breach in the side of the Egg Corridor, leading out to an attached cave system. In reflection, the Corridor was probably built within an existing cave rather than hollowed out manually.

Machine Learning - File 1, Entry 10 - Compression

"Are you ready to walk on your own again?"

"Oh, ah- totally!" the Mimiga answers hastily. She scrambles against your arms, reaching for the ground before you even start to lean down. "I can walk just fine!"

The child's paper-thin bravado is obvious even to you. She's out of breath after every word, tripping over her own tongue in an effort to confirm that they can put distance between you and her as quickly as possible. Your body is an immovable wall against her desperation, too heavy and steady for the tiny creature to move. Instead of the messy scuffle that should have resulted from the Mimiga pushing off you to the ground, you remain in place while she clambers off of you like part of the terrain.

Of course, the moment she tries to take a step on her own, she stumbles. You consider reaching down to catch her before she falls but think better of it. Sudden movements are intimidating. The point of letting the kid walk on her own is to show trust. You need to correctly establish your relationship, and that means setting a healthy distance between the two of you. If they want to walk on their own, they can try. You are only carrying her because she cannot walk on her own, and only until she is returned to her village. Once you're there, it won't matter how afraid of you she is because you will never meet again.

But the child falls, releasing a reverberating clang as she lands on the thin metal platform you walk along. She springs up a moment later, stumble halfway through the motion, and leans on the guard rail for support. The Mimiga's smile is clumsy and obviously strained even to you.

"See! Totally fine!"

Your blank expression feels more poignant than usual. They're going to get hurt like that. "No."

"What?" The first thing that she does is flinch. The sputtered disbelief comes quickly after, trying to cover up the moment's fear.

"You're going to hurt yourself."

"No, I'm not! I can walk just fine!"

"You cannot." you insist. Mimiga heal faster than humans do, but not that quickly. Not after being shot, especially not with a military-quality weapon without so much as touching a Red Flower.

"Sure I can! Just watch!" The girl removes her grip on the railing and starts off down the scaffolds towards the Corridor's end. She's steadier than you expected, but still walking with an obvious limp. You know enough basic medicine to recognize that putting constantly pressure on an injured limb while it's healing is an awful idea.

"No," you repeat. "you cannot. Your leg will not heal properly if you do not allow yourself to rest."

The Mimiga girl stops and glares at you from shortly ahead in the scaffolds. "Why do you even care?

"Just hold still, I'll carry you the rest of the way. You're light enough not to slow me down and I walk faster than you do anyways."

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Reaching the end of the Egg Corridor is simultaneously uninteresting and stressful. The overgrown insects and other creatures that crawl through its passages skirt around you and the Mimiga girl, only making their presence known in the gaps in the crates below you or the cracks in the walls and ceiling. Firing off warning shots every minute or so keeps them clear of you, but you are never really safe. Being at risk of attack from any direction against unknown numbers is an unfavorable position even if your opponents are only base animals too limited by instincts to attack you. No confrontation comes, but the threat hangs over you with every distant buzz of wings or tap of chitin on metal.

The end of the Egg Corridor reminds you of the other station that you left. It's clean and orderly, a metal platform a few steps below you closer to what must have been the hallway's floor. The main exit appears to be an elevator, though a door off to the side opens to a long stairwell. Closer to you is a break in one of the walls just above a large shipping crate that leads off into a cave passage. Any one of these routes could lead to the Mimiga girl's village.

"Which way did you go?" you ask. It would be better if you didn't have to step into an elevator. This one looks smaller than the shipping elevator you went up on, and its weight capacity would be lower. Maybe too low to carry you let alone somebody else.

"Uh… I don't remember?"

"That sounds like a question." you point out. How does she not remember? It hasn't been that long, has it?

"Well, I just don't! Pick whatever way you want, they probably all go the same way anyways." the girl insists. That can't possibly be right, but you don't have any other ways to go.

The cave passage would be dangerous to move through for a child, and getting from its exit to the paths through the Egg Corridor would be difficult. The elevator, meanwhile, is advanced enough technology that it would be memorable for a Mimiga child to use. The stairwell is the most logical path to take.

You descend from the catwalk down to the lower levels of the Egg Corridor, keeping careful watch for movement. You know you saw something moving impossibly fast down there earlier. Your memories of the Island and what exactly lives in it are still spotty, but in a place so saturated with magic nothing can be ruled out. Especially not injured and carrying someone else.

When you progress towards the stairs, the Mimiga girl pipes up.

"Why'd you pick this way?"

"It's the most logical option. Would you have preferred a different route?" you ask. Maybe she remembered something?

"I- I guess not…" she admits. The Mimiga shrinks away from you again. Perhaps you've pushed too much.

You turn your attention away from the Mimiga girl and to the stairwell. It's well-lit, fluorescent light panels in the walls shining down on a spiraling thin metal frame of steps leading down. The light only reaches so far before fading into a dark haze that swallows up the lower stairs. You feel the Mimiga suddenly pressing into you as you peer over the edge.

"Relax." you order. "I'm not going to drop you." It doesn't appear to have much effect, but there's not much more that you can do so you start down instead of wasting time talking.

The first steps down the stairs are uncomfortable. The Mimiga continues to press into you, staring down the depths of the stairwell. Each step creaks under your foot when you rest your weight on it. There is no option but to move slowly, avoiding putting too much force into your movements. If the progression through the Egg Corridor was filled by the shadow of a threat, the descent down the stairs is more like walking near an old explosive. You don't know if it's armed, you don't know if it's dangerous. But just taking the risk would be too much.

As the steps continue and hold under your feet, you loosen your caution slowly. The flights of stairs are strong enough to hold you, and the slight flex under your feet is just that and nothing else. The girl in your arms relaxes slowly as the danger is proven to be nothing to fear. Sooner or later, you will both-

Movement. Something moves above you, unseen while you were focused on the steps under your feet. Too close for you to fire; you can feel the air displaced above you. Not a sound is made by its abrupt descent. You dive out of the way, clutching the Mimiga girl in your arms and shifting to try and keep yourself between her and the ground. Loud crashes of metal against metal shatter the lonely silence and you both tumble down the steps in a heap. Your damaged machinery is not enough to track the movements, not enough to stop your fall. Everything becomes a blur of grey and dim trickling light from above. A wrenching shriek joins the clamor, and you catch a glimpse of something tearing through the staircase. Limbs flail, trying to grasp some semblance of stability, but you're just too slow. Eventually, finally, you crash against something more solid.

The world blurs as you repair the jostling and bludgeoning of the fall. Sights and sounds slowly drag back into clarity just in time to hear the fading sound of footsteps. Padded footsteps, moving away from you. When you stand, you see the landing filled with metal wreckage. Only faint, dim light drifts down from the stairwell entrance. Bits of broken staircase litter the ground. Looking back up, a solid straight line has been broken through every flight of steps as far up as you can see. Roughly, with intense force, leading back down to the thing that caught you off-guard.

A glassy red eye stares back at you from the surface of the rectangular grey block sitting next to you in the landing. It's the same strange machine that you saw in the frozen facilities below, without a doubt. Looking closer, it might be similar to the bizarre thing you fought at the edge of the Egg Corridor. The material for the body is similar, but the eye is completely different. The blood-colored crystal stares back at you, unblinking and unmoving. Shooting it is extremely tempting.

You have more pressing things to deal with, though. The Mimiga girl is missing, and your responsibility.

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Find the girl.
[x] Search quietly.
[] Call out for them.
[] Write-in