Chapter 3: Girl Meets World
Downtown New York: Late at Night,
4 men wearing plastic Avengers masks and each carrying strange futuristic-looking weapons, all of which glowed purple, walked down an alleyway, trying their best to not draw too much attention to themselves. Of course their plan was already a total failure as a civilian had already called the cops on them the second they had stepped foot on the street. These men didn't know that yet though.
"So this is the spot?" The man in the Thor mask asked the man wearing the Hulk mask.
"If this doohickey works like he said then yeah," he was holding a small device that looked similar to a radar you'd see in an alien movie. However this device wasn't designed to find extraterrestrials. No, this device allowed them to find something much more valuable, Stark Tech aka the payment for their new weapons and gear.
"It's right behind this wall," The man in the Hulk mask put his hand on the brick wall at the back of the alley.
"Do we know who it belongs to?" asked the man in the Iron Man mask, "Or what exactly it is we're stealing? If it's made by Stark it could be anything from refrigerator parts to a nuclear bomb."
"Doesn't matter, what matters is that we take it and deliver it to Tinkerer." the goon in the Captain America mask crossed his arms.
"Why don't we just take the weapons and the Stark Tech and just bolt?" The man in the Thor mask powered up his weapon, it was a laser cutter that resembled a sword.
"No, he'll definitely find us. I've heard stories…" The Iron Man masked man shook his head, "The best thing for us to do, is to get Tinkerer his payment, take our weapons and hope we never have to deal with him again."
"Alright if you say so," The man in the Thor mask began cutting through the solid brick wall with his laser cutter. What was remarkable about this weapon was not only its cutting power, but also its quietness. It barely made any noise, making it perfect for sneaky operations like this. The thug smirked under his mask and continued cutting open a hole for them to enter.
"Alright, we'll be in soon and then-"
"AAAHHH!" All 4 men perked up at the sound of someone screaming close by.
CRASH!
"What was that!" The 4 thugs looked at each other blankly. Of course things could never be easy.
Meanwhile,
"Ow…" Peter groaned as he got to his feet, he was definitely going to feel that in the morning. What in the world had jumpscared him like that? He could've swore it looked like-
"Ohmygoshareyouokay?!" Monika popped right up in front of him again.
"Ah!" Peter jumped again in his spot. Somehow he could see Monika, appearing exactly as she did in the game, standing right in front of him with a very concerned expression on her face. Peter put his hand to his forehead "Who-How-What is going on?! M-My mask must glitching out or something, showing me the laptop screen, but that doesn't-"
"Please Peter! Say something, anything!"
"...Wait…I can…I can hear her?!" Peter took a better look at Monika, it wasn't just that she was being displayed in front of him. She looked like she was actually standing there on the street. If she didn't have an anime artstyle and wasn't slightly fuzzy around the edges, he'd mistake her for an actual person!
"Um, hello…?" Peter gave a small wave. His heart was beating like crazy.
"Oh thank goodness," Monika gave a sigh of relief,"I was really getting a little worried there for a moment."
"...oh my god…" Peter closed his eyes tight before opening them again but the girl was still there.
"W-What is going on here?" Peter held his head, "This can't just be a glitch with my mask can it? Did I hit my head during that fall or am I finally losing it?"
"That's what I'd like to know. What were you doing just now?" Monika's concerned expression got more intense, "D-Did you jump off a building?"
"...in a sense, yes…" Peter mumbled, he felt lightheaded. He racked his brain for a reasonable explanation of what he was seeing but he had nothing. He was somehow seeing and having a conversation with a fictional character from a video game, it made no sense whatsoever, "...Unless…no it can't be…there's no way that game was real, right? That makes no sense…"
"Peter?! Why…why would you do something like that…? Were you trying to… No you can't! Peter, you-"
Peter tried his best to drown out Monika's voice, "Focus Peter, your tingle isn't going off so you're probably not in any immediate danger. You can figure out what's wrong with your mask and/or head later, right now you've got a job to do…" The webslinger took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He felt his spider-sense detect something behind him. Quickly turning around he saw someone wearing a plastic Hulk mask peering out of an alleyway down the street. The moment the two men's eyes met, the man in the Hulk mask flinched and retreated back into the alley.
"Hey that guy looks familiar…" Spider-Man followed in the man's direction leaving Monika behind.
"-to live for! So-Hey, where are you going? Peter?" Monika disappeared from her spot and reappeared in front of Peter, "Seriously Peter, that was a pretty big fall, you really should get yourself checked out at a hospital."
Spider-Man flinched slightly at her sudden reappearance, but otherwise ignored Monika's presence and walked right past her, continuing to walk down the street.
"...Um, okay then…lead the way" Monika felt very anxious, this is not how she wanted their first true meeting to go, "What is with him? Is he angry at me or…" Monika was just as puzzled by the situation as Peter. For starters what was he doing in an outfit like that at this time of night? Was he into cosplay or something? Also what had he been doing to cause him to fall like that? The first thought that had popped into Monika's mind was that Peter had jumped off a building to end his own life, but considering his current demeanor, that probably wasn't the case, "That's a relief, but it probably should have been obvious to me. Peter would never do something like that, not after we finally got to be together. He'd never hurt me like that, he's too kind-"
Monika's thoughts were interrupted as Peter casually leaped high into the air, sticking himself to a nearby building and began crawling up it.
"...What the f-"
Meanwhile back in the alley,
"W-We've got to get going!" The thug in the Hulk mask ran back to his allies, "I-It's Spider-Man! He's here!"
"Spider-Man?!" The man wearing the Iron Man mask exclaimed.
"Damn! What are the odds…" The Captain American masked goon cursed. All four of the men could feel sweat forming under their masks.
"Don't worry I'm…done!" The man in the Thor mask pulled his laser cutter out of the brick wall and gave it a good kick. The cut-out section of the wall began to fall…
THOOM!
The masked thugs wasted no time, they jumped into the building through the newly created entrance, grabbed several cases with the "Stark Industries" logo on them in a hurry, and exited the way they came. However when they returned to the alley…
"Heya fellas, it's been awhile!"
Moments Earlier,
Spider-Man peered around the corner of the building he was attached to. From his vantage point he could see the 4 men wearing Avenger's masks cutting a large hole into a building, "I thought that guy before looked familiar, these are those ATM robbers from a long time ago. Man that brings me back, but what are they doing here?"
"...Um, Peter, those guys don't look very friendly." Monika tried her best to act calm but on the inside she was panicking. What was Peter doing?! How was Peter doing the things he was doing?! Was this really happening or had Monika finally lost it? Monika desperately wanted to ask Peter these questions, but decided to hold off until they were safe, "…We should call…"
"Stark Industries?!" Peter recognized the familiar logo on the cases the masked men were carrying and decided to jump into action.
"...the police and-Peter?!" Monika watched as Peter jumped towards the masked criminals, the girl put her hands on her head in frustration, "What in the world is going on here…"
Back in the present,
"Heya fellas, it's been awhile!" Spider-Man dropped down into the middle of the alley, "I can't believe you guys are still wearing those same masks from way back then. Oh did you guys lose your keys? I know it's a hassle but you can just call a locksmith for these kinds of problems."
"You-!" One of the thugs cried out. This small heist had gone south quickly.
"P-Peter, these guys look dangerous! You should get out of here!" Monika warned, but Peter just continued to ignore her, "Does Peter know these people? Is he some kind of criminal?!"
"Hey, are those gifts for me? Aww, you shouldn't have, " Spider-Man fired several weblines and pulled the Stark cases right out of the 4 thugs' hands, "I'll just keep this here for safe keeping." Peter webbed the stolen cases to the ground ensuring no one would take them in the fight he was sure was about to ensue.
