The day Simon and his father called his sister at the Academy was the same day he received his last letter from her. After that final correspondence there had been no more and Simon’s heart broke with the absence, especially now that he knew exactly what she was trying to tell him.

He’d been scouring the cortex for weeks, searching for any clues that might lead him to this Academy that he now knew to be a lie. Every minute when he was not at work or catching a few hours of restless sleep, he was on the Cortex, searching, scanning, digging. And he had nothing to show for it.

Until today. He’d found an address, an old address connected to one of the first documents published by the Academy. Simon had latched onto this discovery, a newfound hope blossoming in his heart. I’m coming mei mei.

And then he’d searched some more and discovered that the address was in a blackout zone – an Alliance controlled portion of the city closed off to civilians. There were cases of course of people infiltrating the areas, some thrill-seeking junkies actually got off on the chance to thwart the mightiest power in the ‘verse. Simon had never been one of them before, but if it would lead him to his sister, he would go anywhere, do anything, regardless of the consequences.

Wearing dark clothes and his warmest coat – it was almost winter – Simon had made his way into the area just as night fell. He had managed to find the building that corresponded with the address. It was abandoned of course, appeared to have been for years, but the sight of it, sitting empty and dormant struck him deeply. He feared the same fate might have already befallen his sister. Did she consider herself abandoned? Cast aside by parents and a brother who had willingly turned her over to an unknown fate? He shuddered to consider it.

Just as his hope was fading he’d been picked up, dragged to a local precinct, where he was now, sitting in a jai