People think that being a Section 2 or even Section 3 agent is dangerous. I'm here to say, they ain't got nothing on me. I have one of the most dangerous jobs in the entire UNCLE organization and you wouldn't know it to look at me. In fact, most people wouldn't want my job, even without the consideration for the glamour and the glory and the really, really high salary – are you catching the sarcasm here? In short, not many people want my job. I am a dental hygienist - one of the few, one of the proud, one of the most despised in many people's appointment books.
Still they grit their teeth - that doesn't make my job any easier – and every six months plop their sorry asses down in my chair and I clean and polish their pearly whites. It's not the most glamorous of jobs, but I fulfill a vital role in society and no one ever cuts me any slack. It was safe, dull and predictable. Until UNCLE came waltzing into my life. Things got complicated then.
Let me just go on the record to say, most of the people at UNCLE are nice, normal, regular people with nice normal mouths, who take advantage of the generous dental plan that UNCLE offers. And then you have the Section 2's. They didn't prepare you for these yahoos in dental school. My kind professors never warned me that I would one day work on the mouth of a man or woman who might blow up in my face…literally.
How these people allow the liberties taken on their teeth is beyond me. Micro dots, explosive caps, tools, I've seen it all. They get teeth yanked and fake ones implanted at the drop of a hat, all just to pursue their chosen career path. Just knowing that there will be a Section 2 in my chair the next morning is enough to give me a rollicking case of insomnia and nerves – just what you want when you're looking at a mouthful of C-5 or whatever it's called.
I had to go through some pretty extensive training before I was permitted to even assist with a Section 2 cleaning. Of course, it doesn't help that most agents can't sit still for more than a few seconds at a time and some have been known to bolt from my chair, little pink napkin still around their neck, at the first beep of their communicators.
So, one morning, it's business as usual. I'm scraping the calculus - that's the cruddy stuff that builds up on a tooth without proper cleaning- from a molar and wondering if this joker had even heard the term 'dental floss', when the dentist comes in. I like Dr. Hilleary. He's kind and gentle, but also heartless and downright tyrannical when it comes to procedures. At first, the mere sight of him was enough to make me want to wet my pants – I'm better now. Now I just think about it rather than actually doing it.
I glanced up as he approached and he gestured away with his head.
"Agatha" – he's like the only guy who calls me that – "Agatha," he says. "We have a problem."
Okay when the doc admits to having a problem, it becomes my problem too. "Yes, Doctor?"
"You have had all your training, up to the stage four level." Oh, this is so, so, so bad. In a world of bad, this is the worst. Stage four means we're taking someone's mouth apart, someone who's sustained such serious damage that all the implants have to be removed so that the surgeons can get in and do their job. Stage four also meant that some of those teeth were designed to explode when attempting extraction. I remember hearing stories back during my training and the nicknames – Nine fingers, Lefty, No Face.
"Yes, sir," I squeak. Christ, my hands were already starting to shake and he hadn't even told me what the assignment was yet. "But I only assisted." Then I smiled, well of course, I'd only be assisting. Dr. Hilleary would be performing the…that's when I noticed his right hand was wrapped. "Doctor?"
"Bit of an accident this morning. Nothing serious, but I can't obviously operate. Now turn your patient over to Miss Simmons and we will be away."
Throwing up seemed to be a viable option, but suddenly I was running down the corridor, trying to keep up with the doc. Rounding the corner, I saw a dark haired man sitting in a chair. You don't work in UNCLE very long before you develop this sixth sense about Section 2's. I didn't know this guy, but I could tell from the look, the way the air vibrated around him. There sat a Section 2 and instinctively I knew the guy on the operating table had to be his partner.
And if the partner was in worse shape than this guy, I wanted to throw up again. The agent looked like he was held together with bandages, chewing gum and a mile of white tape. But it was his face that drew me in. I'm guessing that during a situation normally, this guy was drop dead gorgeous. Not now; his features were gray with worry and frustration, his mouth tight, his eyes…well, his eyes were just plain scared – the kind of 'Oh my God, my world is gone' scared. I'd never actually seen anything like that in a person's eyes before. I tried to smile encouragingly at him as the doctor half pushed/pulled me through to surgery.
Back in the 50's, some brainchild decided that it would be smart to implant teeth that would explode if they were removed by anyone other than a trained individual – their reasoning, the agents, if they found themselves in a no-win situation could take out a sizable chuck of real estate by yanking their own tooth out.
It was ugly and barbaric and I'm delighted to say, it's no longer policy. However, there were still a few of the original agents around sporting that deadly little package and one was apparently stretched out in front of me.
It's normal in an operating room to see the surgical table, the tools, you know, you've seen Dr. Kildare, but I'll bet he never had to operate with a blast shield in place. No one took any chance with these little gems and only God knows what had possessed the head guys to begin with.
Doctor Hilleary walked to the table and glanced down at our patient – all I could see what his lower face. Everything else was draped off, but I knew I was looking at one helluva broken jaw. Some of the teeth in front were already missing, knocked out by whatever smashed his jaw.
