Toothache (WIP)

I think I’ve been chipped

Today was a big day for Shaun, he had been waiting almost 5 years for these implants, these dental implants.  He had been in an accident when he was younger, as a result 3 of his teeth got knocked out. It was a good thing they weren’t front teeth but it also sucked because they made eating a little bit harder and took a bit longer but all that was over now, he was finally getting the teeth back.  He was sitting in the chair after he got the posts put in 6 months prior, the dental assistant was talking him through the process of putting the actual teeth in which wasn’t as painful as the posts and they’d be done within the hour, then the dentist walked in.

‘Shaun, how’re things?’

‘They’re great, looking forward to eating something and not chewing 5x as long.’

‘What’s your first meal going to be?’

‘I was thinking tonight I was going to have a steak but right after this, maybe a steak and cheese sub - so steak is on the menu for today.’

‘I like it man, it all sounds great - well lets get started.’

The assistant showed him the teeth, everything was re-checked and they got started.  The teeth all went in in what seemed like 30 minutes, the dentist actually needed to use a ratchet to get the teeth settled in but it all worked out in the end.  They checked his bite out and took some measurements and finished up.

‘Shaun, how does that feel?’

Shaun opened and closed his mouth a bit, ran his tongue over the teeth, ‘it feels great.’

‘Now the tongue is going to take a couple days to get used to the teeth so be careful.  Also, be aware of biting it, otherwise you’re good to go, if you have any questions or concerns please call the office or the answering service.’

‘Thanks Doc, I’ll keep you posted on anything that goes on and I really appreciate your help with this,’

‘No problem Shaun, it’s my pleasure - I actually have a couple more implants to do today so I gotta run - take care!’

The doctor took off and the dental assistant helped Shaun up, she walked with him to the front and saw the other person getting ready to get the implants.  They looked exactly like Shaun, in fact if he had a doppelgänger than that was them.  He heard the assistant talking but was half not paying attention when he heard his name,

‘Shaun?’

‘Oh hey, sorry - that person looks exactly like me - I got lost for a second there.’

The assistant came back and looked, ‘oh wow, you’re right, you guys could be twins!’

‘Here, let me walk you to the front and we’ll go over aftercare.’

The assistant discussed the pain for the next couple of days that would dissipate, also the possibility of tongue biting and the tongue getting used to the teeth.  Shaun confirmed all of this and paid for the balance of the work and left.

He made his way out of the office and rubbed his jaw.  The pain actually wasn’t that bad but he’ll see how the next couple of days went.  When he got out to the parking lot where his car was there was a woman in a suit in a car next to his in dark sunglasses looking at him, actually staring at him, he acknowledged her,

‘Hows it going?’

She continued to stare at him, not averting her gaze.

‘Ok, have a good day’

Shaun unlocked the car door and started to get in when the woman spoke,

‘How’d the dentist go?’

He stopped his inward motion to the car and stood back up,

‘Excuse me?’

‘I just saw you walking from the dentist, just asking how it went?

‘Fine, I had some work done.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘Um, just some work that I had been putting off.’

Shaun didn’t even know this woman and she was giving off some weird vibes, he had to get out of here.

‘I’m out of here, see you later.’

‘Have a good day.’

Shaun got in his car, started it and backed out of the spot, he looked in his rearview and saw the woman in the mirror, she had been facing Shaun but turned and had her hand up to her ear, was she talking to someone - Shaun didn’t know what that was all about but he had to get out of there.

