Author's Note: Welcome to my 999 fanfic. And I do mean 999, not Zero Escape. I've only played the first game; therefore, this is only based off the first game and could potentially clash with other installments.
I have tried to emulate the general game format, but there are of course certain limitations. As per the Terms of Service, this is NOT a choose-your-own-adventure story. It is a story with several alternate endings portraying the paths the main character, Utami, could choose to take. I, of course, cannot prevent you from jumping chapter to chapter to view the choices you personally would have made (when enough of the endings are available for you to consider such a thing), but that is not the intended format of this story. Do note that because of my chapterization strategy based on Utami's choices, chapter lengths will be inconsistent.
There is a possibility that I will make the puzzles appearing in the story playable using the Ace Attorney Online game generator. Let me know if you're interested; I probably won't bother otherwise.
Now that all of that is out of the way, enjoy! I do so love feedback of all levels if you have a moment. I also find reviews inspiring, if you catch my drift.
Utami thought she smelled barbeque. The scent tugged at her mind, drawing her mind out of the haze swamping her consciousness. After a moment's hesitation, she shook off her desire to sleep in and opened her eyes.
The red of her eyelids gave way to a lit room with a foreign ceiling.
"Why is the ceiling so close...?"
She carefully sat up, bending her wrists to push away covers. But there were no covers. Instead, the mattress beneath her had a plain white fitted sheet and nothing more.
"What the heck? There's no way I kicked off all of my sheets."
She peered over the wooden sidebar of the bed to check before jerking back. "Whoa!"
Instead of carpet at the edge of the bed, black-and-white tiles covered the floor some ten feet below.
This clearly wasn't her room. Whose was it, then? How had she ended up here? Try as she might, she couldn't recall what had happened before she last fell asleep.
"That would be a pretty bad sign if I were the type—" She broke off coughing, the smell of smoke burning at her nostrils and throat.
Smoke. Burning. Of course. That was what had woken her up in the first place. Wherever she was, it didn't seem like the best place to stay.
She shuffled to one end of the bed and went down a few of the thin, wooden slats running down the side before she let herself drop to the floor. Her feet thudded onto the tile as she cast a glance around. The twin-sized bunk bed above her was continuous with a desk of equal size with a lone briefcase on its surface. Another bed/desk stood at the other side of the room a few steps away, a small cushioned chair pushed into the appropriate space.
The far wall of the room was a series of blocks painted white, with a large metal plate bolted across its center. At the border with the ceiling, too far from the desks to reach from the bunk bed, was a vent pouring out vile, red-black smoke. If she couldn't get to it, she certainly couldn't plug it up.
"At least the fire's not in this room..."
That hardly meant she didn't need to leave, though. The smoke may have only obscured the ceiling now, but her eyes were watering just from one breath of it. She couldn't afford to stick around until enough built up to asphyxiate her.
Utami spun around to check the other side of the room. Two closet areas were on either side, one with clothes hanging on the pole, the other with a few things on the upper shelf. Between the two cut-outs was a door.
"There we go."
She lunged for the handle and twisted it.
Or, at least tried to.
"Unngh..." As much as she strained, all she got from the door was the rattling of the deadbolt. "Shoot. It's locked."
Somehow she'd had the feeling that it would be, even though there were no chains or knobs to turn. The door was plain wood, the handle metal with some sort of plating surrounding it. Normal enough.
But next to it, up against the white blocks of the wall, stood a small, square shelf. On its surface was bolted something like a thick smartphone with a green screen. It was dully lit, with four white ovals spaced across it in a downward curve.
"This must be what's keeping the door closed."
Utami glanced behind her—the smoke was still pouring in, although she could still peek over the bunk bed railings safely if she needed to—before tapping at the screen to see if any sort of keypad came up. The screen flashed:
ERROR
PLEASE PLACE FINGERS ON DESIGNATED SPACES ONLY
"...So it's a fingerprint scanner?"
Could it really be that easy? Holding her breath, she placed her right fingertips sans thumb on the scanner.
ERROR
UNAUTHORIZED PRINTS
Although she doubted it would do any good, she tried her left hand next. The same message appeared.
"But I'm the only one in here. How am I supposed to use someone else's fingerprints?" Maybe there was some way to short out the machine?
Whatever the solution, this was the only room she had access to. The way out had to be in here somewhere.
She glanced around the entire room one more time—closet, bunk bed, far wall, bunk bed, closet, door—before taking a deep breath.
SEEK A WAY OUT!
Utami went to the briefcase first. It would be too easy if it was already unlocked, but she had to at least check it out. It was a shiny, leathery black with a handle and a three-digit lock currently set at 9-9-9. No other locks or keyholes were visible, and the square buttons on either side of the handle wouldn't depress.
"A three-digit code, huh? I haven't seen any numbers around here yet."
