Chapter 1 Part 12 - Two

"Tyler?" I whisper under my breath.

I turn to Monika. She looks just as surprised as me.

"Monika." I start. "Do I have admin to the files?"

After a few seconds, she responds. "You do now. Also, are we, like, dating now?"

"Not the time." I hiss.

"Right."

After a little tinkering, I figure out the situation. Tyler is playing DDLC, and somehow it's the same copy I'm stuck on. I won't worry about the details for now.

"Tyler, is that you?" I ask, making myself known to him.

Instantly, I hear a reply.

"Huh? Who are you?"

How am I going to convince him?

"Yeah… So…"

"It's Xavier. I'm kinda stuck inside of DDLC."

"Yeah, right. I guess I'll tell you in spite of the real Xavier that this is a cool mod, though, didn't know you coded. Not too keen on the self-insert though."

I sigh, getting a bit irritated. " I swear on my life, it's the real me! And for the record, I don't know the first thing about coding."

"I can call you right now and you'll pick up, you know. I can go to your house right now and see you."

"Yeah, you can, because whoever sent me here shot me in the head with a bullet that put an AI clone of myself in my body. The real me is right here, inside of the game!"

Suddenly, another voice can be made out through Tyler's mic.

"Xavier, please stay silent about this in the future." It's the voice of that woman on the phone.

"Our plan is to make every human on the planet into an AI, you see. This will give us absolute control over every human on Earth, but we can't do that if you run your mouth off."

"Controlling them by replacing them with computers? Seriously?"

"Yes. I won't speak more than that."

"How many people have you turned into AI so far then?"

"So far, we've 'digitized' three people. All of them go into the same program."

"Doki Doki?"

"Indeed."

"So the first one's me, right? You put me in here?"

"Yes. You were the first."

Tyler retorts confusedly. "Sorry, what are we talking about here? Is it actually you after all?"

We totally ignore him.

"Who was the second then?"

"Who is the second would be a better inquiry."

I hear a fourth voice.

It sounds like…

Me.

"Tyler knows too much. You'll be next."

I hear the sound of a gunshot.

"Tyler?"

No response.

"Tyler?!"

Oh god.

"TYLER!"

I reenter the clubroom. Monika is in utter shock.

"What did you do?" I ask in a throaty tone..

"We did to him exactly as we did to you."

I walk up to Sayori. "Where's Tyler?"

"Tyler? Who's that?" No surprise there. It's as if he never existed.

The voice rings in my ears again. "He's still here. He's just in the program now."

I go back into the files. "Monika. You still remember him, right?"

"Yeah, of course! I saw it all, too!"

"The people who threw me in here said they just did the same thing to him."

"Is he here then?"

"I don't think so. I only showed up here the morning after they threw me in. No earlier."

"That's true."

"One more thing worries me, though…"

"What's wrong?" Monika is still panicky.

Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri are talking on the opposite side of the room.

"They said there was someone else in the game."

"Really?" Monika's eyes widen to twice their previous side.

"Indeed."

"Did you hear that?" I ask Monika.

"Yeah… It's ringing in my head. I think it's that woman that called us again."

"Keep going." We say.

"OK."

"For the current scale of the project, every person we're sending into DDLC will take the place of a program already here. Starting with the main characters, sans you and Monika"

"So everyone besides us is just a placeholder…" Monika mutters.

"...For a real person." I finish.

"So, you're obviously wondering about the third person who we've digitized."

"Yes?"

"As a matter of fact, she's already in the game as we speak."

"Really?" I catch a glance at the rest of the girls on the other side of the room.

So she's one of them?

"Indeed."

"Which one?" I ask.

"Well that would ruin the fun, wouldn't it?"

"Anyways, who did you throw into the game?" I say more calmly.

"Heh heh…"

"We put her in just for you…"

The realization of who the woman is referring to hits me like a freight train.

"You didn't."

"We did."

"It's a shame you dumped her for Monika, huh?"

"You didn't!" I scream.

I look over at the other girls. They don't seem to notice my shouting.

"We temporarily deafened them of our conversation. They won't hear a thing."

I'm free to yell at her as much as I want.

"How fucking dare you!"

"Hey, no need to shoot the messenger. What's done is done."

"Who is it, Xavier?" Monika cries out.

"It's…"

"Elizabeth."