dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

her mother had given her. A lifelong stamina athlete, Michelle MacLeod ran like she’d never run in her whole life.

 
    Chapter 6
     
    Early Spring
      2032
     
     
    After three hours of combined hard running – when none of The Ringed were nearby – and excruciatingly slow shambling – when their dusty, milk-filmed gaze fell upon her – Michelle reached the lower Banshee Labyrinth, a former underground bar whose site had utilised an underground chamber or vault left behind from the Middle Ages. Approaching the smaller double doors to the left of the main entrance, Michelle placed her right index finger onto a lichen-covered but very modern-looking keypad. Closing her eyes she searched for fleeting memories of documents, meetings and data she’d been privy to in her role as Director of Human Rights with the UKBC. Finally her brain offered up a six-digit code and her fingers moved. Smiling as a green light beeped and a heavy lock disengaged, the gore-covered former director glanced quickly up and down the length of the narrow, cobbled street before pushing through the doors into the relative coolness and safety of the former bar and present UKBC communications hub.
    Placing both of her hands on the heavy door, Michelle pushed slowly but firmly on them, bringing the doors together and feeling for the lock which she slid back into place. Refitted in the early days of dEaDINBURGH being broadcast, The Hub was one of the most secure facilities the company had built. The bunker’s primary function was to serve as a relay station for all of the newsfeeds, footage, images and sound streaming from the cameras, both mobile and stationary, throughout the city.
    Once a year The Hub was occupied by technicians for three-month shifts. The technicians were brought into the area by tunnel from the main complex out at Little France and spent their twelve-week isolation in The Hub maintaining and upgrading the hardware and the software so crucial to the content of the show . In her role, Michelle had assisted in planning the safe transport of the technicians through the purpose-built tunnels to Cowgate. Competition between techs for placement in The Hub was fierce, simply because the bonus offered was so high.
     
      Michelle leaned back against the secure doors and sat on the dusty concrete floor of the massive chamber. She cried silently for almost an hour.
     
    Finally, exhausted, shivering and defeated, she rose to her feet. The last of her sobs blubbed out and she whined like an infant who’d been crying uncontrollably despite having long ago forgotten why they’d begun. She almost laughed, but gasped again to stifle it, fearing that she was losing the tenuous thread of reality she clung to. Her hand shook with cold and fear as it reached for the power switch at the left of the entrance she’d used. An itch at the back of her mind told her to switch it on, as the windows and doors were specifically designed to not allow a scrap of light, heat or sound to escape from the underground hub of blinking red LEDs and busy processors. The part of herself that had been in charge since the white room’s trapdoor fell said leave it.
    She listened to that voice. It had got her this far. Wrapping her arms around herself, Michelle staggered towards a large couch she could see bathed in the greens and reds of the clicking and whirring systems. She lay across the cold leather, pulled a heavy, woollen throw from the rear of the couch over her trembling body and slept.

 
    Chapter 7
     
    Early Spring
    2032
     
     
    With heavy limbs and heart, Michelle woke twenty hours later and returned to the master power switch. She had no idea if night or day awaited her outside, nor of how long she’d slept, but in the safety and darkness of The Hub, time was her least pressing concern. Her stomach growled and sent a wave of cramp across her abdomen. She was just shy of four months pregnant. Developing foetuses didn’t tolerate long fasts.
    Pulling down