Drunk Monkeys 9
Monkey See, Monkey Do
When failure isn’t an option, that’s when you call…the Drunk Monkeys.
Dumped and homeless on Thanksgiving, Dr. Leta Gaebel is having her worst day ever. Why not work another shift at the hospital? It’s the only home she has now. When two mysterious hunks interrupt her desperately needed nap, she’s not exactly upset. Then they offer her a chance to help save the world.
Uncle and Zed must steal mission-critical supplies from a nearby hospital. They didn’t intend to meet the exhausted but gorgeous doctor. They certainly didn’t expect a sexy proposition from her—and they damn sure aren’t turning her down. One more doctor in their unit and a woman to call their own? Yes, please!
The trio gets assigned to the Atlanta safe house. But when Reverend Silo’s mercenaries attack, Leta is forced to dig deep, not only to save lives, but to keep herself alive in the process. Will any of them survive to see another day?
Genre: Futuristic, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction
Length: 68,801 words
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO
Drunk Monkeys 9
Tymber Dalton
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO
Copyright © 2015 by Tymber Dalton
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-992-6
First E-book Publication: December 2015
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
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Letter to Readers
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DEDICATION
To Hubby and Sir; and to Trish and Ravenna and April, and to all my other friends who don’t think I’m the bad kind of crazy…
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is book nine in the Drunk Monkeys series and focuses on Uncle and Zed. The books in the series are best read in order. All titles available from Siren-BookStrand.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
About the Author
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO
Drunk Monkeys 9
TYMBER DALTON
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
“That damn, batshit crazy asshole fucker in charge there in Pyongyang is the one who stirred the shitpot. Then Beijing made him lick the goddamned spoon and nuked his fucking ass. Problem is, when they did that—not saying they weren’t justified, mind you—our first and best chance to reverse-engineer this clusterfuck went up in a mushroom cloud. All the rest of us could do was fucking bend over and pray for lube and a reacharound.”
—Gen. Robert K. McCammeron (Our Last History? by Willard M. Sterling. Interview date May, 2143)
“In the time since we first became aware of the virus, and the subsequent events that have followed, we’ve come to understand that we have no idea why, much less how, they [North Korea] created it. Unfortunately, when Beijing wiped Pyongyang off the map, they also wiped out any hope we had of creating an effective vaccine in a timely manner to prevent transmission to a majority of the world’s population. It’s estimated that within another five years, over ninety percent of the world’s population will either be dead or infected unless we get lucky and figure it out.”
—Dr. Arnold P. Almer, CDC (Our Last History? by Willard M. Sterling. Interview date April, 2143)
“In terms of [Kite, the drug’s] addictive nature, it makes meth look like baby aspirin.”
—Kimberly Coates, PhD, University of Florida (February, 2143)
“Well, fuck.”
—President Charlotte Kennedy’s reported reaction upon learning that China authorized the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea on July 29, 2142, in response to Pyongyang allowing thousands of people they supposedly infected with the Kite virus to flood across the border into China several days earlier.
“The Drunk Monkeys? Those crazy motherfuckers don’t exist. And boy, are they good at what they do. Thank god.”
—Gen. Joseph Arliss (June, 2143)
* * * *
Long story short…
When last we left, it was toward the end of November, on Thanksgiving morning of the year 2143, and seventeen months post-TMFU—The Massive FuckUp.
That’s the
acronym for the events that resulted when China nuked North Korea out of existence for turning a couple of thousand Kite-infected people loose across their northern border. It was also the major catalyst to the massive shitstorm in which the world now finds itself struggling to tread sewage while fighting for survival.
Our SOTIF1 military team, the Drunk Monkeys, just added another woman to their numbers—code-named Stu. A computer programmer whose brother died from an OD of Kite the drug in Houston, she’s now partnered with Juju and Delta.
Which is a good thing—her joining them, that is. Because Ax, their resident hacker, has left the Drunk Monkeys to partner with Mary Silo. He’s been her secret accomplice and helped her execute her plan to escape from her abusive husband, the Reverend Hannibal Silo. Ax is also the blogger who’s been posting the video and audio evidence Mary sent him, evidence highly embarrassing to Reverend Silo, exposing his systematic abuse of his wife and some of his dastardly plans.
Now known as Kali Enyo, Mary Silo is determined to bring her husband down in as publicly and painful a way as possible.
Heavy emphasis on painful.
Ax still plans to work from the sidelines to help the Drunk Monkeys where he can, but everyone knows Mary Silo won’t come in unless Ax can fully earn her trust.
And Ax has his own…well, axe to grind against the reverend regarding the deaths of his parents.
Meanwhile, Rev. Hannibal Silo and his right-hand man, Jerald Arbeid, are now locked in a silent duel with each other, and it looks like Jerald currently holds the upper hand. He hasn’t told Hannibal about the Drunk Monkeys destroying their Kite drug lab in Houston, or the fact that their California church compound seems to have destroyed itself from the inside out.
Literally.
Jerald is working to eliminate Silo for good and end the insanity so he can take control of the church’s reins and install a figurehead to lead the flock.
Meaning Jerald would then control the church’s finances and the business end of things.
Silo suspects Jerald wants him gone, but he can’t afford to make a decisive move against the man yet without risking exposing himself.
The Drunk Monkeys have also added Dr. Ivan Ivlonsky and Dr. Max Copper to the roster, two more scientists from The List who came in from the cold to help find a vaccine for Kite the virus.
If you’re keeping a scorecard, that means half of the living scientists from The List are now under the protection of the Drunk Monkeys, with one scientist known to be deceased.