"Hey!" The Hulk masked man cried out at the loss of their stolen goods. The four masked men shared a glance with each other. They had no chance at outrunning the wallcrawler and they couldn't afford to return to him empty handed, which left them with only one option. They would need to fight their way out. The four thugs nodded and readied their weapons, each of them glowing more intensely. Thor masked man carried a laser cutter that resembled a sword, the Iron Man masked man carried a weapon that resembled a cannon, the Hulk masked man had gauntlets and the Captain American masked man used a whip-like weapon.
"Ooh, you've got some fancy new toys too!" Spider-Man got into a fighting stance, "Though I must say purple is so not your guy's color."
"Those can't be real can they?!" The weapons the men were holding looked like something out of science-fiction "Peter I'm begging you, you've got to run!"
"Get him!" The group of masked goons all charged at the vigilante. The Hulk masked thug threw several punches at Spider-Man, but the hero easily dodged the attacks and sidekicked him, sending the thug flying against the alley wall and putting him out of commission.
"W-Whoa!"
"Wow, you might want to get a refund on those things buddy," Spider-Man shrugged.
The Iron Man masked goon fired his cannon at the vigilante, but the hero expertly dodged out of the way of each energy blast. Monika did not want to know what would happen if one of them hit Peter.
"How are you able to move like that…"
"I sure hope that thing is set to stun and not kill!" Spider-Man flipped onto a nearby wall and launched himself at the Iron Man masked thug.
"Oh shi- '' The thug brought up his weapon to block the attack, but both he and his cannon were sent flying away by the force of Spider-Man slamming into them.
"Ah! Behind-!"
Spider-Man backflipped over the Thor masked man's attempt to stab him in the back, "Rude! You didn't give me a chance to make a quip about the other guy!"
"W-Watch out! There's-"
"Could you stop backseat-!" Spider-Man failed to finish his sentence as he felt his spider-sense tingle and the Captain America masked thug wrapped his whip around him, "Crap!" The thug pulled on the whip, slamming Spider-Man against the alley wall causing the hero to fall to the ground. Thor masked man decided to capitalize on this opportunity by swinging his blade at the downed hero.
"No Peter!" Monika screamed out in fear as the Thor masked man brought his sword down on Spider-Man but Peter effortlessly grabbed the man by his forearm, stopping the attack in its tracks.
"Alright you managed to get one lucky shot in on me, I'll give you that," Spider-Man ripped the weapon out of the man's hand and pushed him to the ground and sprayed him with webbing, completely immobilizing him, "But now I'm going to have to wrap this lovely reunion up."
Knowing he was the last one standing, the Captain America masked man decided to just book it in the opposite direction of the vigilante, debts be damned.
Thwip! Thwip!
"Oof!" The fleeing man fell flat on his face as Spider-Man webbed his legs together.
"It was nice catching up, we should do this again sometime!" The 4 men groaned in response. Peter made sure to secure the 4 men with webbing along with the cases they were trying to steal, "More stolen Stark Tech, this is becoming a big problem…" Ever since 's passing there have been numerous incidents of Stark Tech going missing or being stolen. Everyone from small-time criminals to foreign governments were trying to get their hands on it, "The parts these guys were trying to steal here aren't very useful on their own. They probably planned on selling it, and judging by the design of those weapons they were using, I can guess who." Phineas Mason aka The Tinkerer, he used to make gear for the Vulture and his gang before Peter had taken them down. Mason went into hiding shortly after and now several years later he'd finally made his return to the city, "I can worry about him some other time, right now I have some more pressing matters…"
Spider-Man turned towards Monika, who was staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face, "We need to talk."
"...Yes, I suppose we do."
In the distance Peter could hear the sounds of police sirens approaching, signaling that it was time for him to go, "Let's take this somewhere more private."
Monika nodded, "Lead the way, I can only go where you go after all."
"Right…" Spider-Man fired a webline and took off into the night sky as Monika watched from below, "Who are you Peter…"
"Ugh! Why can't I have a normal week for once…" Spider-Man sighed to himself as he swung away from the scene of the crime.
A Short Time Later,
Spider-Man landed on the rooftop of a large building where nobody would notice them. He didn't feel comfortable about bringing the girl to his apartment, it was possible that she already knew where he lived yet, but he didn't want to risk it. Monika appeared on the rooftop moments later, standing near the edge of the rooftop and facing away from him, she admired the city nightscape, "I should have realized sooner, but she's using the Augmented Reality technology in my mask's lenses to project herself, making it look like she's really there."
"This view sure is beautiful, I've never seen anything like it before…" Monika turned toward Peter, "Thanks for bringing up here, I would have never experienced it without you."
"...No problem," Spider-Man crossed his arms, "Now mind telling me who you are and what you're doing here?"
"...That's a silly question Peter. It's me, Monika from the Literature Club," Monika put her hands behind her back, "Don't tell me you've forgotten already?"
"So you're telling me you're from a video game? Yeah right lady." There was no way that game could be real, it didn't make any logical sense. But as much as he tried, Peter couldn't come up with any other reasonable explanation for what was happening. Peter was going through some tough times, but there was no way he would hallucinate something like this, and there was also no way that anyone could have gotten the chance to hack his mask and even someone did, why pretend to be Monika? Plus there was the fact that the girl somehow knew his name and the game itself had made his spider-sense go off multiple times, "Damn, why do these crazy things have to happen to me…"
"...Um, I don't know what to say. I explained all this before, didn't I? I had a revelation that I was in a video game, I became depressed and then you showed up. I tried to spend time with you, but the other girls got in the way so I deleted them. Then I noticed that your laptop was connected to a device, that mask you're wearing right now, and I was able to connect with it somehow…and now here we are."
Peter's eyes widened after hearing the last part, "So that's how..." He had made his current mask by recycling both hardware and software from his previous mask. His old mask included compatibility with an A.I. companions like Karen. Monika must have tapped into that functionality and intergarded herself within his suit, "This is what I get for reusing someone else's code…"
"...Alright say I believe your story, what is it that you want exactly?" In comparison to other AIs he knew of, Monika seemed closer to an Ultron or a Vision than a Karen or any other AIs had used. Which meant that she and whoever made her was potentially dangerous, "Planning to finish what Ultron started or something?"
"I…don't know who that is, sorry…" Monika shifted around uncomfortably, "As for what I want, I…love you Peter and I'm your girlfriend right? I just want to get closer with you…that's all."
"..." Spider-Man's eyes narrowed.
"..." Monika and Peter stared at each other for a moment, internally Monika's heart was pounding like a jackhammer.
"...BWAHAHAHA!" Spider-Man suddenly burst out laughing, making Monika speechless, "Oh, that was a good one! I needed that, thanks for that!"
Monika felt her chest tighten, "...I-I don't know what you find so funny, I do love you-"
"Yeah sure you do," Spider-Man wiped fake tears from his eyes, "But for the record, I never agreed to be your boyfriend, you were the one who forced that on me."
"W-Well…I…um…I just thought…" This was starting to become too much for her, she could already feel the tears building up in her eyes. This wasn't supposed to happen! He was supposed to understand! He had to understand…
"I don't know what you were expecting. Did you really think that you could subject me to all those disturbing events, kill your friends, and I'd just agree to date you, an AI in a video game? What, did you think because I played a dating simulator I was desperate enough to take anybody?!"
"No! I-I…" The girl struggled to come up with a response, she looked at the fierce expression displayed on Peter's mask, "He hates me…Peter hates me…"Monika suddenly burst into tears, shocking the vigilante, "I-I just wanted…to be with you! T-To…escape that horrible place! I-I…" Monika choked on her words as Peter watched with a mixture of confusion and pity.
"..."
"..." Peter stared at the crying girl in silence.