She set the briefcase back down onto the desk and began to search the drawers. The three on the right were unlocked, but only the top drawer held something. It was a small, blue file binder.
"Hey, something that isn't locked." She slipped the magnetic flap off its resting place on the front cover and opened the file. A single paper was nestled in the right pocket, entitled "Digital Roots."
Utami froze, a wave of cold sweeping across her shoulders and chest.
"Digital roots..." Her voice came out in a rough whisper, though she wasn't sure if it was due to emotion or remnants of smoke in her throat.
She was very well aware of what a [digital root] was. The sum of two or more numbers, always between 1 and 9. If the sum had more than one digit, the digits were added together until the result was a single digit. That was a [digital root].
"Is that what this is about...?"
She looked back at the door, the lock, the suitcase—the obvious puzzles. She had set about to leave the room without giving it a second thought. But that was what this was, wasn't it?
"The [Nonary Game]."
Her hands shook as she raised her left arm. She hadn't noticed it before since she normally wore a watch over her loose sleeve, but there it was. The [bracelet]. The back was the same design as always, no clasp, no strings that could simply be cut. The face showed a single digit: [3].
She lowered her arm, shutting her eyes in an attempt to dismiss the images that raced across her vision. The REDs. The DEADs. The [numbered doors].
Finally, a tickle in her nose brought her back to her current situation. She covered her nose with her elbow before she could sneeze.
Nonary Game or not, she had to get out of here while she could still breathe. Now wasn't the time for reminiscing. There were puzzles to solve.
Utami slapped the file shut and returned to the desk. Coughing lightly, she investigated the drawers on the left, each one slamming open as she yanked it a bit too hard. A plain key was in the middle drawer. The only clue to its function was the number [3] carved into the diamond-shaped head.
"That's my number... I'll have to hang onto this."
She gripped it and moved to the larger bottom drawer. It wouldn't open. Of course not. It was the only drawer of this desk that could be locked, so it almost had to be.
"I guess this is worth a shot." She shifted her grip on the key in her hand and put it to the keyhole. It wouldn't even start to go in.
"Too easy, huh?" She took a step back. The key to that drawer would be somewhere else. But where to check next...?
She peeked under the desk—dark but empty—before swiveling her head. Might as well check the beds before they were completely covered in smoke.
First, the one she had been sleeping on. Nothing under the sheet or the pillow. She couldn't pull the mattress up. On the other side of the room, she covered her mouth with a fistful of hoodie to ward off the smoke. The search was a little slower with one arm occupied, but right under the pillow lay a piece of paper. She snatched it without another thought and climbed back down to clear air. Sputtering, she unfolded the single crease and looked over the contents.
ICHIROU YUUSUKE MOMO
"I know these names."
There were three of them. Maybe...
Utami hopped off the bottom rung onto the ground and stood there until she was able to breathe normally. The desk was right in front of her. Might as well be next.
She examined the top of the desk, but nothing was on it but a lamp with no compartments.
"The surface feels more slick in some places..." She ran her fingers across the dark blue speckles again. "I can't make out anything, though."
Removing her hands, she strained to reach back to the lamp switch. The bulb came to life with a click, bringing much-needed light to the wide desk.
"Huh? I think there's some sort of pattern."
She got on her tiptoes, the extra-shiny spots shifting, and then she dropped into a crouch. Finally, across the plain surface, a gleam showed the words "I=5."
"I equals five? That's not some weird type of hexadecimal thing, is it?"
She made a mental note of it before clicking the lamp back off. Next she searched the left drawers—her [3 key] wouldn't fit in the lock—then the right. In the top drawer was a small, stumpy, silver key.
"Maybe this will do it." She ducked to the other side and put the key into the slot at the bottom drawer. It slid in, but it wouldn't turn.
She frowned at the keyhole for a while before spinning around and trying the other desk. The key turned.
"Yes!"
The drawer opened to show a book-sized black box that Utami snapped up immediately. The lid came off without any fuss, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Inside lay something like a floppy thimble just about the color of her skin. Instead of little bumps, it just had tiny ridges on one side. On the other, "R" was written in fine-point black marker.
Beneath the rubbery thing was a slip of paper, folded in half. Utami picked it up and flipped it open.
"M=9"
She folded it back up. "More of that code, I guess."
Another sting of hot air parched her throat, and she coughed, looking up at the ceiling. She couldn't make out the top of the room anymore, and the smoke had made it down to the centers of the mattresses. Whatever was pumping smoke in wasn't about to stop.
Utami reflexively put her left palm over her mouth, the cloth there blocking out some of the acrid taste, before she froze.
She had done the same thing earlier.
It came flooding back to her. The grenade of white gas thunking to the floor of the bedroom she shared with her brother. The door slamming shut and refusing to open. Utami dropping her book and covering her mouth and nose as her brother continued to struggle with the door. The white haze building in the air, then in her mind. Her shoulders thumping to the floor before she whited out completely.