His drive home was relatively short and he went by his favorite sub shop on the way.  He stopped in and got the steak and cheese sub that he had been looking forward to for some time, got back in his car and headed home.  He had some dull pain in his jaw but nothing was going to stop him from getting home and eating this sub.  He pulled in a couple minutes later, Shaun rented a house and had been for sometime.  He didn’t want to buy anything at this time and enjoyed this set up.  He rented the bottom half and there was an in-law apartment that an elderly woman rented, it looked like she wasn’t home right now.  Shaun got out, grabbed the sub and went inside.  He put the sub on the table in the kitchen, went over to the fridge and grabbed a seltzer out and placed that on the table.  He walked to the kitchen sink to wash his hands and looked out the window, the kitchen window looked out onto the street, he could see the same car that the woman outside the dentist office that confronted him was in- he looked a little closer and could see her sitting inside with her head down and looking at a tablet.  Shaun wasn’t sure what was going on here but chose to ignore it while he sat and enjoyed his sub. He was about to take his first bite, the sub mere inches from his mouth but he couldn’t get the image of that woman from earlier in the day out of his mind and also from her sitting in the car outside of his house.  He sighed, put his sub down and walked over to the sink and looked outside, she wasn’t in the car anymore.  He leaned over the sink to look further left and right, he didn’t see her.  He sighed again, ‘what the actual fuck is going on here.’ He pushed off the sink, looked left toward the living room which offered a better view of the street and made his way into there.  This room had a bay window which afforded him a view of the woman’s car but also of the next street.  Shaun stood in the threshold between the living room and kitchen looking out the bay window, he could see the woman walking across the lawn towards the other street with her hand up to her ear.  Shaun was watching the situation with a quizzical gaze, not really sure what to make of this.  The woman had short dirty blond hair, a dark suit and sunglasses - now that she was away from her car, she really reminded Shaun of an agent of some kind, come to think of it, he really wondered if he was being tailed by a government agency for some reason.

He watched the woman make her way across the yard to the other side of the street, she was by a telephone pole, she was looking at his house and pulled out what looked like a scope and was peering towards Shaun’s house scanning the area - Shaun ducked out of the window.  He scrambled into the kitchen against the wall that led into the living room. He stood back up and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, he figured he could see if the agent was still out there if he turned the camera on his phone on then flipped the camera - it would minimize the area of him being seen, maybe. He turned on the camera and flipped the camera, after some time figuring out the angles, he found the window, the distance from the kitchen to the window wound’t allow him to see outside - he needed to get closer.  He got on the ground and crawled towards the couch - he might be able to hold his phone up a little bit behind the couch and see, it would be even better if he could stand next to the window and catch a glimpse that way.  He crawled towards the couch, held up his phone, but yanked it quickly down.  A small black object would be seen quickly he thought.  He crawled over to the window, attempted to peek over the window frame and saw her briefly but there was a person walking the dog that was chatting with her.  Shaun wondered what about, ‘hey, why are you surveilling this house?’ ‘Do they know you’re doing that?’ But Shaun was sure that she already had other excuses cooked up.  He looked again and she was still talking, now was the time to make his move while she was distracted, but wait, was there a better place to go?  He briefly thought about just making a break for it, but then wondered why he would be running from his own place and for what reasons?  He peeked out again and it looked like she was tucking something back into her jacket and the dog walker was leaving with a wave, the woman resumed her spying activities. Shaun leaned against the wall again, closed his eyes and thought about all the things that he could have done that warranted being observed by the government. He couldn’t even remember the last time he got a speeding ticket and now this?!  Just then he heard a car door close, he looked out the window and the woman was gone, he ran into the kitchen and past his cooling sub.  He got to the window over the sink and looked out the window towards the car, it was driving away.  Shaun hung his head and quietly said, ‘what the fuck.’  He looked back at the sub, getting colder still at this point and lost his appetite.

The next day, Shaun had taken off from work.  He knew he didn’t need to since his implants weren’t a major surgery but he had time to use so he did.  He got up, went out to breakfast then planned on seeing a movie around noon - the first showing of the day.  The movie theater was down the street from the breakfast place, he had planned to walk from there.  After he left breakfast he walked the 1/4 mile to the theater but something didn’t seem right.  It actually hadn’t felt right since last night but it had been nagging him more so since breakfast.  Shaun quickly stopped and turned, he saw the woman again who also quickly turned but she ducked into one of the many vendor carts that lined the stretch of street with various wares and services for sale.  Shaun wasn’t sure if he should confront her or try to lose her, he opted for losing then confronting.  He walked quickly towards the theater ducking between carts, into stores and then out of them but she was always right there.

Shaun out of breath and confused, ‘how does she keep finding me?’