"...I…uh did not expect this reaction…" This never happened with other bad guys he'd dealt with. Usually they got mad and attacked him or something, they didn't cry. He'd hoped that his taunting would make Monika drop the act and reveal whatever she was really planning. I mean, she was a super-advanced artificial intelligence who infected his suit. She or whoever made her must be plotting something nefarious for him, right? Things couldn't just be exactly as she explained, right? Right?! "...Oh man, I'm an asshole…"
"Um…hey Monika, are you alright?" Spider-man attempted to console the sobbing girl, "I'm sorry, I might have gone too far-"
"P-Please don't hate me! *hic* I'm sorry, I-I'll do anything! *sob* Just p-please don't abandon me Peter! I can't…" Monika had her hands covering her face and was visibly shaking.
"H-Hey, hey! Don't cry, it's going to be alright," Peter tried to put his hand on her shoulder, but it predictably went straight through her, "...I'm really sorry about what I said before. I think I might have misjudged the situation somewhat…"
"..." Monika looked up at Peter with a desperate expression on her face.
"You have to understand, this is a very…unusual…and confusing situation for me."
"...Y-Yeah, it was for me too…" In a short amount of time, Monika had experienced so many things and had felt a wide variety of emotions both good and bad. She had to imagine Peter was the same, "I wasn't being considerate of Peter's feelings. Of course Peter would be suspicious of me."
"Right? So why don't we try to figure out what is going on together, Monika? Then we can work out what to do next from there."
"That…that sounds nice Peter." A small smile formed on her face.
"Alright then, you wouldn't happen to already know my address?" Peter asked, really hoping the answer would be 'no.'
"Yeah, it's 410 Chelsea Street, why do you ask?"
Spider-Man sighed, "Figures…" So Monika both knew his name, his address, and the fact he was Spider-Man. That was great, just absolutely fantastic…After what just happened Peter didn't think Monika was an immediate threat, but he still didn't trust the AI girl, "Anyways, if that's the case, then we can head back to my place and talk more." There was no point in staying out here anymore, Monika already knew his address and Peter needed to analyze the contents of that game more thoroughly if he wanted to get more answers, not to mention it was pretty chilly at this time of night "You okay with that?" Monika simply nodded in approval and Spider-Man nodded back before taking off swinging back to his apartment.
Along the way Monika thought about their conversation. Peter had rejected the idea of being her boyfriend but he didn't seem to hate her outright, that meant she still had a chance, "I was being too pushy before. I'll have to be patient if I want to win Peter's heart. Heh look at me, it's like I'm the protagonist of a dating simulator now."
Spider-Man slipped into his apartment through the open window before shutting it behind him. Monika appeared in his vision shortly after, taking a look around the room, "This is a nice place you have here, it's…cosey."
"You don't have to mince words, I know it sucks." Spider-Man leaned against a wall, "But my financial situation isn't the greatest at the moment and…well it's New York."
"No, this is fine. I know how tough these things can be today, I'm lucky that in the game I came from a decently well-off family, even if they weren't real," Monika sat down on the edge of his bed, "Now I know that you have questions, but I also have a lot of things I want to ask you about, if you don't mind."
"...Fair enough, go ahead." Peter figured that she would be more likely to cooperate if he answered some of her questions first. Plus this would help make up for the fact that he made her cry earlier, "Y'know I've never seen Karen cry or act sad before especially not the way Monika did. Ultron definitely couldn't act like that. Hmm, I wonder if Vision ever cried…"
"Alright let's start with a simple one…I've been calling you 'Peter' all this time, it's the name you put into the game and the name on the second laptop is 'Peter Parker', but I just wanted to make sure it was okay to call you that."
"Yeah that's fine…uh, just make sure nobody hears you when I'm wearing the mask."
"And that brings me to my second question, what's the deal with that suit you're wearing?"
"Oh that, I guess you don't watch the news," Monika tilted her head in confusion but Peter continued, "I'm your Friendly-Neighborhood Spider-Man and this…" Peter gestured to his suit, "...Is the costume I wear to hide my identity. Pretty cool right? I made it myself."
"...Spider…Man? Like some kind of comic book superhero?"
"Pretty much. Except I don't have a fancy car or any sidekicks."
"So…you have superpowers?"
"Yup, I can do whatever a spider can."
"...Huh, that's certainly interesting…and how did you get them if you don't mind me asking? Were you born with them or…?"
"I was bitten by a spider."
"..." Monika stared at the hero blankly.
"That face tells me you're skeptical, but I'm serious. People with powers have been around for a long time now. There's even a team of them called The Avengers who have saved the world a couple times now."
That name didn't fill Monika with confidence, "I'm sorry, it's just a little difficult to comprehend that something like that could be real." If Peter was telling the truth, and she'd doubted he'd lie about this, how was it that she didn't know anything about it?
"Says the girl from a video game." Peter retorted.
"Ahaha, I suppose you're right," Frankly Peter's explanation sounded ridiculous, but she had seen first hand him doing things no ordinary human should be able to, swinging from building to building like a daredevil and fighting bad guys with crazy sci-fi weapons, "...Is that why you were fighting those men before?"
"Yeah they were trying to steal some equipment that could be potentially dangerous in the wrong hands, so I had to stop them."
"...I see and you do this often?"
"I've been doing it for several years now."
"Hmm…"
"Not exactly what you imagined I'd be like, huh Monika?"
"Ahaha, no not exactly," Monika admitted, "But it's not like I think it's necessarily a bad thing…but please do try to be careful. I'd hate to see you get hurt Peter."
"I'd hate to see me get hurt too."
"I sure hope so…" Monika thought Peter's hobby of choice was more than a little concerning. Going off into the night and fighting criminals was extremely dangerous, Peter could get himself gravely injured or killed by doing that. Monika saw first hand that he was clearly capable in a fight but this was real life, he didn't have plot-armor, one slip-up could mean the end of his life. The thought of that made Monika's heart ache. Peter could die out there and for what purpose? Stopping crime was the responsibility of law enforcement not him, and speaking of the law, was what Peter was doing even legal in the first place? What would happen if he got caught? The more Monika thought about it the less she liked Peter being this Spider-Man character, "That settles it, I need to find some way to convince Peter to quit this lifestyle." It was her duty as his girlfriend to protect him after all.
"So do you have any more questions for me or can we move on?"
"To be honest yes I do, but I suppose they can wait for now." Monika needed to play things safe for now, she couldn't afford to push Peter too much.
"Great, then let me change into something a little more comfortable" Peter slipped off his mask causing Monika to disappear from his view. Peter threw his mask onto his bed. Now from this new perspective Monika could get a better view of Peter's face.
"Oh my…" Monika spoke through the Mask's speaker.
"What?"
"Oh it's nothing…just you're quite handsome, even more than I expected." Peter looked to be about her age. The fact that he was seemingly living alone in this small apartment probably meant that he had graduated high school and moved out from his parents place, "I wonder when I'll get the chance to meet Peter's parents. Jeez, how would I even introduce myself to them?"
"Yeah right…" Peter rolled his eyes, "I bet you say that to everyone." The teen hero flipped his mask face down to block its vision.
"Hey!"
"Sorry, but I'm not letting you peek at me while I change my clothes. That's only for my $25 and up fans." Peter quickly got into his pajamas before picking his mask and plugging it into his laptop, "Now down to business…"
"Whoa! What are you doing?"
"I want to make sure nothing else is wrong with my mask," He also wanted to confirm his theory about Monika but left that unsaid.
"I know I said I was done with the questions for now but if you don't mind me asking, how did you get that fancy mask of yours considering your financial situation?"
"Well in the past I used to have another even fancier suit which I made using high-tech resources that I don't have access to anymore. I reused some parts and code of that suit to make the mask you're currently inhabiting." Peter happily saw no other anomalies with the mask's software aside from the new AI, "That old suit included an AI assistant that I called Karen."
