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 yelled. Clover hopped in the driver's seat.

"I'll drive!"

Lotus hopped in the passenger's seat.

"Come on guys, we gotta hurry." She shouted. Seven and I looked at each other, both thinking "oh-no," but we hopped in anyway. Snake came in behind us. As soon as the 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 pressed on the gas. Hard. We lurched and bumped. However, for going however fast we were going the SUV handled bumps like they were little rocks.

"THIS IS SOOOO AWESOME! Driving is so great when there's nothing around."

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

Seven spoke up.

"Hmph, why don't you just ask him yourself? He IS in the trunk." That was news.

"He is?"

"Yeah, I opened the trunk earlier and there he was, tied and gagged. He wasn't going anywhere." That was news to me. I turned around and looked over the seat. There he was, bound and gagged, no emotion, like he had given up on life. I reached over and ripped the tape off. He said nothing for a few minutes, then hesitantly spoke.

"I...I only wanted to see the faces. Human faces. I thought...I thought that if I could gain the ability to access the morphic fieldset, then perhaps I could see faces...By peering into people's minds, you could understand how they were processing the expressions of others."

I was enraged.

"That's it?!"

"Yes, if you want to put it simply. But if you are looking for a more philosophical answer, I can supply that as well. You see, the collective consciousness - " I cut him off while putting the tape back on.

"I think that's enough info outta you."

Clover spoke up.

"So what's your second question?" As I was thinking of an answer to Clover's question, Lotus spoke up.

"You said there were some things you didn't get, didn't you?" She asked, and suddenly I remembered.

"My next question doesn't really have anything to do with you two. This is for you, Seven. It's about the whole Alice thing. What's the deal with that?" Seven thought a moment, then spoke up.

"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...Was there actually a girl who wouldn't melt at room temperature?" I asked, but Hongou made sounds like he wanted to say something. I took the tape off.

"What?"

"Alice doesn't exist. 9 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 put the tape back on to save us from a several hour story. The rest of my questions can wait. For now, I decided to enjoy the ride... And the hardest question, yet the one that's the most important, has to do with June and Akane...9 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 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. As we went along I noticed a scantily clad woman with a nice tan trying to hitchhike. I never thought about it at the time, but I hoped it would become clearer as I went along.

Me: please note that most of this is basically a transcript of the ending of the game. This is on purpose to set the scene for the actual story.

Junpei: The story is pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

Me: But that's only cause you're the main character.

Junpei: That's irrelevant.