Monkey Business Read online

  Drunk Monkeys 1

  Monkey Business

  When you absolutely, positively have a world to save, you need to call in…the Drunk Monkeys.

  Celia Jorgens is a reporter from Chicago. Traveling to Australia, she’s chasing the story of a lifetime—and a scientist she thinks might have answers to stop the deadly Kite virus that’s ravaging the globe.

  Tango and Doc are part of the Drunk Monkeys elite special ops unit. They’ve been given a mission, to bring in the scientist and use the reporter to find him.

  Unfortunately, it turns out shadow factions want them to fail, and the men no longer know who they can trust. As passions flare between Celia and her two hunky military men, they all find themselves in a race to escape Australia before the borders close and their enemies find them. Now, it’s up to Celia and the Drunk Monkeys to go off-the-grid and commit a little monkey business of their own before time runs out for the human race.

  Genre: Futuristic, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction

  Length: 66,039 words

  MONKEY BUSINESS

  Drunk Monkeys 1

  Tymber Dalton

  MENAGE EVERLASTING

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

  MONKEY BUSINESS

  Copyright © 2014 by Tymber Dalton

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-966-6

  First E-book Publication: June 2014

  Cover design by Les Byerley

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Monkey Business by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

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  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  DEDICATION

  This one’s for Tara Rose, bestie and partner in crime, because she was patiently listening to me kvetch about certain wonky iPad apps and how they were likely created by drunken monkeys…and thus an idea was born.

  So whether you love it or hate it, it’s kinda sorta her fault. LOL

  And also thanks to Hubby, who takes care of everything from keeping me in clean clothes to reminding me to eat. Love you, sweetheart!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is the first book in the Drunk Monkeys series. Think A-Team meets Mad Max meets The Walking Dead, without paranormal zombies, with some kick-ass heroines thrown in for fun.

  Well, as much fun as a near-future, postapocalyptic nuclear strike and fatal rabies-like pandemic can be when you toss some special ops military hunks named the Drunk Monkeys into the mix.

  There will be ten books—with twenty heroes and ten heroines, you can do the math LOL. I’m excited about this series because they’re fun plots, quirky characters, and a chance to give my brain the opportunity to stretch in a different direction.

  This is Tango and Doc’s story. The books in the series are best read in order.

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  About the Author

  MONKEY BUSINESS

  Drunk Monkeys 1

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2014

  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…

  The world was already immersed in turmoil unlike any other era in the decades leading up to the culmination of events on July 29, 2142. Massive weather pattern changes had killed millions directly via storms, or indirectly via famine or water- and insect-borne illnesses. Localized epidemics had devastated populations in regions such as the Indochina area, Indonesia, and parts of Africa and Central and South America. Pundits suspected China had also been hard-hit, but the country refused to admit any such thing. The epidemics had struck first-world countries as well, but their populations had fared far better with only a fraction of the deaths.

  Warfare in some parts of the world was the norm. Geopolitical events had created extremely volatile worldwide economic catastrophes that left most of the previous first-world countries living in dual-class systems of tiny minorities of the extremely rich and the vast majority of poor workers who supported them.

  Likely the North Koreans’ idea started, as so many other horrible, government-instituted ideas do, as a brilliant thought in some lower-level politician’s pinheaded and narrow-visioned brain. Something that, if it could be brought to fruition, would send him on a meteoric rise up the bureaucratic ladder and secure his job—and his neck—with their illustrious Mighty Leader.

  Unfortunately, as so many other horrible government-instituted ideas do, it quickly blew out of control and out of proportion when the military got hold of the idea and put a bug in Mighty Leader’s ear.

  Once Mighty Leader decided this was what they’d do, by god, they did it. Including strong-arming some talent from outside North Korea in the form of threatening their families and their lives when basic bribery wouldn’t work.

  And it worked.

  Too well.

  The story goes that it was only after they realized exactly what happened when people were addicted to—and infected by—what came to be called “Kite,” that the North Koreans knew they had a fucking serious problem on their hands.

  That was when some brilliant backwater Podunk decided he didn’t want all these human guinea pigs from the massive “reeducation camp” anywhere close to his little slice of hell on earth. He unilaterally decided in the middle of the night to shut down the facility and herd the inmates north, over the Chinese border and out of his hair.

  It didn’t take China long to realize that not only did they have several thousand refugees suddenly streaming across a suspiciously unguarded border, but there was something decidedly wrong with many of them.

  Wrong, as in Chinese epidemiologists had no idea what it was they were infected with, only that it spread rapidly and appeared ninety-nine percent fatal.

  The one thing Chinese officials did know were that these refugees refused to go back, North Korea refused to acknowledge they even existed, and in addition to their illness they were horribly addicted to a drug that had also apparently infected them with the virus, described as something between influenza, mad cow, and rabies.

  And they were starting to infect Chinese citizens via an increasingly disturbing number of attacks.