The movie theater was just ahead and there was a pretty big group of people, Shaun figured that he could lose her in there.  Then when he got into the theater it would be dark enough then she couldn’t find him, hopefully.  He moved ahead quickly, there were about 4 or 5 groups of people milling about outside the theater waiting to go in. Shaun looked back to see the agent bopping up and down attempting to locate where Shaun was at,

‘I think I’m losing her’

A woman turned around, ‘what did you say?’

‘What? Oh nothing, I was talking to myself.’ He blushed and started in the opposite direction. He heard her say, ‘what a weirdo…’ as he continued towards the theater.

He made it to the front, he looked back and could still see her looking around, her hand up to her ear but he ducked inside to get his ticket and hopefully where she couldn’t find him.  Shaun went to the ticket counter, got a ticket for the 12:00 showing of ‘Monsters in Plain Sight’, which was supposed to be good but he hated to read the reviews so he would see it just to be sure.  No popcorn or anything today, he had to get in there and out of plain sight.  He got in, third row center from the top, about 3 minutes left from showtime, pretty empty and that was pretty good. Only two more couples came in and that all sat on opposite ends so Shaun had the whole row to himself, he smiled contentedly.  The lights went down and the previews started.  No sooner had the previews started and the door opened and the outside light flooded in - one of the worst things when you’re in a darkened theater.  Shaun saw the shadow but couldn’t tell how it was, then he saw it was the woman.  She put her hand up to her ear and walked up the steps to where Shaun was sitting.  She put her hand up in a calming gesture but Shaun couldn’t do anything but just stare.

‘Hi Shaun, My name is Agent Summers - can I sit here?’

Shaun just looked at her with his mouth slightly open and nodded her head.

She whispered since the movie was starting…’Listen, I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger for the past couple of days but it was necessary given the situation.

One of the couples shhhh’d her

‘Could we get out of here and talk, I’ll get you tickets for another showing anytime or even a private screening we just need to talk.’

Shaun again just nodded his head and they both got up and left

Once they were outside Agent Summers introduced herself again,

‘Hi, Agent Amelia Summers, I’m with the CIA and I know you Shaun.’

‘What is going on here?’

Agent Summers went on to explain that the implants that Shaun had contained tracking devices as well as launch codes and data that were to be carried to a secure facility. What Agent Summers failed to mention at the top of their conversation was how the tracking device and government secrets got into Shaun’s mouth.

‘The day of your surgery there was an agent in another surgery suite at that dentists office that was supposed to be getting the implants that are in your mouth in their mouth.’

‘Wait, why were they even at a normal dentists office, doesn’t the government have a dentist that can do this stuff.’

‘Ha, no - by the time we get a dentist in house to do the work it is months later which is why we use private doctors.  Ha ha government doctors, you’re funny.’

‘I wasn’t trying to be? So what does this have to do with me?’

‘Ok, you’re funny but apparently not smart.’

‘Spell it out for me like I’m stupid then please.’

‘So you were both there to get implants on the same day, we didn’t know that you were there, we only just used that doctor to do our implants.  The problem is the teeth got mixed up and you got our teeth and the agent got yours.  What’s more strange is that the your implants were an exact match for the agents teeth, talk about a one in a million chance.’

‘That’s ridiculous, aren’t teeth like snowflakes - no that’s not right but really it would seem like that you would think?’

‘You would think but the doctor did both procedures and neither you nor him knew the difference so here we are. So now we need to figure out where we go from here.’

‘Can’t we just get these out and to your agent friend?’

‘The only problem is the people that were looking for those secrets were onto him already, so he, my partner Agent DeWitt is running interference while I’m here talking to you. At some point he will contact me but it is too dangerous for him to meet us or even attempt to contact me right now.’

‘About what comes next right?’

‘Right, so about what comes next - the launch codes and data cannot be sent encrypted, they cannot be sent over any transmission lines due to the highest sensitivity involved with this data.  Which is why we put it all in those two teeth which will be extracted then uploaded upon arrival.’

‘Where do you expect me to go - I guess a better question is what do you expect me to do?’