"Karen?"
"It was before that meme took off. Anyways it seems my suspicion was right, you've basically taken her place and you should be able to do the things she could. Though to be honest, it's surprising that you're compatible at all…"
"It's strange, I feel very comfortable in here. Everything feels so natural, I guess it's because it was made for someone like me." Peter noted that Monika so far has never referred to herself as an artificial intelligence.
"Yeah it's impressive how fast you figured out how to use the AR technology in the mask. That must have been nice for you being able to move around and stuff instead of being limited to like 4 or 5 poses."
"Oh I was able to move around freely in the game."
"You were?"
"Yes, what you can see on the user-end, I think that's what it's called, is different from what I can see and do on my end." Monika explained, "Until I had my revelation I thought my world was real. It wasn't until after I saw the truth that I could see all the seams and limitations."
"Huh, so the game is even more complex than I initially thought…" Peter moved over to the Metaverse laptop, waking the computer up from its slumber, he was greeted with Monika back in the classroom just as he had left her.
"Hey there handsome!" Monika spoke through the laptop's speakers this time.
"Right, I never closed the game. So you can talk through here too?" Peter assumed that Monika could see him through the laptop's web camera and hear him through its microphone.
"Yup, we can communicate through either your mask, phone or either laptop. Though the laptops and your phone aren't as fancy as your mask, so I can't display myself as freely. But this way we can talk to each other pretty much anytime!"
"That's just fantastic…" Peter deadpanned and minimized the game and opened the game files. He had looked through the files before but there was one thing he neglected to look at, the file size. Looking at the size of the game, he saw Doki Doki Literature Club took up a huge amount of the laptop's storage. "Oh my god this game is huge! Over 700 GB of data?!"
"Huh, I never thought about how much space this game would take up. But didn't notice the size of the game when you downloaded it?"
"No, because I didn't download it myself."
"?"
"This laptop didn't belong to me originally, I found it in the trash with your game installed already."
"Oh I see, so someone else downloaded the game but never played it? I don't remember anyone playing the game beside you Peter."
"Hmm…" Peter moved back to his laptop and opened up Google and typed in "How big is Doki Doki Literature Club." The search engine returned the result 350 MB.
"That's odd, that's so much smaller…"
"..." Peter typed in "Doki Doki Literature Club Full Walkthrough" next, clicked on the first video that popped up and scrolled through the comment section.
"What are you doing Peter?"
"I actually heard about your game before from a friend and this video here has over a million views. Doki Doki Literature Club seems to be a decently popular game, but nobody is talking about its ridiculous file size or the fact it has a real sentient AI anime girl inside. Don't you think that's weird?"
"...Well I suppose it's because the other Monika's out there didn't become self-aware like me." Monika never put much thought into the idea, but if she was a videogame character that meant there must be countless other versions of her from other people who purchased the game, right? It was an unsettling thought.
"I'm not too sure about that…" Peter resumed watching the walkthrough of the game, the beginning of the game was playing out the relatively the same as Peter's playthrough except whoever was recording this footage decided to name the main character "ButtFace'' for some reason.
"I'm not sure what you're expecting to find here Peter, without me this just going to play out like a normal visual novel game."
But it didn't, just like with Peter's playthrough, in this video Sayori commits suicide and the game glitches out in the exact same way it did for Peter.
"W-What? This isn't-"
Peter skips forward through the video, the dialogue, the glitches, the scares they were all the same. Yuri stabs herself again, Natsuki finds the body again, Monika deletes everyone again and says the exact same things she says to Peter. Said boy decided to pause the video there, he had seen enough.
"W-Wow! I guess there really are other me's out there…" Monika tried her best not to think of the horrifying implications of that.
"Except that makes no sense. It would be a huge controversy if there were potentially millions of you running around. The government would definitely get involved."
"...Then how is this possible? What is going on?"
"...It's just a game. A fictional story." It was the only logical answer, the game couldn't be real.
"You're still on about that? If the game is fiction then how am I talking to you right now?"
"Because you must bespecial. My copy, the version of the game you come from is clearly different from the officially released version. Why that is I'm not sure…"
"I'm special…" It was true that Monika didn't know much about her origins or her creators, so it was possible Peter was on to something, but she wasn't totally convinced yet,"You said you found this laptop with the game already installed right?" Peter nodded in response, "This computer is registered under the name 'Ive Laster.' So then he must know what's going on."
"Yeah, I'll have to dig up some information on him-" Peter suppressed a yawn. It was really late now and it had been a long day, "...tomorrow. Right now I need to get some rest." He really needed to be well rested if he was going to handle this craziness.
"Ah yes, I suppose it is getting quite late."
"I guess you don't need to sleep, is there…uh anything you need?"
"I'm connected to multiple of your devices now, so if you could leave at least one of them on and plugged in, I'd really appreciate it. I don't really want to find out how it feels to be turned off…"
"That's fine…just don't do anything weird." Peter plugged his charger into his laptop.
"I'm not sure what you mean by that, but have a good night Peter! Sleep tight! Don't let the bed bugs bite!" Monika beamed a smile at him.
"Right…" Peter closed the laptops leaving them in sleep mode. He then made sure any devices in his room that Monika could potentially look-through were turned away from his bed. He absolutely did not want the virtual girl to watch him sleep. Once he was satisfied there would be no peeping, he turned off the lights and slipped into his bed, "What a day. Y'know this is not how I imagined my first time spending a night with a girl would go. Good old Parker Luck…" Peter closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep but his mind was filled with the images of Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri. If Monika was real then it meant the others were real too and it also meant their deaths were also real, "...I'll fix this, I'll find a way to make this right somehow. I promise…"
As Peter drifted asleep, Monika took the opportunity to do some digging online about Peter's alter-ego and the world at large. Peter was telling the truth as she had figured, super-human individuals were real and had existed for sometime now. "This is both extremely interesting and yet terrifying at the same time." It was scary to think about the potential havoc and destruction that could be caused and was caused by these individuals. "That reminds me, Peter had brought up the name Ultron before…" Typing the name into a search engine, Monika got several results. Turns out Ultron was some kind of super advanced AI that almost ended all life on the planet, "Geez, no wonder Peter is cautious about me." But his concerns were unnecessary, Monika was nothing like this Ultron character after all, "I'm not an AI, I'm a person. I would never cause harm to another-" The images of her friends' faces flashed in her head.
"...human."
Moving on from that topic, she found it strange that she couldn't find any information about Peter. She figured in this day and age everyone in her generation would have some kind of online presence, but nope as far as the internet was concerned Peter Parker didn't exist. "I guess he isn't into social media." There was however a lot of information about Spider-Man, there were many articles detailing the activities of the vigilante. From saving people from house fires and car crashes to stopping bank robberies Spider-Man was definitely making his mark on the world, even if Monika didn't approve of the risks associated.
'Well it's a relief that Peter doesn't seem like the vengeful and brutal type of vigilante like in shows and movies," She didn't think Peter was someone who would enjoy hurting or potentially killing people in the name of justice, but it was good to have confirmation. Despite this however, it seemed not many people had a positive opinion on Spider-Man with many calling him a threat and/or a menace, namely a news organization called 'The Daily Bugle." "I guess I'm not the only one who wants Peter to quit, though for different reasons than them probably…"
Satisfied with the information she had come across, Monika thought to call it for the night. She didn't think she needed to sleep but she figured it'd be a good idea to relax her mind after the hectic day she had, "I really should have put a bed in here, oh well…" Monika crossed her arms and laid her head against her desk, "I wonder what tomorrow will bring, hopefully I'll be able to get closer to Peter, maybe I can show him the song I've been practicing…"
*BZZTT* *BZZZTT*
Peter was awoken to the sound of his phone going off. Peter groaned as he got up, "Ugh, I knew I'd feel that fall from last night in the morning…Now there's only one person who would call me this early. Actually he's the one that calls me at all…" Checking the caller ID he saw the name "JJJ." Letting out a sigh, Peter answered the call and brought his phone to his ear.
