Chapter 9

I got an email from Mike first thing Wednesday. They had held my 'case meeting' on Tuesday, and had agreed the initial treatment plan.

As Mike had suggested, the first step would be to inject me with the first batch of nanites, programmed up to 'dissolve' the roots of my 4 wisdom teeth. Apparently, the effect will be quite similar to when you lose your 'baby teeth'... the roots will slowly disappear and they will slowly stop holding the teeth in place, and the teeth will gently fall out (or I guess I can sort of pull them out!).

The nanites used for that will be naturally passed out of my body, so once the teeth are all out, they will inject more nanites, which will be programmed specifically to move my other 8 main molars backwards - that is likely to take several weeks, so they'll need to inject more nanites each week.

Once those molars have started to move, they will probably program up more nanites to start moving the pre-molars. By that point they will have a lot more experience with the way they nanites are working in my body, so they'll be reviewing my treatment, and will be looking at the more complicated task of not just moving my teeth, but also rotating my teeth.

The whole concept of being treated by nanites is quite exciting - I mean, this is leading edge research they are doing - but it's also a bit scary... I mean, what if something goes wrong?

Chapter 10

It's Monday, after work, and once again I'm off to the LUD for my first treatment - my first nanite injection!

Once again, I checked in at the reception, and the gent called Mike, then gave me a visitor's pass.

"Ah, we have a more permanent visitor's pass for you in the office" commented Mike as he walked me to their office... in fact to the kitchen... "you still need to be escorted, but it will make things a lot easier for everyone. Coffee?"

"Please!"

Mike made us both coffees. "Hopefully we won't take as long today as it took last week, but we do need monitor you for a while before and after injecting you with the nanites, so I'm guessing we'll be done by about 8 o'clock. Come on in to the treatment room"

Sara and Rushil were already in the treatment room, waiting, along with someone else.

"You remember Rushil and Sara from last week. This is Amber, she's one of our assistants here

"Oh, hi again" I said to them both. "I guess you'd like me to sit in the chair?"

"Yes please" said Sara.

"I'll leave you with Sara and Rushil for the moment, but I'll be back soon" said Mike, and he left the room.

I put my bag down at the side, and took off my outdoor jacket.

"So, my job tonight is more getting you connected up, and checking you are ok. Rushil works more with the nanites, and their programming, so he'll be actually injecting the nanites into you tonight, then we'll both be keeping an eye on you. Before we inject you though, I need to place some 'targeting material' onto your wisdom teeth - that makes sure that the nanites work on the correct teeth... I mean we don't want any OTHER teeth to fall out, do we?"

I leaned back in the chair, and Amber passed me some darkened glasses. Next she inserted the lip retractor, then pointed the big light at my face. Finally she inserted the vacuum hose hook into my mouth. Sara then put some tubular cotton wads into my cheeks, to hold my cheeks away from my teeth.

"This is a bit like fitting brackets..." explained Sara. "First I need to slightly etch the sides of your teeth, then I'll apply the targeting material... it's very much like the glue we use to bond brackets, but contains some clever micro-electronic bits that the nanites use to know which teeth to work on." As she talked, she was applying some acid to my teeth. After a few moments, she took the water gun that Amber had passed her, and rinsed my teeth.

"Next I'll dry your teeth, then I'll put the targeting material on - it's cured with a small UV lamp, so won't take long to do." I could feel her puffing the air on my teeth, then she started applying something to the sides of my wisdom teeth. Sara and Amber both then put on visors, and Sara used a wand like thing to shine the UV light into my mouth. Finally she used a poking tool to check it was all properly attached and hardened.

Sara then removed the cotton wool from my cheeks, along with the vacuum hose and the retractors, passing them over to Amber.

"Ok, that bit's done, next we'll wire you up. Whilst you'll be wired up, you don't need to remain especially still, and in fact we'll want to to get up and do some simple exercises, just to check you out. And it's ok to drink and eat - if you need another drink, just ask, and I'm sure there's some snacks around if you'd like some. But first, can I ask you to remove your jumper and your shirt..."

I sat forward, and took off my jumper, then my shirt.

"That's great... so, have you ever had an ECG?"

"No, I haven't, but I've seen them on TV"

"Ah, good, so as you'll probably know that we have a load of these tiny pads we need to put on you, both on your chest, and your head. We'll also be hooking you up to a very portable blood pressure monitor. So, can you lean forward for a moment?"

I leaned forward, and Sara took the small self-adhesive pads that Rushil passed her and put them in various places on my back and front, then Rushil started clipping the tiny wires on, and taping them to my body, to hold them in place.

"You can put your shirt back on again if you like. We'll be doing the ones on your head next."