"We will do the extraction first and then re-seat the missing teeth we have. He somehow managed to keep from swallowing them. Then we will fill in the gaps." Dr. Hilleary's voice was calm, steady, and very reassuring. I could do this…please, God, let me live through this…intact.
"He also dragged his partner clear of a collapsing building," the regular surgeon added. "Let's do him right, boys and girls."
It would be a bold face lie to say I wasn't scared, especially when suddenly it was just me and the doc in the room. Even the anesthesiologist scurried off to safety. The guy's vital signs were strong, so that wasn't a problem. Nope, the problem was all mine.
Getting the mouth open wide enough wasn't a problem, but getting rid of the blood was another matter; this guy was oozing from a half dozen spots like no one's business.
"Um, I need some suction here," I tried to sound professional, but mostly I just sound like a scared little girl – how convenient – one and the same. The doc got suction going and I could see the tooth, sitting pretty midway back on the right side, a perfect molar, too perfect, an obvious plant. I glanced up at the x-rays. For the uninitiated, they look like various shades of gray and white, with bits of black tossed in. Spend a few months learning to read them and it is amazing what one of these can tell you.
As I was verifying the location, I was going crazy trying to remember my Stage 4 training. If you screwed up in the classroom, you got a face full of baby powder and the heckling of your classmates - we all had that pleasure more than once. I screw up now and I could start thinking about a new career, along with what I was going to tell his partner. Of course, in class I didn't have Doc Hilleary standing beside me either.
"How many of these have you extracted, Doctor?" I started to pack the surround area with cotton, trying to stem the bleeding so I could see what I needed to see.
"Too many! It was a barbaric practice! First, you'll want to expose the root…"
That's right, exposed it all around and then you'll find the trigger that would allow it to be disarmed…I won't say it was a piece of cake or that my hand was perfectly still when at last, after sweating off ten pounds, I had the little demon in my forceps. Nor will I go into detail about the actual disarmament or its removal – if I did, I'd have to shoot myself.
The molar looked so innocent, but the moment I had it free, the room exploded…sorry, wrong word….leapt into action. I hadn't realized how still everything had gotten in those few seconds. I knew these things were more than sensitive and no one was taking chances. The tooth was immediately stuffed into a thick-walled lead case and whisked out of the room. The rest of the 'special' teeth were just a matter of popping out so that the regular oral surgeon could get stuff lined back up. Whoever this guy was, he was going to have a helluva sore mouth for the month.
I stood clear to all the rest of the team to move in and I could see Dr. Hilleary beamed at me from behind his mask. "You did wonderfully, Agatha, wonderfully. Now, let's give this young man back his smile, shall we?"
It felt like it took ten hours to get everything lined up and glued back together. He was going to be eating through a straw for a few weeks, but we did everything we could to make sure his mouth would work normally once he got unwired.
Pulling off my scrubs, I walked wearily out of the room and saw Dark Eyes head come up, expression hopefully.
The Doctor patted my back and nodded. I walked over and offered my hand. "Hi, I'm Doctor Simmons. I operated on your partner…well, one of the doctors who operated on your partner."
"How is he?"
"I just put his mouth back together, but everything came out okay." I couldn't be sure if this guy knew about the implants or not.
"I figured that when the room didn't blow up." He blew out a breath. "Thank you, Doctor."
Ah, so he did know. "The other surgeon should be right out." I left him, still looking like a little boy who'd lost his best toy, to clean up and get rid of the gown and stuff. As we were passing I saw the head surgeon talking with Dark Eyes and heard the words, "Possible brain injury, unknown permanent damage, unknown recovery rate, etc." It sounded really bad and my heart went out to the guy.
"But he'll live?"
"Yes, Mr. Solo." So that was Dark Eye's name. "He will live."
"Then the rest doesn't matter. I'll take care of him."
I found myself wishing I had a friend like that.
Okay, flash forward about eight months. I don't want to say that the Stage 4 extraction was a life- altering experience, but it was. I got rid of my loser boyfriend, found myself a real gem, started taking some additional dental classes to earn my orthodontist degree and finally started developing a little confidence in myself. So much so that I even started venturing out of Medical and into the rest of UNCLE HQ.
I was walking into the canteen one day around noon when I saw a familiar face. It was Dark Eyes, I'm sorry, Mr. Solo, I mean. He was sitting with three other people, just shooting the breeze from the look of it. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but from the resulting laughter, it must have been one helluva joke.
The guy still next to him caught my eye. He'd been my patient in the operating room, Illya Kuryakin. I'd made it my mission to find out afterwards. Despite the doctor's rather ominous words, he'd recovered fully and now sat, eating, joking and laughing with the rest of his fellow agents. He grinned at something his partner said and I had to admit that I'd done a lovely job. His teeth were perfect and at this distance, there wasn't even a hint of scarring from the patch-up job we did.
I felt proud and just a little smug. I mean, who else, besides his partner, obviously, can look you straight in the eye and say she put a smile on Illya Kuryakin's face?