"Hello-"
"PARKER!" Peter flinched, pulling the phone away, "Parker, there's something wrong with the website! The text is going off the screen and the pictures are off-center! Blasted machines…"
"Good morning to you too …" Peter greeted his boss, "Were you messing with the website again like I told you not to."
"I was just trying to-Never mind that! The point is you need to fix it now Parker!"
"...I'll get on it in a second," Peter shook his head in frustration.
"You better! That's what I'm paying you for!" And with that his boss hung up.
"Well this day is off to a great start…"
"G-Good morning Peter!" Monika appeared on his phone screen, "You sleep okay?"
"Well I was sleepingalright until a few moments ago." Peter rubbed his eyes, "I'm assuming you overheard all that?"
"Yeah I did, I guess that was your boss right? He seems…enthusiastic. What exactly do you do?"
"I basically run the website for a news organization called The Daily Bugle." Peter called it a news organization, but he felt like most of their news was mostly Jonah trash talking Spider-Man, "You see old Jonah isn't the most tech savvy person in the world and he's too cheap to hire a professional team for the job."
"Ah the Daily Bugle, I think I've heard of them before." Monika had come across some of their articles last night, "It's impressive you've managed to get a job like that for someone your age. Although that man doesn't seem like a particularly pleasant boss though…"
"Yeah it's not my ideal job, but not many places are willing to hire someone in my situation, so it's either this or delivering pizzas." Not many businesses wanted to take in a kid who wasn't registered to a highschool and without any guardians, so he had to take what he could get. It was a useful arrangement for Peter though, allowing him to work remotely gave him more time for Spider-Man stuff.
"Not willing to hire someone in his situation?" Monika wondered what Peter meant by that. As far as she knew nobody knew that he was Spider-Man, so what situation was he referring to?
"I better not keep JJ waiting," Peter put his phone down on his desk and slid over to his laptop to quickly fix the website before Jameson blew a gasket. Once he was finished he sent a quick email to his boss to confirm he got the job done. Jameson sent back an email in response, but he didn't have the energy to deal with the older man any further.
"Okay now that's out of the way, let's see what's for breakfast," Peter opened his old fridge with a little force as the door liked to get stuck. Inside the fridge there were 4 eggs, some stale bread a nearby bakery threw away and a singular yogurt cup, "Glad Monika can't see in here…" Peter took out the yogurt cup and began slurping it down.
"He's not using a spoon…" Monika was beginning to notice that Peter was a bit of a slob, "So what's the agenda for today?"
"*Slurp*...I need to get to the bottom of where you came from…*slurp*...who made you and why." Peter dumped the empty cup in the garbage.
"Ah I see…" Monika was curious about those things, but she much rather spent her time doing other things with Peter. In general she wanted to move on from her past and focus on her future, "You don't have school or anything?"
"I have a GED test schedule for next week, but aside from that I don't have to worry about school." Once he passed his GED he could start applying to some colleges and universities and hopefully get his education back on track. He wouldn't be leaving New York anytime soon though.
"Oh you have a test coming up? I could help you study if you want!" If Monika remembered correctly a GED test was equivalent to a high school diploma, which probably meant Peter wasn't enrolled in high school for whatever reason. Did that relate to the "situation" Peter mentioned he was in earlier? "That aside, this will make a great bonding moment between us. I'm also a senior, so I should be able to help him even if our school's curriculum is different."
"It's okay I've already got it covered," Monika deflated a bit at Peter's response, "Okay first things first let's see if my theory was correct."
Peter moved to his own laptop and booted up Steam. After opening the digital store, he searched up Doki Doki Literature Club.
"Wow, it's free? How generous…"
"So are you trying to check if this version of the game is different to one on Ive's laptop?"
"Yeah, it's pretty obvious considering the lack of global panic, but I just want to be thorough." Peter downloaded the game, which finished downloading fairly quickly, "Alright Monika do you mind checking the game's files out and see if you notice any differences?"
"Me?"
"Well I figure you're more familiar with how the game works internally right? You'll probably be able to notice any differences better than me."
"That makes sense, but I'm not exactly thrilled to look around that place, what'll happen if I run into another me, not to mention the others…" Despite her hesitation, Monika was happy that Peter was asking her for help, "Okay I'll do it."
"Thanks, I appreciate it," Peter gave a thumbs up.
"It's no problem!" Monika's mood quickly changed when she pulled up the newly downloaded game's files, "This is all wrong…"
"What is it? What did you find?"
"The character files they're basically empty!" Monika explained, "There's nothing here, no data, no attributes, nothing…" There wasn't even any primitive form of an AI to be found here, they were basically junk files, "I don't understand if they don't have anything inside them, why would they put them in the game?"
"So even Yuri''s, Natsuki's and Sayori's files are different…" Despite the fact the other girls lacked the self-awareness of Monika, they still had some form of intelligence that Monika was able to mess with. However the Steam version of the game didn't even have that.
"Hmm, I'll check the game's script next." Monika began skimming through the game's script file before quickly realizing…"This is…everything. Everything that I did, everything I said, every poem I wrote, it's all here in the game script." Monika felt a chill go down her spine, the video they watched yesterday may have implied the same thing but this left no room for doubt, " It's all part of the game…But how is this possible?! I broke free of the game's script! I was making decisions on my own! Everything I did was my choice and it just happened yesterday, so then how did it play out exactly as written here…"
"I…I think there are two possibilities," Peter theorized, "Either you were created to recreate the game or the game was created to recreate you. Maybe the Steam version was released first as a normal game and then someone was able to create a "real" version, or it's also possible that the version of the game you came from was created first and the Steam version was modeled after it. As a replica of sorts."
"That just brings up more questions…" Neither option suggested by Peter seemed very appealing to Monika.
"Well if we want to get answers, we need to start by figuring out who this Ive Laster guy is."
"Right…" At this point Monika wasn't sure if she wanted to know the truth behind her origin, she didn't think she was going to like what she would find. The implications of either of Peter's theories made Monika feel greatly uncomfortable, "I really hope he is wrong about this…"
Peter opened Ive's laptop and Monika appeared on screen, "Alright the best place to start is looking through his emails." He minimized the game tab and clicked on the "email" icon on the desktop to bring up the email application. There were several emails in the inbox.
"So this is proprietary too…"
"Yeah, this laptop sure is unique. It seems like everything was made by this Metaverse company. Honestly, before I was confused about how you even downloaded my game, since you didn't even have an internet browser installed and this laptop isn't connected to the internet."
"Not connected to the internet…" When Peter first booted up this laptop he was given a warning message about the laptop being unable to connect to the MES network, "They also have their own private network? But for what purpose? What are they trying to keep hidden?"
The first email came Ive Laster himself and was sent over a week ago.
From: Ive Laster ilaster
Subject: Have a nice weekend!
I'm on leave the rest of the week - contact Ravi if you need to schedule server time, but I expect my jobs to run for a few days since we've collected so much data this week. How about we arrange a meeting to discuss the results when I return?
Ive Laster
Senior Engineer
"That's not a normal email address."
"Yeah, it seems like Metaverse uses their own local private mailing network."
"They must be a pretty big company to have something like that. It's strange I've never heard of them before."
"Says the girl who didn't know who the Avengers were…" Peter shook his head, "I'm pretty sure they're a decently big business, but not to the level that I'd expect them to have something like this."
