Zero Time Dilemma

"*A slug in a shell
The world shifting around it
Life is just unfair*"
— Zero
***Zero Time Dilemma*** is the third game in the *Zero Escape* series, focusing on the exploits of several major characters in the series as they attempt to stop the release of Radical 6, the latest sequel to Radical, due to their extreme atheistic views. Major characters include Junpei, the protagonist of the first game and professional emo; Akane, Junpei's love interest and professional con woman; Carlos, some moron nobody cares about; Sigma, the part-cat protagonist of the second game; Phi, a Greek letter; Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon, masquerading as a timid young woman; Eric, a paranoid schizophrenic with numerous delusions about his past life; Q, a blind deaf mute anosmic ageusic quadriplegic old man who is nevertheless the most intelligent character; Sean, a robot who disguises himself as Q for much of the game; and Mira, a normal human being. Also accompanying the characters is Gab, Q's helper dog.

## Plot

The game begins with the characters being captured and imprisoned in a large facility by Zero, a ninja from Pandora who speaks exclusively in haiku. They are split into three teams: Team C++, comprised of Junpei, Akane, and Carlos; Team 500, consisting of Sigma, Phi, and Diana; and Team Queue, consisting of Eric, Q, and Mira. Unbeknownst to Eric and Mira, Sean secretly stalks Team Queue. Each team is told that six people must die in order for those remaining to escape.

Team C++ begins by recounting the events of the first game, presumably speaking to the player through the morphogenetic field. Carlos pretends to understand what's going on. Meanwhile, Team 500 discusses the events of the second game, conveniently forgetting to mention Phi's new glasses. Sean and Q discreetly switch places, fooling Team Queue into believing that Q is still present, despite the fact that Sean is two feet tall and capable of speech. Eric is only slightly skeptical, but Mira ignores his suspicions due to his mental illness; meanwhile, Q begins sneaking around the facility, which is only slightly difficult due to his numerous disabilities.

Zero then communicates with each of the three teams, telling them that they each must vote for one of the other teams to be executed; if any team receives two votes, or refuses to vote, the entire team is killed. Junpei advocates murdering everyone, while Akane thinks that nobody should ever die under any circumstances; Carlos, in a drunken stupor, hits a random button. Sigma and Phi argue about what to do for several hours before Diana trips and falls onto a button. A terrified Eric screams incessantly while Mira and Sean discuss the weather; Q, now skulking around in the background, hits a button without looking (as he is blind).

Since each team hit a button at random, the plot splits into four timelines: one in which Team C++ is executed, one in which Team 500 is executed, one in which Team Queue is executed, and one in which each team receives only one vote.

In the timeline where Team C++ is dead, Team Queue finds themselves in a laboratory, where they discover several vials of Radical-6. Eric, confusing them for the Radical 6 transcript they have been sent to destroy, crushes all the vials, despite Zero's protests. However, Mira, curious about the mysterious vials, discreetly steals one under Eric's nose. Meanwhile, Team 500 tunnels their way out of the facility with the help of several robots they discover in a bomb facility. This plan backfires when the robots betray them and detonate a bomb nearby, destroying Sigma's arms and killing the entirety of Team Queue, save for Q. Team 500 still manages to escape, but not before Q, with Gab's help, takes the Radical-6 from Mira and injects it into Phi, leading to the events of *Virtue's Last Reward*.

In the timeline where Team Queue is dead, Sigma gets caught in a very large bear trap, while Phi is trapped in an incinerator. In order to save Sigma, Diana is forced to use the incinerator's heat to melt the bear trap, allowing Phi to die in the process. Sigma is horrified by Diana's decision, but has his memory wiped by Zero, and quickly proceeds to woo Diana instead. The two then discover an alien artifact that Zero brought from Pandora, capable of cloning them through space and time. Deciding to settle down in the facility, the two have two children, whom they name Delta and Phi, in honor of their fallen friend, and decide to use the alien pods as cribs. Not knowing what the machine actually does, they unwittingly create clones of Delta and Phi in the past. Meanwhile, Carlos and Junpei are forced to play the AB game in order to determine who lives and who dies. However, instead of actually playing by the rules, Junpei simply murders Carlos due to his intense bloodlust, then brings Akane to the alien machine to be cloned; they find themselves in the *Virtue's Last Reward* timeline, where Akane, horrified by what Junpei did to Carlos, uses Zero's memory-wiping drug to erase Junpei's memory of their time together. Meanwhile, the original Sigma, Diana, Junpei, Akane, Delta, and Phi that were left behind in the facility, as well as Gab, all die slow, agonizing deaths from starvation.

In the timeline where Team 500 is dead, Akane and Carlos find Junpei mysteriously chopped into pieces, then begin to fight over who gets to keep his head as a trophy. The two end up killing each other, while Eric and Sean discover Mira mysteriously choked to death. Eric, who is under the delusion that he and Mira were romantically involved, grabs a nearby shotgun and begins accusing Sean of murdering her. Sean, clever as he is, tells Eric that Eric himself was the killer and simply forgot, which he believes; he then kills himself. Since everyone else is dead, Sean is able to leave the facility, but before he can, Q shows up and reveals (via a speech synthesizer) that he was present in the facility the whole time; however, since Sean was acutely aware of this and even masqueraded as Q for a time, he is entirely nonplussed by this reveal. The two rule Junpei and Mira's deaths as suicides and leave the facility, living happily ever after.

In the timeline where all the teams are alive, the participants, who previously believed that they had been separated, discover that they have been in the same place the entire time and simply did not notice each other by chance. They decide to team up to unmask Zero, with the exception of Q, who is still hiding from the others. At this time, Sean reveals his true identity as a robot, which prompts Eric to try to kill him; however, Eric's rage is quelled by Mira, whom he still believes to be his soul mate. Realizing that Sean is not Q and that Q has been missing the entire time, the team begins to suspect that he is Zero. Q then appears and claims that he is, in fact, Zero, also revealing that he is Delta, Sigma and Diana's son from the alternate timeline. Upon hearing this revelation, Diana reveals her identity as the virgin goddess Diana, retconning her sexual exploits with Sigma and erasing Q and Phi from existence. Since this also apparently removes Q's kidnapping of the group from the timeline, the remaining characters all wake up outside, seemingly having never been kidnapped. They openly wonder who the hell Sean is as the game cuts to credits.

In a post-credits scene, the game ends on a cliffhanger as Zero, looking at the group from afar with the Radical 6 transcript in hand, pulls off his mask, revealing himself to have been Gab the entire time.