‘This isn’t easy to ask because it could be dangerous but I’ll be with you so it will be manageable.  My partner that is currently leading the others away from us now, well, the others are actually CIA agents, right now, us and some other agents have been seeing some bad actors within our organization.  My partner received some information that was too sensitive to transmit across normal lines.  He brought it to me and we discussed.  We had already known that there were too many other agents that were against what the CIA was all about so we made a decision together.’

‘This is crazy, like you’re talking about taking sensitive information from the government and leaking it and the way you’re doing that is via dental implants?’

‘Look Shaun, this is highly unorthodox but this is what is happening right now.’

‘How can I even believe you? Like, what if you’re the bad agents and you’re trying to smuggle the information out to overthrow the government?’

‘I guess you can’t and I’m asking you to trust me but ask yourself this - if someone wanted to leak information, would they go through the trouble of putting the information into dental implants to then de-encrypt it later to show to everyone?  It seems like a lot of work for the people already on the side with a lot more to lose.’

‘Fair point - I’ll go with this for now but I was really looking forward to having these teeth fixed.’

‘After this, I’ll personally pay for new teeth if I have to but we need to move.  The mall that is only currently being used as a Halloween store - well one the other side of the mall is the department store that has been closed down for some time.  We were able to get some unused funds to turn that into a safe house.  Agent DeWitt knows to meet there and we can go from there.’

‘I have work and well my life that I also need to worry about - what do I do about that?’

‘Already taken care of, we have some other agents that are sympathetic to the cause - you’re getting paid for your time off from work and there won’t be any questions about why you were gone.  As far as they were concerned, you had a relative out of the country that was ill and needed emergency care - end of story.’

‘Ok, I guess you’ve thought of it all.’

‘If anything we’re thorough. I’ll have your car brought back to your house but right now come with me and we’ll get things sorted. The last thing we wanted was for you to be brought into this but here we are.’

They got into Agent Summers’ car and took off.  The ride to the mall was fairly quiet, the Agent had been talking about how they had gotten into this situation - issues within the government, problems with other countries and ultimately insurgencies from our own.  Shaun had heard what she was saying but he was trying to piece it all together - he just went to the dentist this morning to get implants and was looking forward to the sub that was now sitting in the fridge.  At some point today he could be shot at, fall from a building or all three - for him the future was now even brighter since he had these awesome new implants in his mouth.

They got to the mall and pulled up in front of what was once a popular anchor store on malls across America.  This one had a car repair shop on it so Agent Summers was able to activate one of the doors and pull her car in so it wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention.  Once inside it looked like the shop had been abandoned for 10 years.

‘Hey Shaun, don’t let the looks fool you, everything is underneath.’

She stepped over to one of the other bays and grasped the hydraulic lever on the car lift and pulled it down - the arms that would normally lift cars up pushed the floor down in a downward stair case format and started to reveal step after step and revealed light below. Shaun looked over at the agent,

‘Seriously - like this is actually a real thing like not just a movie thing?’

‘Where do you think they get it from - come on lets go, once we get down there it stacks back up, even cooler to watch it go back up.’

They walked down the steps of the car bay/secret lair that was the dried up remains of America’s mall.  As promised once they were down the steps and clear Agent Summers pulled another lever and the stair retracted back up.

‘Just in case anyone were to come in, you know.’

‘Yeah, cause this is all totally normal.’

The agent led them down a small corridor which opened up into a thirty by thirty room.  The room mainly consisted of control board that had screens that allowed the user to view the CCTV across the country, there was a workbench for weapons and some other gadgets. On the opposite side of the room was a small kitchenette and bathroom, underneath the table there were two cots folded up. Overhead there was so much wiring running through the ceiling,

‘This was not an easy job to get funded I’m honestly surprised that it got done.  What’s nice about this place is it has proximity sensors so we can see what is going on and we can see who is doing what anywhere.  I can also check on Agent DeWitt so lets start there.’

‘What can I do to help?’

‘Well, if you’re hungry there is food in the fridge - I can’t remember the last time I was here so I can’t promise anything ground breaking.’

Shaun made his way to the kitchenette to see if there was anything, he opened the fridge and found a quarter gallon of milk left and judging by the smell when he opened the fridge it had been in there for quite some time.  He closed the door and looked in the cabinets, he found some saltine crackers and thought to himself, ‘even stale these are still good.’ He found a bottled water and munched on some of the saltines.