I put my shirt on, and leaned back in the chair, letting Sara and Rushil put more electrodes on my head. Next, Rushil pulled my shirt sleeve up, and fitted a small rubber sort of band to my upper arm - as he plugged a small wire into the connector, Rushil explained that this was the blood pressure monitor.

"Ok, can you just sit back for the moment" asked Ruhil. I watched as he checked the display on his computer. "You'll feel some pressure on your arm for a moment" he said

I felt the band on my arm tighten, then slowly release over several seconds as the system took my blood pressure. A few seconds later, it did it again.

"Everything seems to be working fine" said Sara, "so we'll take some baseline readings for 10 to 15 minutes.... feel free to move around a bit, and do drink your coffee if you want to. Would you like some biscuits? I did bring some in earlier.... ah, thank you Amber!". She took the lid of the tin, to reveal a very nice selection. I took a couple of the chocolate ones!

While I sat there, I could feel the band on my arm taking my blood pressure every couple of minutes.

"Ok" said Sara about 10 minutes later, "Would you like to carefully get out of the seat, and just stand up for a couple of minutes". I did as requested. "Excellent - I must say, from what I see on these readings, you look to be in pretty good condition. Let's see what happens when you start doing some light exercises."

"Anything in particular?" I asked

"No... bending, squats, maybe running on the spot would all be ok". As I carefully bent over to touch my toes, Rushil and Sara made sure the wires were ok. Next I tried bending to the sides, then squatting, and finally a bit of running on the spot.

"That all looks very good, so if you can sit back in the seat again, Rushil can inject the nanites". Once again, I sat in the chair.

"Are you right-handed?" asked Rushil

"Yes, I am"

"Ok, then I'll inject the nanites into your left arm". Before he did so, he put a strange clip thing over my head, with pads at the end, which he placed on my cheeks. "Don't worry, that's so we can listen to the nanites as they find the targets.

Once again, he rolled up my arm, used a sterilizing pad to clean my skin, then took the syringe that Amber passed him, and managed to get it into my vein at the first attempt. Over about 30 seconds, he slowly injected the nanites into my blood. Next, he turned to the computer display, and watched. I could hear all sorts of strange beeps.

"So, what Rushil is doing is monitoring the nanites as they pass around your blood, and specifically when they find your wisdom teeth, and start sort-of congregating around the roots. How's it going there, Rushil?" explained Sarah.

"Looking very good, already getting some nanite reports. Just hold still for another minute, Jacob, then you can move around again".

"Well, I'm still alive" I commented, jokingly.

"Not only alive, but your graphs are all looking 100%....ok, I've seen enough nanite reports for now, so now you can relax again.... drink whatever, but stay in the chair for the moment."

"So, we've already done a load of work with these nanites. Experience is that if you are going to have any sort of adverse reaction, then it will show up pretty quickly. If you're still alive in 30 minutes, then you'll be ok till at least next week!" she said, throwing my joke back at me.

"It must be interesting, working on stuff like this" I commented.

"Well, yes and no... the concept of we are doing is absolutely amazing, but there's a lot of hard work to do, working with test subjects like you, interpreting the masses of data that the computers record. Reports. All that sort of stuff.... but I wouldn't change it for anything else" said Sara

"Absolutely" added Rushil. "I'm working with the team that's working on the nanite side of things, that's amazingly cool. Plus it's nice to interact with our test subjects, our 'patients'."

"How many patients you got doing this?" I asked

"I think it's ten, we saw you and five others last week, the other will be starting with us this week. You're actually the first one to get nanites, but that's mainly because you need your wisdom teeth removing, and we've done that sort of thing before, so we're not expecting any surprises"

"How bad are the other people's teeth?"

"Obviously I can't go into a lot of detail, but some are like you with fairly moderate issues, but we do have some patients with quite challenging issues. One has some un-descended upper canines, that's going to be interesting."

We chatted more as I finished my coffee. Then Mike came in.

"How's it all going?" he asked

"Jacob seems to be quite healthy, and so far he's has absolutely no effects from the nanites - I was just going to ask him to do some more exercising"

"Great - nanites performing ok, Rushil?"

"Yes, they seem to be working exactly as expected"

"Great, I'll leave you to it for the moment."

Once again, I got carefully out of the chair, and did some simple exercises, then sat back in the chair.

"Well, I think we are both happy, I think we can remove all your wires and probes, then you can get properly dressed again, and we can go see Mike. Jacob, would you like another coffee?"

"Yes please, black no sugar"

"I'll go get it while you un-wire him" said Amber, "You want one too?". They both nodded.

Ten minutes later, I was dressed again, and was in the meeting room with Mike, Sara and Rushil, and we were all enjoying another cup of coffee

"Well, it sounds like everything is looking good" said Mike after a quick chat with Sara and Rushil. "Thanks again for taking part in our work. Ah, yes, here's your long-term visitor pass, make sure you bring it each week, it will make things a lot simpler. Now, remember if you feel anything strange or out of the ordinary, get in touch with us, night or day. Here's another laminated card, if you can keep that with you at all times, it gives emergency contact information."