It hadn't been like the first time. This was how she must have ended up in here today.
Who had done this? She had only glimpsed a hand and a very blurred silhouette. Nothing she could identify.
Why would someone drag her into this again, almost seven years later? Was this another test? Was her brother here?
She certainly wouldn't find out if she drowned on the smoke in here.
Taking as deep of a breath as she could, she turned to the nearest closet. She could barely reach the shelf, so she ended up tugging the blue-and-white striped blanket down too hard to catch it before it hit the ground. It brought the smell of smoke down, but she suppressed her cough as she unfolded the cloth. Nothing. Maybe she was supposed to shove it in the vent? There was no way she could move the entire bed/desk combo to get over there, though.
She turned to the clothes rod and looked it over, even though nothing hung from it.
"Huh? It's kind of loose."
With a grunt, she pulled one end away from the wall, and the other soon followed. She looked through the tube and only saw a small obstruction.
"I can't reach it." Instead, she tilted the pole upright, letting the contents slide onto her palm. Another one of those rubbery thimble things. This one had an "I" written on it.
"An 'I' and an 'R'..." She frowned. The letters didn't mean much at this point. But she was sure she could figure it out.
With another paranoid check of the smoke building up above her, she hurried across to the other closet. Her fingers brushed nothing on the shelf, and a climb up the side of the desk just showed her the empty, white plank of wood. She turned to the hanging clothes. None of them stood out to her but the silky shirt that had halfway slipped off its wooden hanger. She rearranged it, seeing if anything would, shift, but nothing happened.
"Wait a second..."
A black mark was on the near side of the hanger, and a second look at the other clothes showed similar marks.
"I probably have to arrange these, don't I?"
The smoke continued to dim the fluorescent lights as she hurried to arrange the clothes in any order that made sense. Finally she was able to line up the black marks. Stretched across the seven hangers was the message "Y=8."
"That's the third one of those. It's definitely not hexadecimal, or any other weird base. At least, nothing too weird for me to understand."
She looked over the clothes again before pausing. Arranged as they were, the various styles of shirts were a smooth gradation from red to blue—except for one bright purple jacket at the far right end. Utami plucked it from its place and dug through its pockets. One was empty. The other held another little silver key.
"Three guesses where this goes."
Deciding the other shirts were probably a waste of time, she turned back to the unopened desk drawer and unlocked it. The white-and-purple speckled drawer liner was only interrupted by a blob of flesh-colored rubber.
"Another one of these... There's a 'P' on the back this time. 'R,' 'I,' 'P'... Well that doesn't sound good."
She checked the far wall, but nothing seemed out of place besides the steel panel.
"This probably used to be a window. I don't see anything attached to it."
That just left the briefcase. Utami stared hard at the three dials before retrieving the largest slip of paper she had.
ICHIROU YUUSUKE MOMO
"Three names, three numbers. This has to be it. Wait..." She squinted at the names.
"Ichirou, Yuusuke, Momo... Ichirou, Yuusuke, Momo... I-chirou, Y-uusuke, M-omo. I, Y, M."
She reviewed the few wild minutes she had spent in this room before turning the dials.
5-8-9...
Click.
"All right! Let's see what we've got." She flung the lid open. The interior of the briefcase was dark and velvety and held a piece of paper as well as a rubbery thimble.
"Yet another one of these. This one has an 'M' on it. And this paper..." She skimmed over the contents, and her stomach turned.
They were the rules. She probably knew them by heart.
"I can read them later. Right now I have to get out of here."
Shoving the paper into her file, she looked over what she had left. The [3 key], the file, and the four rubbery things.
"I have to use a fingerprint scanner to get out of here. So, I won't be using the key. As for these things..."
Utami picked up the one marked "R" and slipped it onto her finger, twisting it so the ridges were on the front.
"I think I get it now."
She scrutinized the other three and put the obviously small one over her pinky. It was the one marked "P."
"Wait a second..."
She took the other rubber fingertip off and arranged the three remaining—"I," "M," "R," and then "P."
"All right. Let's see what happens."
File tucked under her arm, she hurried to the door and examined the fingertip scanner. Carefully, she stretched her fingers to let one hover over each oval on the screen. With an exhale, she pressed down. A line of white light crossed the screen from top to bottom.
ERROR
UNAUTHORIZED PRINTS
"What?!" She drew back, checking her artificial fingerprints. They were in the correct order, weren't they? Index, middle, ring, pinky?
But were they on the correct hand?
Fumbling, Utami coughed as she pulled the tips off and transferred them to her left hand in the same order. This was the hand with the [bracelet]. It made sense, right?
She put her fingers on the scanner and waited.
AUTHENTICATION SUCCESSFUL
DOOR OPEN
She pulled back, gripping the door handle and wrenching it down before it had the chance to lock again. Finally she let out a breath as the door swung open in front of her.
YOU FOUND IT