Out of the Ashes (Rise of the Empire Book 3) by Ivan Kal Page B

and waited. Soon the elevator started moving, but Jusan could barely feel it. The field generators nullified the effects that the elevator’s great speed had on the inside. Otherwise Jusan would have been nothing but the splatter on the ceiling. Still, it took several minutes for him to reach his first destination. As he exited, the guards all around the room noticed him and snapped to their feet. The first floor was security headquarters for the entire building. Jusan walked pass them not bothering to acknowledge them. He moved to a restricted area that only he and a handful of his guards had access to. The guards looked at each other as he passed, Jusan visited the place only four times in his life, and one was when he was barely an adult. After walking through a long hallway, Jusan reached another elevator, there he was required to enter a code before it opened. He entered the code and went into the elevator. As soon as he was in, the door closed and it started moving. There was only one place it led to.
    It led him deep underground, to the part of his building that no one outside of his family has ever seen. Finally it stopped and the door opened. Jusan entered a dimly lit corridor. He walked until he reached the doors at the end, on the side was a terminal with a small screen and a needle. Jusan reached and pricked his finger on the needle, letting his blood flow a bit before he raised his arm. The screen showed the scan of his blood and then said that it was a match. Then part of the wall opened and another checkpoint became visible. Jusan approached and placed his eyes in front of it. A scanning light shined on his eyes. A few moments later the scanner retreated into the wall. Another part opened and a screen with symbols on it appeared. Jusan entered the correct sequence and the door started to open.
    Slowly, Jusan entered the room. A light source shone from the ceiling directly on the object on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Jusan turned to the terminal inside and closed the doors. Then he walked around the pedestal and the perfect silver sphere displayed on it. After he walked one full circle around it, Jusan dropped to the floor, all strength leaving him. Tears flowed freely down his face.
    “They were right. All this time and they were right.” He said.
    After some time he managed to compose himself enough to rise to his feet.
    “Why now? Why not a hundred years before me, or a hundred years after I died?” He asked the sphere, pleadingly. He looked at it willing it to answer, even though he knew it couldn’t.
    “Do you have any idea how many people died to keep you safe? And how much my family had to do to keep you hidden? My ancestors had to lie and slaughter those who shared the same beliefs!” But there was no answer. Jusan knew that the sphere was no more than a message in the bottle. Jusan hated the sphere, not because it did anything to him, but because of what it represented. It made a mockery of his people, of what they thought was true. And it made the darkest point in Nel history all the more heinous. All because the sphere was the ultimate proof. The proof that the Order was right all along. And they were slaughtered anyway. And any doubt that Jusan held onto evaporated the moment he saw the alien, the human.
    He reached over and took the sphere in his hand, gazing at it. It was small enough that it could fit in his palm. Its surface was flawless, there were no protrusions, buttons or anything else that suggested its true nature. But Jusan’s father told him, as each father told his son back for generations to the founding of their house. Jusan simply thought it on, and the sphere activated. He returned it to the pedestal as bluish lines started to appear in it. Soon a soft light emanated from it and then a being appeared in front of Jusan. If he didn’t know that it was a hologram, he would have jumped back, it looked so real that even knowing that it wasn’t he was tempted to reach