‘So, any luck finding your friend?’

‘Not yet, he turned off his phone but he has a tracking device on him - I’m trying to locate it now.’

‘So once he does get back here and you get the teeth out of my head and oh by the way, who is taking them out…but on top of that, who do you plan on bringing the info to?’

‘So the last part of your question, who are we bringing it to - there are people within the current government that can take this info and do the right thing with it.  We believe that people all the way up the chain have been corrupted by foreign governments but there are some that is someone within National Security that can be trusted.

‘So wait, you think there is foreign interference in our government?’

‘I don’t think, I know and we found evidence of it along with some incriminating documents and phone calls - it goes all the way to the top.’

‘Wow, this feels like a lot.’

‘It is a lot which is why it is important to make sure Agent DeWitt gets here safe and we get that info to the right people.  As far as getting them out, well the implants themselves are just ratcheted in so we could do it ourselves but we wouldn’t put you through that at this point.’

‘Do you do stand-up in your free time?’

‘I consider myself somewhat of a funny person, don’t you think?’

‘Making jokes like that, I would say no.’

Shaun looked at Agent Summers who was busy minding the screens, turning knobs and dials - adjusting the contrast on some of the monitors to get a better picture.  If he didn’t know any better she might have been serious.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course not! It may be on the fly but that same dentist will be performing it, after hours like really late at night but it is all taken care of.  I just have to find out where DeWitt is.  Hold on, I think I’ve got him.’

Looking at the bank of monitors, Shaun could see a couple different spots around town that he recognized, for one he saw the dentist office that he was just at.  There were two monitors that were surveilling the major intersections in town, a third monitor was watching a spa for some reason.

‘Why is this one pointed at this spa?’

Agent Summers hit a button on the console, the screen flipped to another camera on the feed, this time it showed another intersection but in the next town over.

‘Don’t worry about that, that was just some research on, um, some questionable activity that was happening there.’

‘Ohhh, it sounds and looks a lot like you might have been spying on someone, maybe someone close to you?  Does that sound correct, Agent?

‘This is not the time for any of that right now.’ The computer had just located Agent DeWitt and showed on the map where he was, Agent Summer pointed this out,

‘Well its good that I switched the camera to that intersection because we’ll be seeing him come through there right about….’

They were both looking at the screen, Shaun wasn’t sure what he was looking for but Summers  was aware of both the location of the signal and what her partner was driving,

‘There, in that blue sedan that was him and he looks ok - for now. I don’t see anyone following him but we don’t know that yet.  Based on the direction he is going I would say that he is coming here, lets get ready to go - we’ll be taking the car we came in on.  Also, knowing him he’ll be ditching the car and hoofing it the last mile or so.’

Agent Summers got up from the console, she headed to the work bench and grabbed a couple of extra clips.  She opened up the cabinet above the bench,

‘Have you ever shot a gun before?’

‘No, will I need to?’

‘I don’t know but good to find out in case we need you to.’

‘I’d prefer not to if I can.’

‘We’ll see if we can avoid it.’

She grabbed an extra gun and placed it in a holster on her ankle.  She checked the computer one last time and saw that DeWitt was still headed in this direction,

‘Time to head up, we can see out of the garage doors so we can be ready to go as soon as he gets here.’

Agent Summers pulled the lever and the lift descended to form the stairs to go back up.  They made it to the top of stairs, she pulled the lever on the lift to conceal the secret hideout underneath. Shaun moved to the back and looked at all the stuff that was left behind in the mechanics drawers; wrenches, sockets, air tools - you could start a business with what was left here. He was over by the tire machine, there was a heavy wrench for getting the tires on and off the rim, he was swinging it like a bat when he heard tires screeching,

‘That is not right, he should have arrived without his car - something must be wrong.’