"And I guess you'll want me to keep the teeth when they fall out"

"Yes please. They may have fallen out by next week, or it may take a bit longer, that doesn't matter. The important thing is that the whole experience, including the teeth coming out, should be comfortable and absolutely pain free! And don't forget to fill in the daily diary, morning and evening - and at any other time you need to"

It was just after 8pm when I left the building. Even though I'd had a couple of biscuits, I was hungry, so went and found somewhere to have some dinner.

I'll be honest I'm not really enjoying this story so much. All thats happened appears to be very 'behind the scenes' with the nanites. I'd say to try and take this another direction since currently no drama or anything is happening in the story, unless thats what you are going for.

This story is a bit different from the many other stories I've written.... pretty much all the other stories are about braces.... traditional braces that is. They are over in the "club" forum, but I decided that I  would start a story or two here in the more public area

I don't know what gave me the idea, but yes, there is likely to be a twist in the story.... there usually is, otherwise it would be a bit boring!

Need to post the next episode for you (it's on my pc.... writing this on my tablet).... where Jacob will get his first lot of actual treatment nanites....

I wanna start out by saying that the world building/setting the stage is great. I can tell you really have a good eye for detail. While as of yet this particular story isn't the one for me personally, I can see and appreciate all the work you've put into it. It is very solid written and reads pretty smoothly, so props for that! I can't wait to be able to get into the story section to read more of what you and other authors have wrote over the years!

Time for Jacob to get his next lot of nanites, the ones that will start moving his teeth...


Chapter 12


Monday after work I once again traveled to LUD, making sure I had my wisdom teeth with me: I guessed that the research team would be wanting to look at them, probably compare them to my x-rays, and see how their nanites performed.

As I arrived, I took out the ID card that Mike had given me, and showed it to the man at the reception - who recognised me, said "Good evening, sir" to me, and called Mike.

"Hi Jacob, how's it going" Mike asked as he took me through to their office

"I have a present for you...." I replied, and took the bag with the 4 teeth out of my pocket

"Oh, excellent, it will be interesting to see how the nanites performed. Any problems?"

"No, the last one came out this afternoon... as you said, it's almost like losing my baby teeth. Ok, the sockets are a little delicate right now, but no real pain as such"

After spending 5 minutes having a coffee and a general chat, I was taken into the treatment room.

"So, Rushil isn't in this evening, so you have me, Sara and Chris today... and of course, Amber! Let's start by taking some pictures, then we'll do the X-rays"

Once again, I sat back in the treatment chair, with my lips held wide apart by some lip spreaders, while Mike took a careful look at my gums, where my wisdom teeth used to be.

"Yes, your gums are looking really good. It's going to take a week or so for the gums to fully heal, but I'm sure that won't be a problem." Mike then took a set of pictures, documenting my teeth. Then he took me into the X-ray room, and did another full set of X-rays

"We need to check what's happened in the last week, specifically to make sure the nanites only worked on your wisdom teeth, and not any of the others, plus make sure there's no bits of your wisdom teeth still actually left in your gums."

After taking the X-rays, Mike spent a few moments comparing them.

"It's all looking good, apart from 4 teeth missing, the new X-rays look amazingly like last week's"

We went back in the treatment room, where we found Sara.

"Oh hi, Sara"

"Hi Jacob, please, take a seat. I was just looking at your wisdom teeth, they look good. Maybe you can walk us through when they came out, how, and what it all felt like... oh, would you mind if I record what you say? " said Sara

"Sure... erm, well, they all seemed pretty firm until Thursday, when one of them felt a tiny bit loose. The others started getting loose over the next couple of days, and the first one came out while I was having my lunch on Saturday"

"Any pain at all, both while they were loose, and when it came out?"

"No actual pain, but the place the tooth was felt a bit delicate, which I guess is pretty normal"

"Yes, that's a common report we've had. Do continue..."

"The next two teeth came out on Sunday: one came out by itself at lunchtime, and the next one was so loose, I pulled it out just after lunch. Again no real pain, just soreness where the tooth came out"

"And the last one?" said Sara, continuing to take notes

"This afternoon, your nanites seem to have good timing!"

"Ok, let me go get Chris to come and check out the nanites, see how many are still active, then we'll disable the remaining ones. After that, assuming Mike's happy with the X-rays, and you're still happy to go ahead, we'll inject the next lot of nanites, and start your treatment". While she was talking to me, Amber went out, and a few moments later, she returned, along with Chris.

"Hi Jacob, we did meet briefly last week. So, yeah, I'm going to do something similar to what I guess Rushil did last week. The first thing I need to do is to 'have a chat' with the nanites, and see how many are still in your system... then I'll 'kill" them."

