Free Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart by Niall Teasdale

Male voice she felt she should recognise. Sitting up was hard. ‘Move it! Can you use one of these?’
    A pistol was shoved into her hands. Up close she could focus on it. It was a laser and she knew how to use those. ‘If I can see anything, sure.’ She looked up again, seeing a man in combat armour. ‘Kottigan?’
    ‘Your memory’s coming back then? I’ve no idea what they dosed you with.’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind that, we have to go.’
    Ella’s bare feet hit the cold floor and the shock seemed to straighten her brain out a little. ‘Tahmada! I’m naked! What the fuck happened to me?’
    ‘Never mind that, we need to get up top and get out of here.’
    Well, he was not wearing a helmet. Stepping forward, Ella rammed the barrel of her gun under Kottigan’s chin. ‘What. Happened?’
    ‘Look, I do security. I don’t ask what they’re doing and they don’t tell me. They’ve had you on drugs for days. Sedatives, memory blockers. Something to do with your blood. You have something in your blood. Something happened. One of their experiments failed over in the Beta facility. They had me lock the place down, but they got out. We need to leave. ’
    Ella felt her blood go cold. She lowered her pistol. ‘I need to get my stuff from my room or I’ll freeze.’
    ‘Yeah, I guess. Most of the ones infected here are still… Come on.’ He started off at a fast pace, out the door and down a long, white corridor. Ella had to stretch her legs to keep up with him. There seemed to be miles of corridor, though that was probably just an exaggeration.
    It was as they turned a corner that she saw the first cocoon. It was lying against a wall, part-bonded to floor and wall. Ella stopped in her tracks. ‘Gopi!’
    ‘What now?’ Kottigan snapped. ‘They all go like that, but they’re safe in that state. It’s what comes out that you have to worry about.’
    ‘This experiment that went wrong? Did anyone mention M-Nine-Sixty?’
    ‘Uh… I think I heard Corazon say that once. Nayland shushed her.’
    It kills anyone exposed to it. We can’t stop them.
    Ella swallowed and flicked the safety off on her pistol. Immediately her computer interfaced with the gun’s sighting system and projected data into her vision field. She took in a deep breath. ‘What comes out of the cocoons, Kottigan?’
    ~~~
    ‘The first couple were contained,’ Kottigan said. He was standing beside the door of Ella’s room while she pulled on her suit. ‘That’s what I was told anyway. I’m not sure. They’re not exactly bright, but they can think, and they’re strong. They look like the people who went into the cocoons, but…’
    ‘But what?’
    ‘There’s nothing behind their eyes. They’re strong, like I said, and they won’t fucking die. Or…’
    ‘Kottigan!’ Ella snapped. ‘Focus. Or what?’
    ‘I don’t think they survive the disease. I don’t think they die because they’re already dead. Anyone they touch, anyone they even get too close to, they drop in a matter of hours. There’s a fever and then they go down. Then that cocoon forms and then it’s about four days until whatever they are comes out.’
    ‘You’re saying this bug is resurrecting the dead?!’
    ‘Resurrects, no. They aren’t alive.’
    ‘Animates then?’
    He nodded. ‘Yeah, they’re animated.’
    ‘That’s not possible, Kottigan. We don’t have that kind of technology. No one does. Not even the…’ She stopped, then sealed up her suit. ‘Where’s Nayland?’ she growled.
    ‘He went out to the landing pad with the survivors.’
    Ella grabbed her helmet, pulling it on and sealing the neck to her suit. Grabbing her pistol she jumped to her feet and headed for the door. ‘Come on, I want a word with him.’
    ~~~
    There were ten people on the landing pad, Nayland and Corazon among them. All were dressed in heat suits, and all were armed, but none of them were security personnel.
    ‘This is it?’ Ella asked as she walked towards the