I looked at the sun. Sure was bright after being cooped up in that ship so long. After a while I looked back at the Gigantic, but the sight that beheld me looked...different. Then it hit me. I swore.

"We were in Building Q the whole time?!" I cursed again. However, the relief of being out in the air again quickly rushed in and extinguished my frustration. I looked down. There were more stairs, going down this time, and at the bottom, an SUV. I looked at Seven. There was NO WAY they could ever get him in there. But they would deal with that later. I heard something else. The bracelets. They were lying on the floor. I picked one up and opened the back. There was only a chip, like what you would find in an ATM card. Nothing in the bracelet remotely looked like a detonator.

"There was no detonator," I heard a voice say. It sounded like Akane's voice. Figures.

"Akane..."

"Jumpy..."

Heh, must be pretty crazy about a girl if you think you can hear her voice in the wind... I put the bracelet in my pocket as a souvenir, then pointed at the SUV.

"There's a rig down there, let's go!" Before I went I looked at the horizon. There was a cloud of dust. Santa... no… Aoi's vehicle. If they hurried we could make it! I ran as fast as I could, keeping an eye on the vehicle as I ran. I got to the bottom of the stairs and took off towards the SUV. When I got there I pulled the door open to hear the sound of the beeping a car makes when a key is in the ignition. I smiled.

"'Kay, everyone, get in!" I said, raising my voice above the desert wind.

"I'll drive!" Clover said as she pushed past me in order to hop in the driver's seat. Lotus climbed in the passenger's seat.

"Come on guys, we gotta hurry." The older woman said, looking at us. Seven and I gave each other fearful glances, but we hopped in anyway. Snake slid in after us. As soon as the last door slammed shut Clover turned the key to make the engine roar to life. Without waiting for us to get ready, or for the engine to warm-up, she jammed on the gas. We lurched and bumped over rocks and small uneven bumps on the ground as Clover navigated towards the dirt road.

"THIS IS SO AWESOME!" Clover yelled after we'd been following the dirt road for about 10 minutes. "Driving is so great when there's nothing around!"

"There's still some things I don't get..." I said. "Like why Ace... or Gentarou Hongou... why did he create the Nonary Project? Anybody have any ideas?"

"Why don't you just ask him yourself?" Seven said. He pointed behind our us. "He's in the trunk, after all." That was news.

"He is?"

"Yeah, I caught a glimpse of the trunk before we left and just happened to see him back there, tied and gagged. He wasn't going anywhere."

That was news to me. I turned around and looked over the seat. There he was, just as Seven had said; no emotion, like he'd given up on life. I reached over and ripped the tape off of his mouth. He said nothing.

"You heard my question, right?" I said, looking him straight in his lightless eyes. He nodded.

"I just wanted to see faces," he said, his voice monotone and emotionless. "I thought that if I could gain the ability to access the morphic fieldset, then perhaps I could see them. By peering into people's minds, and understanding how they were processing the expressions of others."

His answer made me furious. "That's it?!" I yelled, startling Snake. "You put 18 kids' lives in danger because you wanted to see a face?! How the hell-"

Seven placed his hand on my shoulder to stop me. Ace was quiet a moment before replying.

"Yes," said he. "If you want to put it simply. If you are looking for a more philosophical answer, the collective consciousness- "

"I think that's enough info outta you," I said, putting the tape back on.

"So what's your second question?" Clover asked. I turned back towards the front and frowned, confused.

"You said there were some things you didn't get," Lotus said, jogging my memory.

"Well, my next question doesn't really have anything to do with you two," I said sheepishly. "This is for you, Seven; about the whole Alice thing. What's the deal with that?"

Seven thought his answer before he said, "Well... See, 9 years ago, after I escaped from the Gigantic... I kept goin' after Hongou on my own, hopin' I'd catch him when he finally slipped up. During the course of my investigations, I learned a lot more about the Gigantic. I also found out about Gordain and Alice." I looked at him.

"You're not really answering my question," I said. "Was there actually a girl in a block of ice that wouldn't melt at room temperature?" Though the question was aimed at Seven, Hongou made sounds like he wanted to say something. I took the tape off. "What?" I asked, perturbed

"Alice doesn't exist," said Hongou. "Nine years ago I found Alice's coffin behind the library on the bottom deck. There was nothing in it but the root of a peculiar plant. My research determined that it was..." He went on about how he became the CEO of Cradle pharmaceutical. I stopped him and put the tape back on to save us from a several hour story.

I decided to enjoy the ride and let the rest of my questions wait. Besides, the hardest yet most important question, has to do with June and Akane... Nine years ago she died in the incinerator on the Gigantic. But... She's still alive, as June. How? Was it because I tapped into the morphic fieldset, saving her 9 years ago?

Okay... Let's say that does make some kind of insane sense... If I did that, then how do I make sense of what Seven remembers? Snake's story made sense... he was blind. He couldn't have seen her body anyway. But Seven... He said he was sure he saw it. Does that mean there's some kind of... historical discrepancy? Or... wait. Maybe that's not it at all... There is one other logical explanation...

Was what you told me the truth Seven? You look... satisfied. No. No way... He couldn't- Eh, I'd figure that out later and hope it all got figured out in the end. As we went along I noticed a scantily clad woman with a nice tan trying to hitchhike.

WN: This is a rewrite of The Search for June, where I take one of my favorite (and most popular) fanfictions and rewrite it so that it doesn't look like a kid wrote it. I want to thank everyone who read the original The Search for June and also say "I'm sorry," due to the absolutely horrendous writing in the beginning.