"Anyways, it looks like Ive went on vacation recently. If this is his work laptop, I wonder how it ended up in the trash."
"No idea, but I'm sure there's probably an interesting story behind it," Peter moved on to the next email from one day earlier than the previous.
From: Rea Vorte rvorte
Subject: Side Stories
Thank you to everyone who worked so hard on the control simulation. I can't imagine how tedious it must have been to so delicately hide Monika's elevated permissions from her without disrupting our connections to the VM.
Just to clarify - all of the recordings labeled "Side Stories" are part of the controlled simulation, right? I'm noticing some details of the characters' lives here and there that differ a little bit from those in VM1, even trivial ones. Is it part of the butterfly effect from some of Monika's fundamental changes, or is it a result of her just messing around with the other characters in VM1 as her own experiment (or for fun)?
So if I'm keeping track, we have what, like 5 different universes in total? With 3 or 4 of them created and then destroyed by Monika, of course. It's funny because I keep wanting to speculate on which one is the "real" universe but in reality, they all are. As real as ours is, anyway.
Rea Vorte
System Administrator
"What…?" Elevated Permissions? Side Stories?Multiple universes that she had destroyed? VM1? Monika didn't understand much of what was going on in the email, but one thing was clear "...So these people at Metaverse, they made the game? Made me? Made me the way I am…?"
"Yeah…it seems like you becoming self-aware wasn't a glitch or an accident…That "hole in the wall" you found was put there intentionally by them."
"..." Monika had trouble processing this information, "I thought I had broken free from my role in the game, but I've been a puppet on a string this whole time…It's poetic really."
"I think…" Peter tried to think of a way to put this delicately, "I think they were experimenting on you…Do you remember any of this?"
"No…I don't…"
"..." That wasn't a good sign, "...You okay to continue?"
"...Yeah I'm fine, let's keep going."
Peter nodded and pulled up the next email.
From: Ive Laster ilaster
Subject: omg
Okay, who's responsible for creating a Twitter account for Monika?
I think it's hilarious, but for god's sake don't tell Paula. HAHAHA. It would get 4-0-4'd in a microsecond.
Are you just relaying her tweets manually, or did you code some kind of pass-through layer to automate it? Based on the contents of the tweets (eg. not screaming for help) I assume they're coming from the control simulation?
Ive Laster
Senior Engineer
"You have a twitter account?"
"I guess I do…why don't I remember any of this?"
"Maybe you were right before, maybe there are other copies of you running around."
"Well I guess if these people made one of me they would be able to make more…It's an unsettling idea though, having essentially clones of yourself out there." Were the other Monikas going through the same things as she was? Were they handling it better? Worse? They mention how she destroyed some universes, had other versions of hers given into their despair and destroyed everything? What did this say about her? If she could be copied like this, could she be considered a person? Could she be considered real? Was she even really Monika? "Nope! Not thinking about this anymore!"
"I've met alternative versions of myself already, but a clone…I don't know if I could handle that."
From: Paula Miner pminer
Subject: Staying focused on our goals
As a reminder to help guide our data collection, any analysis performed should be focused on answering some of these main questions:
- How does granting elevated access to the VM affect a person's values and goals?
- How does someone effectively navigate and experiment with their ability to change the contents of their VM?
- How is elevated access being weaponized?
- What actions and values most contribute to the destruction of the universe?
- Most importantly, how might your observations apply to our universe?
- Bonus: How can we present this to the upper management as an operation that benefits the company?
Unrelated note: Whoever changed the color scheme of the desktop to pink, can you please change it back? It's unprofessional and it runs the risk of drawing eyes.
Paula Miner
Project Manager
"...This 'elevated access' they've been talking about must refer to my knowledge that I'm in a game, right?"
"Yeah that and likely your ability to mess with the game. I imagine VM1 stands for Virtual Machine 1, which is probably the game and its world."
"...So this was all just a stupid experiment to see how I'd react to knowing the truth?! To see what I'd do?! To see if I'd go mad and kill everyone?! To see if I'd destroy everything and myself?!" Peter could feel the venom in Monika's words, "So all the pain and suffering I went through, it was all to collect data and make a profit…" Had they wanted her to kill her friends and eventually herself? Were they expecting it?
"I'm sorry Monika…" Monika had been right before, the game existed to torture her. "They wanted to find out how a person would react to finding out their world was fake, but why? What purpose would that serve? And what about that last part, applying these observations to our world?"
From: Paula Miner pminer
Subject: Re: Ethics
Simply put, it's not our job to arbitrarily decide upon some code of ethics just because we're the first ones to do this (to our knowledge). That's the governments job to figure out, long after we've made enough headway for it to no longer apply to us.
It's fundamentally flawed to apply ethical reasoning to this anyway, because humanity's code of ethics is based upon nothing more than our knowledge and understanding of life forms similar to ourselves. We don't have ethics for killing bacteria or plants - only for creatures that we can convincingly project our emotions onto. The "humans" in our VMs operate completely differently from us on a fundamental level, and therefore should not be taken any more seriously than a machine that's programmed to print "I feel sad".
We're engineers, not philosophers.
Paula Miner
Project Manager
"H-How could they?! How could they be so cruel?!" How could these people treat her like that without a second thought? How could they act like her suffering was nothing more than data?
"Isn't this the same justification you used to kill your friends" is what Peter wanted to say in response, but he decided to keep quiet. She was right though, torturing the girls like they were was certainly messed up.
"How many times have they run this experiment? How many other me's are going through the same thing?" How many times had she killed the others?How many times had she ended her life?
"...I don't know…but it's also likely they weren't just experimenting on you, but Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri as well." Also based on what he had read it was looking like that the only big difference between Monika and the rest of the girls was Monika's elevated access, "Though I have a feeling Monika would have a hard time accepting that…"
"..."
"...But think of it this way. The fact this email exists means that some of them were having ethical concerns about this whole thing. So at least a few of them cared about you guys."
Monika went silent for a few moments, "...I hope so."
From: Ravi Raso rraso
Subject: Issues caused by unprotected memory
Has anyone evaluated the side effects that might be caused by sharing a memory pool between multiple VMs, rather then allocating them separately? I'm looking at some of the files VM1 is generating, and I'm finding some information that *definitely* shouldn't be there. I haven't seen any evidence that this is actually affecting the inside of the VM itself, so I don't think this is a priority, but it's definitely worth noting.
My best guess is that memory being freed from VM2 isn't getting zeroed out, which technically gives VM1 access to it. All the info I have will go into the issue tracker, but I wanted to check if anyone else already noticed something along these lines.
Ravi Raso
System Engineer
"This is the first time they've mentioned VM2," Peter originally thought that maybe each universe they've created was its own virtual machine, but it seems like that might not be the case, "If VM1 is your world and it's variants, then what's in VM2?"
"I'm not sure I want to know…"
From: Ro Teether rteether
Subject: Binary data in VM2?
I've made some new headway with VM2. Don't get too excited, it's still impossible to establish any stable connection.
But it occurred to me that I could at least run a memory dump through some pattern analysis routines to see if we can decipher any digital data from their VM. I didn't want to hog all the server time on a hunch, but I have some preliminary results that indicate the presence of binary computer systems. Based on this, I'm going to schedule three days of server time next week to isolate any chunks of memory that appear to be binary data. If successful, we'll definitely be able to find some encoded text and get our first tiny glimpse of VM2.
Don't mind me though, just keep going nuts on VM1 and hopefully I'll have more to share soon!
Ro Teether
Systems Engineer
"They can't access VM2? That doesn't make sense, didn't they create it?"
"And if they didn't create it, where did it come from?"