With every scientist they’ve added to their ranks, they’ve made progress toward nailing down a successful Kite vaccine. Their current hope is that with the CDC facilities in Atlanta now at their secure and unlimited disposal, they might be able to lick this thing sooner rather than later.
Let’s pick up our tale where we left off. Rather, we’ll jump in just before that point, on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving.
Hang on tight. It’s getting bumpy.
Chapter Two
Everyone wants the wishbone, especially in an apocalypse…
Leta Gaebel wasn’t sure how much more badly her life could suck at that given moment.
Then again, she realized that perhaps she shouldn’t be tempting Fate by idly pondering existential questions like that.
“You sure this is how you want things to go?” she asked.
Gary nodded. “Yeah. I need you out.”
She guessed that officially made Gary Tupelo her ex instead of her boyfriend.
Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. “I have to work a three-day shift at the hospital. I told you that. Can’t I—”
Gary shook his head. “I won’t be here come Monday. I’m leaving before dawn. I already told the landlord he could have it back Monday.”
She stared at him as that sank in. “When were you going to tell me?”
“You been sleeping on the couch for a month, Leta. You can’t say this is unexpected. I told you two weeks ago I wasn’t going to renew the lease on this place.”
“Yeah, and I thought I had until at least the first of December. That’s what we’d talked about.”
He shrugged.
Yeah, this was why she’d started sleeping on the couch in the first place.
Because he was a first-class douche.
She crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “Why the sudden change?”
“I’m heading out of here. My cousin in Montana, I talked to him this morning. He told me I get myself out there, I can work for him, live with him. He’s got a big ranch. Cattle, soy, alfalfa. I’m selling everything I can, taking what I can, and the rest stays. I need to get out there before the weather goes completely to shit worse than it already has. Supposed to be another bad weather front coming in late next week. If I leave by Monday morning, I can make it. My paycheck won’t hit my bank account until then. I need it for gas money. I’m not going to hang around Florida and wait for people from up north to come down here and bring Kite with them. I’m out.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, don’t start with me. You’re done with me, and you’ve been done with me. Frankly, unless those Drunk Monkeys everyone’s talking about manage to find a vaccine, the world is going to shit. They said warmer climates allow the virus to spread faster. Well, Montana in the winter is like a meat locker. Literally. And they have a low population density. You really want to come with me, say so now, but I didn’t think farm work was your specialty, doc.”
Well, pretty much everything in the apartment was his, other than her clothes and personal items she had, like her laptop, Kindle, and other things. She’d moved in with him right after graduating from med school. She was in her third and final year of residency, just a couple of months left, and wasn’t making jack shit for pay yet.
Luckily, she’d had scholarships, grants, and military benefits because her parents were killed while on duty, which meant she didn’t have a ton of student debt. Her grandmother had died when Leta was eight, meaning Leta had ended up in state care and adding to her benefits. Absolutely, she’d opted to take that and parlay it into a medical degree.
She’d be stupid not to.
The result was she really didn’t have much more than the clothes on her back and some personal items. In college she’d lived in dorms, or paid friends to let her sleep on their couches, before she’d met Gary.
She’d used her pay for food, car expenses, health insurance, saving up for malpractice insurance and to open a practice of her own one day—little splurges like that.
Having been raised in a government home for kids, she was used to living light.
And everything she owned would fit in her SUV.
“Well, good luck with that. Have a happy life.” She pushed herself away from the counter and turned, pulling out a box of garbage bags from under the sink. “I’ll be out by morning.”
She could crash at the hospital. There were staff showers, even a laundry room. If the resident dorm beds were full, she could find either an empty bed in a room, or a pull-out sofa in some comatose patient’s room.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
She could even eat halfway healthy food from the cafeteria for less than it’d cost her in groceries every week, especially if she didn’t have other outlays like rent and utilities.
Hell, living at the hospital wasn’t exactly her worst option. Bonus, it’d give her extra time to shadow other doctors. Right now, she’d spent a lot of time in both cardiology and the ER, but she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to specialize in yet. She needed to make that decision soon if she wanted to apply for an internship somewhere and not just end up being a GP in a large practice, little more than someone able to write prescriptions and figure out how to help people while keeping bean counters happy.
Right now she was doing another stint in the cardiac unit, sometimes floating down to the ER when they were overwhelmed. She’d also assisted with several dozen complex cardiac surgeries, as well as hu
ndreds of trauma-related surgeries, but was definitely not going to call herself an expert in any given field yet.
As she started packing, she completely tuned out where Gary was in the apartment or what he was doing.
Why is this not upsetting me more?
Shouldn’t it be upsetting? At least a…little?
Nada.
She thought it should.
Then again, maybe she’d never really been in love with the dumbass.
Okay, so being completely honest with herself, there was no “maybe” about it.
He’d been cute with a beer in her, and damned adorable after three beers and with his tongue up her cooch, but there wasn’t much more to him than that when the buzz wore off and she actually had to listen to the guy…oh…talk.
Being alone had sucked, but after the better part of three years in this relationship, she realized she wasn’t any better off with Gary than she’d been before he’d waltzed into her life.
She had two hands and a vibrator. She didn’t need his talented tongue.
She damn sure wasn’t moving to Montana, even had he asked.
Which he hadn’t.
When she’d told him weeks ago that she’d have to work Thanksgiving Day and most of that weekend, that should have been a clue to her. He’d given her little more than a “whatever” response.
Not even the slightest bit of emotion.
That’d been when it was easier to sleep on the couch than share a bed with him. The last straw. He was a one-trick pony, and not very bright. Nice enough in the beginning, at least, but she’d soon discovered he was a lot nicer when he wanted a piece of ass than when he wasn’t in the mood or too tired.