She looked out the window and could see him sitting in the drivers seat, he couldn’t see her and she didn’t want to open the car door.  Shaun bent down and picked up the wrench, he felt more comfortable with this than with a gun. Shaun walked up by Agent Summers but she pushed him back against the door out of the line of sight,

‘I don’t know what is happening and why he is just sitting there.’ She could see him just sitting there with his hands on the steering wheel staring ahead when all of a sudden she could see an gun point to his head, he started to mouth something but it was indecipherable. She turned back to Shaun,

‘Shit shit shit, he has been compromised, someone is in the back of his car and they know we are here.’

Shaun peered out the window at Agent DeWitt, he could clearly see that there was another angry agent pushing a gun against DeWitt’s head.  He could hear Agent Summers screaming at him to hurry up and get in the car but it all happened in slow motion, Shaun looked over at Agent Summers who backed away from the door to move toward her car.  He looked out the garage door to see Agent DeWitt slam on the accelerator and the angry agent in the back get pinned against the back seat and the car lurch forward.  Shaun then screamed out, ‘get out of the wayyyyyyyy!!’  Agent Summers looked at him but also heard the screeching tires and looked out the window and dove out of the way just as the car hit the garage door and zoomed through and hit the workbench in the back.  Shaun took a step back from the car and attempted to located Agent Summers in the debris, he heard some coughing and also a door open; it was the back door.

‘Agent Summers!’ Shaun said very loudly and with as much emphasis as he could

The agent got out of the car dazed but still holding his gun, Shaun looked inside the car and Agent DeWitt was moving his head from side to side still coming out of his stupor from crashing the car.  ‘Agent Summers, a little help over here!’ But it seems like he was on his own for right now.

The agent looked at Shaun,

‘Not sure who you are but collateral damage was never a problem for me.’ The agent raised the gun and Shaun swung the massive tire wrench and hit the agents arm knocking the gun out of his hand.  The agent half-stunned leaned back and kicked Shaun in the stomach and he doubled over and dropped the wrench; the agent walked over and picked it up. He took aim and connected with Shaun on the side of his face knocking him to the ground. Shaun rolled over onto his back.’

‘Hey DeWitt, who is your little friend here?’

The agent wheeled and kicked Shaun in the side of the face once, then in the ribs. Shaun couldn’t remember the last time that he had ever been hit by anything and the impact was brutal.  The agent tossed the wrench and picked up his gun, aimed it at Shaun’s head,

‘Sorry you got brought into this but wrong place wrong time I guess.’

The last thing that Shaun heard was what might have been the loudest bang ever - especially being in such a closed space. He looked up and saw the agent just staring at him then bring his hand up to his chest and a blossom of red appear on his white button up shirt,

‘Fuck, that actually hurt.’ He turned around and saw DeWitt leaning back and had fired one shot that hit him in the middle of the shoulder blades, the agent fell on top of Shaun.  Shaun still dazed pushed the agent off as quickly as he could.  As soon as he stood up he saw stars, that hit with the wrench really did a number on him.  He rubbed his jaw, something was wrong.

‘Agent Summers!’ One of the teeth was missing, the hit with the wrench must have knocked it out; Shaun was looking everywhere.  He heard Agent Summers calling out,

‘Shaun, are you hurt?’

‘I’ll manage but one of the teeth got knocked out.’

Shaun heard her scrambling to get up, ‘do you need some help?’

‘No, keep looking, I’m going to help DeWitt just find that tooth!’

Shaun continued to look on the floor around the agent, where Shaun was previously standing and where he fell after he was hit and nothing.  Agent Summers had pried the door open and got DeWitt out, she was standing him up and discussing the going-ons of the past 24 hours while Shaun continued to look.  He spun around a couple of times and his eyes set on the agent.  He didn’t want to move a dead body but it felt like that was the thing he was going to have to do.

‘Hey Summers, I’m going to need some help over here - I think the tooth is under the body and I can’t move it on my own.’

Summers and DeWitt both made their way over, they bent down and grabbed the body, Summers on the arms, DeWitt on the legs and there it was, the tooth was right under the agents back - Shaun grabbed it.

‘I got it!’

They dropped the agent back down, Summers turned to DeWitt,

‘So Agent Meadows caught up to you?’

‘Yeah, I was sloppy when I was trying to get away, but we’ll have to take care of this body.’