"Can't you just re-program them and reuse them?" I asked

"In concept, maybe. But there's currently a couple of issues... first of all, the nanites you have inside you that helped to extract your teeth are actually different from the ones we'll be using to move your teeth. Similar, but different. the other issue is that, at the moment, the nanites aren't actually lasting long enough, I'm expecting that most of your's will be already inactive."

Chris fitted the head-clamp, with the pads that went on my cheek, This week, he also placed a couple of pads on my neck.

"So, the pads on your cheek will interact with any nanites still in your jaw area. The pads on your neck will be able to see any nanites that are just flowing in your bloodstream"

Chris connected the head-clamp thing to a laptop, just like Rushil did last week, and started typing on the keyboard

"Ok, just relax... I mean you can move around, that's not an issue, but this will take a while...."

As I sat back and relaxed in the chair, I turned to Amber: "I guess this is a bit different from working with a normal dentist, isn't it?"

"Yes, I guess it is, although I do also work with some other teams, who are doing research into more traditional treatments."

"So how did you get into doing this?" I asked. Amber explained that she had badly crooked teeth as a teen, and spent a lot of time at the orthodontist, where she got to know a couple of the assistants, and that inspired her to want to be some sort of dental assistant.

"I started working at a large dental surgery, and by luck, ended up helping the orthodontist there...". She explained that she did some more training, and went to work specifically for an ortho. Then I saw this job come up, and i sounded like it could be interesting"

"And is it"

"Yeah, it is...."

"Ok" said Chris, "it looks like about half of the nanites are still alive, which is pretty much what we expect. Now, I just need to put this on your neck...". Chris removed the 'head clamp, and fitted a sort of metal clamp with larger pads to my neck.

"This will kill them off, you should feel nothing, but it will take a few minutes"

"It's a shame you can't combine that with the other thing you were just using"

"It's something we're looking at. These are all prototypes, so we've kept the functions separate, but you're right, it would be a lot easier if they were combined."

A few minutes later, Chris removed the device, then fitted the previous one again.

"Let's see if we got them all...". Chris watched the screen again for a couple of minutes. "That looks good, no nanites have reported back. Ok, I'll hand things back to Sara for the moment" He said, as he removed the 'head clamp'.

"Thank's Chris, I'll call you when we're ready for the new nanites. So, Jacob, we need to hook you up to the monitor again, and take some baseline measurements, just like we did last week. After that, we'll inject the new nanites, and again we'll watch you for a while. Oh, yes, I'll also need to put some targetting material onto some of your teeth... tell you what, let's do that first"

I leaned back in the chair, Amber fitted the lip spreader, then Sara, ably assisted by Amber, lightly etched my rear molars, put some material onto them, and used a UV lamp to harden it.

"The plan is to start moving your rear molars backwards, and assuming that goes ok, we'll then also get your other molars moving." Sara explained as she removed my lip spreader, and passed it to Amber

"Oh, so you're not moving them all together then?" I asked

"Not with you, no... but we'll be doing that with some of the other patients: we need to work out which is the best way to do things, so we'll try out a few ways of doing it, and see which works the best. Ok, let's get you hooked up to the monitor...."

I removed my shirt, and just like last week, Amber and Sara fitted several small pads to me, some on my chest, some on my head.

"Once again, I'm happy to report that both your heart and brain seem to be working fine. Hopefully, if this looks similar to last week, we won't need to take so long..."

"Shall I go get us some coffees and biscuits, while you watch things?" asked Amber

"Great idea" replied Sara. "Jacob?"

"Yes please, black coffee no sugar!". Sara got me to do some quick exercises, to get my heart working a bit. The coffee arrived a couple of minutes later.

"Yes, you look good, so Amber, can you tell Chris we're ready please?". While Amber went to get Chris, Sara re-fitted the head clamp, positioning the pads once again on my jaws and neck.

A minute later Amber and Chris returned.

"Ok, so, before I inject you with the next set of nanites, I need to ask you if you are still happy for us to proceed with the treatment?" said Chris

"Yes, I'm happy, go ahead.." I replied. Just like last week, Chris injected the nanites into my arm, and monitored them. I sat in the chair for a while, then did some simple exercises, all the time Chris and Sara were watching the monitors.

"The new nanites are starting to find their targets" commented Chris, "but I guess it will take a bit longer for them all to get there. Jacob, welcome to the world of nanite braces treatment!"

My initial comment was that the theme of the story isn't one that heavily appeals to me, but thinking about it more, it would be an amazing feat for science to be able to achieve this standard for treatments. It would be pretty exciting in it's own way to be a participant in this type of study, so thank you for continuing this story.

PS the ellipses implying the cliffhanger was a nice touch, at least in my opinion