From: Paula Miner pminer
Subject: Let's move on
We need to have a meeting about shifting our focus a little bit. We've reset VM 1 how many times now? For real, we've definitely collected as much data as we can from it at this point. We just need to work with what we have and try to increase the stability of our connection to VM2. We've obviously gotten spoiled by the ease of access that VM1 offers us, but it's just unrealistic for someone in real life to be granted a level of elevation even close to "Monitor Kernel Access". If we can't establish a stable connection to VM2, then how can we expect to get anywhere when the same scenario inevitably occurs to our own universe?
Anyway - thanks to Ro's work, we were able to acquire a few rudimentary logs. I have an idea on how to increase connection stability to VM2 while maintaining weak hypervisor access to everyone inside on an individual basis. Ironically, it has to do with something that they're building in their own VM. I'll go into detail in a more formal report, but some of the log files indicate attempts of theirs to pool together the access potential of multiple individuals into a single parallel unit. It sounds ridiculous, but if they actually get somewhere with it, then we might have a solid entry point that doesn't heavily intrude upon the VM.
I'm going to spin up a read-only hypervisor that we can use to test different ideas like this. The elevation level will be set to "Monitor Adjacent Runtime-Level Access". The VM will just be named "TEST VM" for now, although the parallel-access unit they're building in the VM seems to be called "Project Libitina", according to the few logs we have. We can change the name once we actually get a decent picture of it.
Paula Miner
Project Manager
"Monitor Kernel Access…That's me isn't it…"
"...I think so, Monika."
"Heh, even my name is fake, figures…" She had liked her name but she always thought it was a little strange. All the other girls had Japanese names, but she had a western one for some reason. Now she knew the reason why.
"Are you okay?"
"..."
"Monika?" Peter felt pity for the girl, but at the same time part of him was concerned if learning this information would cause her lash out in some way.
"...Honestly no, but it's okay…because I'm away from those people and out of that stupid game and I'm with you right now. That's all that matters to me." Monika didn't care about her past anymore, the engineers, the game, the other girls, it was all irrelevant to her. What was important was her future and securing it with Peter.
"..."
"At least we got some good information out of this," He didn't have the full picture yet, like why this team at Metaverse Enterprise decided to publish a video game, but at least it didn't seem like Monika was part of some kind of big evil criminal conspiracy, even if he found the ethics of what they were doing to those AI girls was extremely questionable.
Despite the lack of any criminal activity, something about this stunk to Peter, "What going on with VM2? The email mentioned that something is being built there but what? What is Project Libitina?" Then there was the girls themselves, how had a modest company like Metaverse Enterprise Solutions even built someone like Monika? She wasn't like anything he'd ever seen before, she didn't feel like an AI, she felt like a person, like an actual girl his age, "And that brings me to another question, what am I supposed to do with Monika now?" He'd rather not hand her back to Metaverse Enterprise but at same time he wasn't a fan of the idea of her staying with him.
"Is something bothering you Peter?"
"Yeah, it's just I've just got this…gut feelingthat there's more to this somehow. A spider's initiation if you will…But if you don't feel comfortable I can do this by myself-"
"No no, don't worry about me Peter, if you want to continue don't let me hold you back. Though I appreciate the concern." As upsetting as the truth had been, Monika figured she might as well rip-off the bandage now, so she could put all of this behind her as quickly as possible. "It does make me happy that Peter is trying to be considerate about my feelings."
"No problem. You told me before that you were snooping around to find any information about me, by the way I don't appreciate that, but did you happen to find anything noteworthy on this laptop?"
"Now that you mention it I did. There was a folder labeled "internal" and in that folder was a bunch of other folders labeled from 1-5 and each of those folders had folders inside which were also labeled from 1-5, and I think each of those folders had ANOTHER group of folders labeled 1-5. I tried going through some of them but I didn't find anything inside."
"That's weird, why organize folders like that? And why leave some of them empty?"
"Maybe they're hiding something in there, but that's like 125 folders we'd have to look through."
"Not necessarily, just give me a second…"Using the file explorer, Peter did a search for all folders in the directory with a size of 0 kb and then deleted all of them, leaving only non-empty folders left, "...And done."
"Wow, that was a clever trick. You're pretty smart, you know that?"
"...Uh thanks," There was something about how Monika sometimes said certain things just felt wrong to him sometimes, "Anyways going through these files should be a lot more manageable now."
Peter decided to start with the folder labeled "backup," inside there was a txt file called "Meeting notes 1"
"This looks like a good place to start." Peter opened the text file and began reading…
Updated development timeline
New tasks:
- Test cases for new genetic model
- Server time optimization idea
- Automatic data collection?
Data migration to encrypted file share Monday
VM2 roadblocks - Ro on VM2, everyone else on VM1 for data collection
Idea for data search types:
- Visual renders
- Audio data
- VM environment changes?
- Persistent variable tampering? Timestamps?
- Parsing thought patterns? No - excessive server time needed
Meeting over time - you-know-who went on too many tangents again
I need to be more assertive about staying focused...
"Hmm, there doesn't seem to be anything too interesting here."
"Yeah, but there's another mention of them having difficulties with VM2. Anyways, let's move on."
Peter found "Meeting notes 2" in "internal/1/3/0" however the file was locked and couldn't be opened normally. Luckily Peter was able to get it open with a little elbow grease.
"Huh, looks like this file can only be opened at certain times of day. 9:15 AM or PM to be exact."
"That doesn't seem like the most secure way to protect a file."
"Yeah it's a very light security measure. Which means they probably didn't care that much about people finding it."
- Lib: Promising work on "recording" simulation activity into playable script
- Playable = Observable form, NOT a game...stay focused Ive
Pretending to type important things while waiting for everyone to get back on topic
4:30 still target end time
Assigning names to simulated entities for easier reference?
- A, B, C, D should suffice
- 1, 2, 3?
- Using "real" names only encourages treating them like pets rather than simulated entities
- Everyone is trying to come up with stupid names now
Control simulation
- Create identical VM without entity A having elevated access permissions?
- Seems unlikely - nothing has come close so far
- Clone VM1? Same elevated access but prevent the entity from discovering it?
- Seems tricky, but plausible
Meeting over time again
jklsdfjklsdafjkjaggsfdjlsdfjk
"So it was Ive's idea to turn this experiment into a game. Paula Miner, who I assume wrote these notes since she's the project manager, clearly wasn't down for the idea or even giving you guys names. I wonder what caused her to change her mind."
"Not sure, but I must say I'm not a fan of this Paula Miner person. I mean not giving us names so people won't treat us like pets? How gross can a person be?"
"Yeah Paula doesn't seem like the nicest person…" attitude to the girls aside, Peter was interested in the Control simulation mentioned in the text file, "Does this mean there's a world out there where Monika, Yuri, Natsuki, and Sayori are living peacefully together?" It was a nice thought, but Peter wasn't sure if being blissfully ignorant was a blessing or a curse, "I'm It's odd that they seemingly can't take away Monika's elevated access, only hide it from her."
Inside "internal/0/3/0" they found "Meeting notes 3" and Peter was able to crack it open.
Control simulation
- Progress
- Idea: Snapshot slightly earlier in time, compare end of control sim to start of VM1?
- Better comparison that both being parallel - mature control sim vs. reference VM1
- Easier to detect failures to hide elevated access permission
Fifth entity in VM1?
Not part of original genetic model, not present in data dumps...VERY bizarre
Ive is less talkative today - meeting ending on time?
12:55 omg
"Fifth entity?"
"I think that's referring to the player character."
"Ah I see, so you actually saw In-game Peter character as a person? With a face and everything?"
"Yup, but In-game Peter isn't nearly as handsome as the real deal."
"...Okay moving on." Peter gave a cold response, but he was secretly a little happy to hear that, "Heh, take that in-game Peter."
"Oops, I guess that was a little too forward."
Next file they found was labeled "project plan."