‘We can do that after, lets put it over against the wall.’

They moved the agents body against the wall, DeWitt came over to Shaun.  ‘Thanks for your help back there - I’m Agent DeWitt, I believe we got our teeth mixed up.’

‘Hey, I’m Shaun, not the best day for a teeth mix-up was it?’

‘Alright guys, we have to get to the dentist to get that last tooth out then we can get this info to our NSA friend.’

The Agents and Shaun all got into Agent Summers car, she activated the door switch and backed out of the garage.

Agent Summers handed her phone over to DeWitt, ‘that is the number for the dentist, give him a call and tell him we’ll be there around 9pm tonight; we should get something to eat first. Shaun, how is your mouth doing?’

‘It isn’t bad, I could use some aspirin - I don’t think I can eat but a smoothie or something until I get the right teeth put back in.’

’10-4’

Agent DeWitt made the call to the dentist and found some aspirin in the glove box and handed it to Shaun.  He swallowed it dry which was never the most exciting thing to do.  They had a couple hours to go until they had to meet up with the dentist, Agent Summers suggested a smoothie shop next to this spa she knew about so they made their way there.

They sat in the car watching the sun set over the business park, they took laps around the parking lot so they weren’t sitting in the car for three hours but now was the time to get going to the dentist office.  They had chosen to sit in the business park that had the spa and smoothie shop in it, if they got hungry then they could get something to eat; plus

Agent Summers had an ulterior motive with the spa but the wasn’t revealing anything to anyone else in the car.

They arrived at the dentists office, the lights were off but there was a light on in the back, Agent Summers turned to DeWitt,

‘Think we should go around the back and see if we can get in that way?’

‘He knows we’re coming right - drop me off here then circle the building.’

Summers dropped off DeWitt and she circled the building, there were two more doors out back but there was a total of six businesses out front so Summers wasn’t sure if they would even hear them knocking on a door.  Shaun was in the back seat looking around and nursing a cup of ice that he had gotten from the smoothie shop before it closed, it was more water than ice at this point but still cold.  Summers made her way back around to the front of the building and DeWitt was standing behind a pole like he was hiding from from someone, he saw the headlights from Summers car and waved her by. Summers was looking at him confused but noticed at that same time that there was another car in the parking lot that wasn’t there before.  The car was just sitting there with its parking lights on, she could see the silhouettes of two people in the front seat.  The sun was behind the car so it created eerie shadows of other agents that she knew she shouldn’t have forgotten about.

‘Shit, Shaun, get down.’

Shaun ducked down in the back seat of the car as Summers drove by at the acceptable parking lot speed that wouldn’t have drawn any attention.  She figured that they might not recognize her since there was a glare coming off the windows in front of the building.  She glided past the car without looking and they didn’t move, had they seen DeWitt looking in the building?  She exited left out of the parking lot and looked in the back of the car - both men or agents were still looking straight ahead.  She continued straight and pulled down the next street and parked the car.

‘Shaun, you’re going to have to stay here unless you want to be a part of this.’

‘I’ve already had my tooth knocked out once today, I guess if you want the other one knocked out I can come with you.’ He grabbed the wrench and held it up.

‘I don’t think lightning or a wrench will strike twice - here are the keys, I’ll call you if and when the coast is clear.’ Before she left she took her hair out of the tie that it was in, took off her sport coat and unbuttoned her blouse - maybe the distressed woman routine will work or maybe not but worth a shot.  She stuck her gun in her waistband and checked the gun at her ankle.

Summers tossed the keys to Shaun and she took off.  She made her way down the sidewalk and saw the car and the two agents sitting in it, she ran up to them screaming,

‘Help help, my baby, my baby! It was in my car and now she is gone! I think someone took my baby.’ She started banging on the window and she got their attention but she started to get other people’s attention from across the street as well.  The agents had rolled down the window and saw this occurring and knew they needed to shut this situation down.  They didn’t recognize her and she knew this so she continued with the charade.  She looked over to see if she could see DeWitt behind the column but nothing, she would have to move this around to distract the agents.

‘Ma’am, what is the problem?’