  Only after hundreds of the still-cogent refugees admitted to undergoing “vaccine and pharmacology testing” during their stint in what was actually a forced labor camp, did someone in China finally put two and two together and quit coming up with five and three quarters.

  While China never openly revealed all the details leading up to their response, somewhere an upper-level politician must have decided that North Korea’s fuckery deserved only one reply, one that would—hopefully—decisively end the problem and take care of any potential future refugees.

  Not a bad—albeit ruthless—idea.

  In theory.

  Enter several tactical nuclear weapons, along with what amounted to carpet-bombing most North Korean population centers with both thermobaric and bunker-busting ordinance that proved nearly as deadly as the nuclear kind. The North Korean military didn’t have time to respond, China knowing full well where their tac-nukes were located and targeting them first.

  There was also supposition that mass desertion by the North Korean troops occurred once news began to travel—for as long as it could travel over a rapidly collapsing communications network—that Pyongyang no longer existed on this earthly plane.

  Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese troops were ordered to exterminate the problem in the border province, including any Chinese citizens who were infected by the mystery illness, or even possibly exposed.

  When the dust settled and Pyongyang—along with other population centers in North Korea—was little more than a smoking glow-in-the-dark crater, the howling in the bowels of the UN began. Considering that the only remaining representative of the government of North Korea appeared to be their UN ambassador, and he was totally farking clueless as to what had happened or why, there wasn’t a lot that could be done since China’s ambassador smiled and assured everyone else they were only responding to a direct act of aggression by North Korea and protecting their borders.

  You’re welcome.

  Everyone knew the Mighty Leader was batcrap crazy, and they were pretty much used to the country’s generations of inbred leadership, complete with impotent preening, feather-fluffing, and loudly clucking idiocy.

  But no one ever suspected he’d be that crazy, to try to fuck with China.

  China’s attack proved brutally effective. Seoul, being relatively close to the border, received a pretty good dose of radioactive fallout. Enough to force South Korean officials to order the capital and surrounding areas evacuated. China’s attack also sent a wave of panicked South Koreans elsewhere fleeing toward the port city of Busan, and sent terrified Japanese citizens, who’d understandably reaped more than enough radiation fallout to last their country eons, fleeing on every last airplane and boat they could secure passage on to anywhere in the world that wasn’t there.

  Meanwhile, China’s UN ambassador placidly assured South Korea’s ambassador that it had no desire to invade their sovereign nation. In fact, the Chinese ambassador informed the stressed-out South Korean ambassador that if South Korea wanted to unify and take over North Korea, China would have no objection to it.

  Again, you’re welcome.

  Considering North Korea was now a country of smoking, radioactive craters, South Korea politely declined the opportunity, having more than enough shit on their plate to deal with as it was.

  Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. We’re good.

  When pressed, China eventually showed some uncharacteristically blurry satellite photos supposedly depicting an incursion across their border, and mentioned something in passing about a suspicious illness.

  It wasn’t until two weeks later, when China could no longer keep the lid on the secret about Kite—the drug, and especially the virus—that they finally admitted that the outbreak might have possibly, sort of kind of, played an itsy-bitsy role in what was initially viewed by everyone else to be a horrendous act of unprovoked aggression on their part.

  That was when the shit really hit the fan.

  Chapter Two

  If you need a job done right, let a monkey do it…

  Quack scratched at the perpetual shadow of stubble on his chin. “Come on
, Doc. Shit or git.”

  Doc hated being rushed. And it wasn’t like they were in a hurry. They couldn’t go anywhere yet. “I’m thinking.” Doc studied the cards in his hands. “You always want to rush me.”

  Across the room, someone laughed. “That’s what she said,” a husky voice drawled.

  “Shut your pie hole, Alpha,” Doc good-naturedly grumbled.

  From across the table, Oscar leaned back, his chair squeaking in protest as he did. He kept his cards turned facedown while he ran his fingers through his short, recently buzzed blond hair. “Is every hand going to take this long? Because if it is, I could go rub one out while we’re waiting.”

  Doc glared at him. “I’m surprised you aren’t blind by now.”

  “Did you see the local chick he was hitting on last night?” Alpha called out. “I think he is blind. I’ve seen prettier faces on a dog’s ass.”

  Without looking, Oscar chucked his empty beer bottle across the room at Alpha, who deftly caught it in midair.

  “What am I, your waiter?” Alpha asked.

  “I was going to suggest you shove it up your ass,” Oscar said, “but if you’re offering to get me a refill, I won’t refuse it.”

  They all felt a little on edge. Four of their men hadn’t returned yet from a recon mission. They were nearly an hour overdue without word, which wasn’t like them. Yet they hadn’t reached the point of sending out scouts to look for them.

  Roscoe, Niner, Foxtrot, and Kilo were as capable as any of them. Papa wouldn’t consider pulling the trigger on a search unless they hit the six-hour mark without any sign or word from them. And even then, they wouldn’t venture out until ten hours had passed.