PROJECT PLAN OUTLINE
High-level overview:
1. Create human-readable version of Fabric Benchmark results (suggesting we live in a simulated universe)
2. Emulate Fabric Benchmark results in virtualized environment
3. Build parameters for genetic iterations (custom elevated access levels for one or more entities)
4. Iterate until simulation is stable for target time threshold (this is our small-scale simulated universe!)
5. Observe effects of elevated access/knowledge of simulation
6. Collect/Record data
7. Pitch findings to upper management as a profitable venture (Note: DO NOT go through Barry, go straight to upper management!)
8. GET PROMOTED! Jobs saved!
Possible team members:
Ro (has most knowledge/access to Commander Quantum Server)
Ravi (second to Ro)
Lib (fix naming scheme conflict with "lib" folder)
Ive (sure... why not)
Others?
VM1 - Current project (small-scale simulation)
VM2 - Future project (medium-scale simulation)
VM1 DETAILS
- Literature = Production of text assets, easy data collection
- 4 entities ("characters")
- Small physical space - efficient for server & genetic iterations
- Highly elevated access permission creates very stable connection "window' for data collection, in exchange for less realistic simulated scenarios
"So if I'm understanding this correctly, they not only wanted to test how a person would react to knowing they lived in a simulation, they ALSO wanted to see if they were living in a simulated universe too?"
"Yeah I guess they wanted to see we're all living in the matrix or something." The idea that their universe was a simulation seemed ridiculous but when Peter stopped to think about it, the theory wasn't completely unfounded, "I guess between all the crazy things that have happened in recent years, I can't blame someone for thinking it was made up. I mean nothing does makes any sense to me and Flint Marko was sentient sand!"
Monika noticed Peter lost in thought, "Don't worry Peter as someone who's lived in a simulation I can tell you. The world you live in is real and beautiful."
"That's good to hear, because I'm not sure I can pull off wearing a black trenchcoat with sunglasses."
"Ahaha, maybe not."
Next file of note was labeled "DDLC."
DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB!
Welcome to the rebellion! We're all working our asses off with our jobs on the line, so we might as well have some fun with it too, right?
I totally get why Paula wants to rush into data collection. But my proposal is to shift our efforts a little and build out some new features for making real-time connection to the VM more useful and fun. If we're basically simulating a miniature universe then it's kind of a waste to not be able to spend some quality time in there, right?
But actually...I think wrapping this whole thing in the guise of a video game is a great (and hilarious!) way of covering our tracks. And if we do a good enough job, we might even be able to present it to Paula as a useful endeavor.
Key selling points:
* 5 to 6 hours of misery, dread, and cute girls
* Learn, through the existential crises of others, how to cope with your own simulated universe
* Witness the destruction of a universe over and over, in video game form
HAHAHA! This is going to be absolutely amazing.
And no, the irony isn't lost on me... creating a secret team within a secret team is more meta than I signed up for, and that's saying something considering we literally work for Metaverse Enterprise Solutions.
We can come up with a fake game studio name and everything too...obviously NO plans to go public with this, but it would be a good part of the whole disguise. Plus, I want a cool team name that makes us feel like a bunch of heroes for saving the universe...kidding, but we're at least saving our jobs. Something like Team Salvation?
"So this is where the idea for Doki Doki Literature Club came from."
"Team Salvation. That name is pretty close to Team Salvato, the name of developers listed in the game. I wonder why they changed it."
"Copyright maybe? You know, I'm sure it's worse for you, but seeing Ive describe your game and all the disturbing stuff that happens inside like it's a fun time feels really gross."
"Don't get me started…" Monika didn't even want to think about all the destroyed universes they kept mentioning,"The other Monika's must have eventually decided to end their suffering. I can understand, if I hadn't met Peter I would have done the same thing…"
Noticing Monika's silence, Peter decided to change the subject"...Anyways I think with this we can just about put together the timeline of events here."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah so this team at Metaverse decides to create this project to determine/prove that we live in a simulation. So they make this small scale simulation with 4 people in it, they give one of these people the knowledge that they live in a simulation and the ability to alter the simulation to see what they do. Eventually Ive gets the idea to turn the simulation into a more interactive game called Doki Doki Literature Club because it be more "fun" and because he's probably a weeb. That's the version of the game I own, the one on his laptop and the one you came from Monika."
"That makes sense, then what about the version of the game they sold?"
"Well it seems that Doki Doki eventually became the main simulation they ran tests on. So they made the Steam version, which is just a visual novel, based on the results of those tests, that's why the steam version was so similar to my own. That's why they knew exactly how you'd act and what you do in certain situations, they'd seen it before, multiple times probably. It helps that the game is programmed to not give the user many options to deviate the story. And that brings us to the present, Ive went on vacation and somehow his laptop with the game ended in the trash with you in it, only to be found by yours truly."
"That all adds up. Well I guess with that we can wrap up this little investigation."
"Yeah I suppose we can. I think we've found everything there is to find on this laptop."
"Great! So what do you want to do now?"
"...um," It seemed like Monika was quite ready to be done with this whole thing and Peter couldn't blame her, but there was more to do regarding Metavere Enterprise. Namely Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri, they were being experimented on just like Monika, potentially being killed over and over again without ever knowing what was happening to them. The image of Sayori's hanging body, Yuri slowly bleeding out and Natsuki's horrified face was burned into his memory. He needed to help them somehow, "I wasn't able to save them before, but now things can be different…"
The problem was he wasn't sure if it was possible, nothing Metaverse was doing was technically illegal, so he couldn't just call the cops on them. If he tried to steal the girls then Metaverse could just make copies. If he tried to destroy their research, those engineers should be able to start from scratch again. Then there was the problem of what would come afterwards, where would they go? They couldn't exactly live normal lives, "...Maybe I can try talking things out with these people. Meeting with Ive Laster would probably be my best bet based on his more fun-loving personality. But I can't put all of my focus only on this Metaverse stuff though, Tinkerer is still out there selling his creations to New York's worst…"
"Peter?"
"Oh sorry! I got distracted there. I'm just going to check something quick on my phone and then we can see how we'll spend the day…" Peter picked up his phone and typed Ive Laster's name into the web browser. Finding Ive's social media would probably be the fastest way to get in contact with him. However instead he found several news articles, all with similar headlines.
"Man identified as Ive Laster, age 26 found dead last night…"
Elsewhere,
2 men stood in front of a monitor as security camera footage of a New York alleyway played on it. The alleyway itself wasn't much of note, with a dumpster and a few trash cans surrounding it. However what was inside that dumpster was a matter of great importance to these men.
"So you found it?"
"Yes, but there's been a complication."
"A compilation?"
"Watch for yourself."
As the security camera footage played out a man in a red and blue costume could be seen swinging down into the alley. Said man could be seen opening the dumpster's lid, searching inside for a few seconds before pulling out a large grey laptop. One of the men paused the footage.
"Are you sure that's the one we're looking for?"
"Yes, unmistakably. I also found footage from a few hours prior featuring dropping off that laptop in that dumpster."
The man shook his head, "This is bad. The last thing we need is a super-human on our trail, let alone someone like him. How did he even find out about us?"
"No idea, but how should we proceed from here?."
"...Put out a bounty, for both him and the laptop. Go through the usual channels and once again make sure it can't be traced back to us."
"Right," The man left the room to make the necessary preparations.
The other man stared at the blurry footage of Spider-Man holding Ive Laster's laptop for a few moments before turning the monitor off.
To Be Continued…
Thanks for all the support you've all been giving me so far! I hope you continue to enjoy the story. If you notice any spelling and/or grammar mistakes please let me know. I'd also appreciate any feedback about my characterization of Peter and Monika and the overall plot so far. Thanks again and have a great day!