‘I was over there pumping gas’ she pointed next door at the gas station, ‘then I went inside to get something really quick and I came back out and my baby was gone!’

Summers was really playing it up, she tousled her hair and even turned on the waterworks, a top-notch performance if she thought so herself.  She turned and pointed and pulled the agents toward her to distract them from the dentist office and continued with her story,

‘I’m such a bad mother, I can’t believe I did this’

‘Ma’am, there are camera’s all over the gas station, we can call this in and see who did it, please relax.’

As the agent was attempting to relax Summers she noticed that DeWitt was sticking his head out from behind the column to see what was going on. He saw the distraction and decided now was the time to make a run for it, he ran in the opposite direction that Summers was distracting the agents and around the corner.  Summers turned back to the agents,

‘Are you going to call it in or do I need to?’ She was actually surprised they hadn’t recognized her yet, perhaps it was because she wasn’t buttoned up - most people at work hadn’t ever seen her with her hair down and were too self-involved they would even pay attention anyway. She knew both of these agents, Agent Adams and Agent Fields, two of the worst that she has ever worked with but now wasn’t the time for bad memory reminiscing.

‘Just go back to your car, we’ll call it in from here, and local police will arrive shortly.  Actually, how did you know to alert us of it?’

‘Sort of obvious aren’t you? Two men, unmarked car, sitting in a parking lot with glasses on at dusk - it sort of screams some kind of authority so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. I can’t thank you enough for your help.’  With that Summers took off back towards the gas station, she looked over her shoulder to see if they were looking but the agents were already back in the car.  She then sprinted back down the street towards where she parked earlier; DeWitt and Shaun were both standing outside, she spoke up as she got closer,

‘That was so close, I’m surprised it worked.’

DeWitt came over to her, ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you out of your ‘normal attire’ for quite some time, good thinking plus we don’t see those fools very often.  But now we need to get in the dentists office, get those teeth out of Shaun and move forward.’

Summers was putting her hair back into the tie but left the button undone, she seemed to like this look for the time being, ‘agreed but we still have to contend with the agents up front.’

‘Did you check the doors out back?’

‘There are two doors for 6 business DeWitt, I didn’t bother checking.’

‘Well, I think now is as good as a time as any, lets walk over there to see what is going on.’

They walked behind the building and found the first door, Summers banged on it and waited.  Shaun moved ahead, ‘I’m going to go check this one out while you wait.’ Her and DeWitt stood and waited and they heard the loud metallic bang from the other door which was Shaun banging on the door.  Summers banged on the door again but as soon as she finished she heard the other door open, ‘Hi Dr. Feldman’. Shaun turned to the two agents - ‘looks like it was door number two!’ They both turned and made their way over to Shaun and the dentist and inside the dentist office.

Once they were inside the dentist spoke up,

‘First I must apologize for the mix-up, both of the teeth were so similar and I don’t normally have two implants in one day.’

Shaun held out his hand, ‘well it looks like the job is already done on one of them but we really need to get the other one out of my mouth for these agents.’

Summers pushed forward, ‘Doctor, we don’t have time to take the other implants out of DeWitt but at some point we’ll have to put those into Shaun - plus he got hit in the fact with a wrench so who knows if there was other damage.’

‘I can see that, you’ve got a nice bruise there along your jawline - I need to take x-rays before but lets get that other one out and on your way.’

Shaun got in the chair and Dr. Feldman got started on the removal, since they were just screwed in, it was relatively easy.  Now Shaun was back to square one with not having anything in his mouth. ‘Now Shaun, take it easy  - the posts are still in there and don’t appear to be damaged so that is a good thing.’

‘Thanks Doc’

The dentist took the teeth and put them in a little bag and handed them over to the agents, ‘well Agents I believe you have what you need. If all goes well then I’ll see you soon to get those other ones out and we’ll get this situation straightened out.’

Summers grabbed the bag that had the teeth in it, she turned and looked at DeWitt, ‘give Andrews a call at NSA, tell him were on the way.  Shaun, we’re sorry you got mixed up in all of this but it looks like it all worked out in the end.’

‘All I keep thinking about is that sub that is sitting in my fridge, lonely and uneaten’