The Can-Opener, Segment 1

“Hello, sir, you called?” asked the tall, attractive woman standing in the doorway of a large office.
“Jane Smith… so you finally decided to show up for work,” replied the large man sitting behind a desk big enough to dwarf the man himself. His gifted girth and moustache made him appear like a disproportionate Groucho.
“Yeah, well, I guess I need to show up every once and a while. Wouldn’t want you to worry, now would I?” she stated with a smug look.
“Look, Jane, I know you’re very good…”
“Good?” she interrupted.
“Okay, you’re the best, but that gives you no right to just waltz in here whenever you feel like it,” the big man said.
“Whatever, boss, I was sleeping,” she remarked, “I need to maintain my energy, remember?”
“Jane, you just don’t seem to understand, do you? I could fire you at any moment,” Jane’s boss replied with a grimace, “You know I don’t want to, but if this continues, you will leave me with no choice.”
“Quit your whining, old man; I’ll show up on time if I get a bonus for it.” She smiled.
“I’m paying you too much as it is, don’t push it!” the boss exclaimed with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Jane let out a laugh, “Relax, I was kidding. I’ll see what I can do about getting out of bed a few minutes earlier.”
“Thank you, Jane. You are dismissed for now,” the boss uttered with a sigh, “Just please stay out of trouble today.”
“Sure thing, I won’t kill anyone unless they piss me off,” Jane let out as she turned around and stepped out of the doorway.
“Jane!” her boss shouted after her, “Don’t even think about it, Jane! Jane, get back in here! Ja…”
Jane cut off her boss’ obnoxious whining by slamming the door to his office. Does that old man ever shut up? she thought to herself. She heard him swear from inside his office and chuckled. Maybe if he ever took that stick out of his…
“Jane! There you are!” announced a smaller, disgruntled man with large glasses and cropped, messy brown hair. He was running down the hallway at top speed and panting, “I’ve been looking for you all morning!”
“Hey, Stinker, you come to lecture me too?” she asked casually.
“How many times have I told you, Jane, my name is not Stinker,” he said looking annoyed but slightly amused, “It’s Howard Spinkler.”
“Yeah, I know what your name is, Stinker, can you guess how much I care?” she asked him as she picked up a cup of coffee off someone else’s desk and took a sip.
“Very little, I’m sure,” he replied matter-of-factly, “However, I’m not here to lecture you, but to tell you that you’ve gotten a new assignment.”
“Hurray, maybe it’ll be challenging this time,” she replied, clearly not paying attention as she fiddled with a pen she had snatched while talking with the boss.
“Pay attention, Jane, it doesn’t seem extremely difficult, but it’s your job and you have to do it.”
“Fine, Stinker, brief me then,” she said.

* * *

“So, let me get this straight,” remarked Jane, sitting in Spinkler’s office, “A couple of guys have been robbing major banks and saying they’re from some freaky cult called the Black Can Sect. You’ve received information regarding where they are hiding and you want me to go check it out, right?”
“Precisely,” agreed Spinkler, “I’m certainly glad you listened to me this time, I don’t want any more late night calls from dance clubs asking me where you were supposed to go for your assignment.”
“No worries…are bars okay?” she said holding back a laugh.
“Don’t joke like that, you have a mission, now get to it!” said Spinkler chuckling, “And you had better not bring along you’re little friend again.”
“Watson goes on every mission with me. I can’t do it without him.”
“Of course you can! You’re the best secret agent the firm has to offer, you don’t need some stupid pet toucan to help out.”
Jane smacked Spinkler on the head. “Watson is not a toucan, you moron, he’s a penguin and he’s coming with me.”
“Fine, but just remember that I told you so when the boss gets homicidal.”
“What’s he going to do? Lecture me to death?” Jane grabbed her briefcase and the files for the mission and walked out of the room.
Spinkler sighed. That girl is going to get herself into serious trouble one of these days and I just hope I’m around to laugh when it happens. He walked out of his office and fell flat on his face tripping over something short, black and white.
“Oops, sorry Stinker, I forgot to tell you the little guy decided to come to the office with me today,” said Jane looking down over him with a wide smile.
“There are not supposed to be pets in the building, Jane!” said an exasperated Spinkler, “Please, Jane, just listen to me for once.”
“Up you go, mister,” said Jane hauling him onto his feet.
“You helped me up?” gasped Spinkler, “This day will go down in history...Jane Smith performed a good deed.”
“Very amusing, Stinker, but you know I only helped you up so you could carry my things to the car.”
“That’s absurd!”
“How dare you refuse a lady? I’m hurt,” Jane said with mock distress.
“Shut up and go,” uttered Spinkler.
“Whatever…Come on Watson, let’s get out of this loony bin.” Watson hopped up on Jane’s shoulder and they walked away from the distraught Spinkler.
Jane and Watson took the elevator down to the bottom floor and walked outside to the parking lot.
“Let’s go, Watty, we can stop by the apartment before we head out. We need to grab some supplies,” said Jane as she walked up to her car.
It was an old looking, navy blue Ford Taurus with dents and scratches covering the entire surface. Although it was a fairly normal looking car, Jane and the agency had fixed it up with some “special” attachments which made it far from the norm. Jane and her Taurus had been through a lot together, it was her first car as a secret agent. No matter how many times Spinkler tried to convince her to get a shiny new black agent car, she would always refuse. “Black is so stereotypical of secret agents,” she would always tell him, “Besides, I think the blue brings out my eyes.”
Jane casually opened up her door and Watson jumped into the passenger seat. She placed the briefcase and assignment files in the backseat before climbing in herself.
“Don’t forget to buckle up, Watson,” she said, “I know you’re a bird, but I don’t think being thrown out a window is a good way to learn to fly.”
As her car was propelling down the highway, Jane’s thoughts went to the case at hand. Hmm…Black Can Sect…I know I’ve heard that somewhere before.
“Hey, Watson, you know anything about something called the Black Can Sect?” she asked her penguin friend.
“Puuuu,” said Watson insightfully.
“You think so, Watty?”
“Puupuu.”
“I don’t know…It could be”
“Puuuuuuuuupuupuu.”
“Maybe...” Could Watson be right? she thought. Does this Black Can Sect have something to do with my past? No, it couldn’t be…could it? She tried to think as far back as she could remember. Her entire childhood was a complete blur. In fact, she could not remember a single moment in her life up until about ten years ago when she woke up in a hospital. She really didn’t even know her real name or age. She had given herself the name Jane Smith when the doctors found no identification on her and no records of her birth. The doctors had no way of knowing how old she was, though she looked to be about thirty-five years old.
She remembered vividly the day she awoke in the hospital with no memory of anything. She had questioned the doctors about what had happened to her but they knew nothing. All they could tell her was that an anonymous man dropped her off saying that he found her on the street in a coma. They told her that she stayed in her deep coma for about three months before waking up. Other than that, she knew nothing about what her life was like before whatever accident caused her to go into a coma.
For some reason, immediately after her release from the hospital, she was offered a job in the government. It was Spinkler, who came to her asking if she would like to work for him in the government’s FBI agency. She had no where else to go, so she accepted. Slowly but surely, Jane worked her way up the ranks to the government’s top agent. Now her former boss, Spinkler, was her personal assistant.
“Puuuuuuu!”
She was torn away from her daydreaming by Watson’s cry.
“What is it, buddy?” she asked as she slammed on the brake and pulled over to the side of the road.
“Puu…”
“Oh, I missed the turn? Sorry about that, I was just…thinking.”