Season 1, Episode 2 - The Sewer VII - "The Closed-Eye Smile"
"...General Marco himself has weighed upon the issue of the Saint Lawrence Raiders by issuing a statement earlier today, declaring that his Champlain Army will potentially embark on a 'punitive expedition' should the raids not cease..."
Isaac groaned. For the second time in about a week, he laid in the hospital bed at the Academy medical center. The unfamiliar ceiling rapidly grew familiar to him.
After the fight with Alfie, Isaac came here mostly because his first-time use of the Rddhi had knocked him out cold; he only needed to sleep it off. All the little cuts and scrapes and bruises were just surface wounds, and Ms. Mogami helped the burned arm heal in no time.
This time, however, Isaac laid in his bed, feeling the subdued ache of patched-up gunshot wounds on his left arm and overuse in his right arm. Gunshot wounds were relatively easy to fix; Ms. Mogami, the school nurse, had healing powers of her own and used them to dull the pain of bullet holes and accelerate the recovery process, so by the time she left Isaac alone, the holes were already halfway done with fixing themselves.
"You're lucky Rddhi users have accelerated healing, otherwise that arm might have been bunk for weeks," Mogami said, her voice sweet.
The smoking arm, on the other hand, was slightly more difficult, namely because it came from a combination of Rddhi overuse and overconcentration.
"Overconcentration?" Isaac asked as Ms. Mogami gently placed her hands on Isaac's arm and began accelerating the (already accelerated) internal healing process.
"For most Rddhi users, Rddhi flows through their entire body," Ms. Mogami explained. Her auburn hair went down to her shoulders and Isaac guessed she was in her mid-thirties, similar to Shokahu. "So, for most people, the Rddhi is distributed evenly. You, on the other hand, have all your Rddhi concentrated in that righteous right arm of yours."
"I've never been able to activate the Rddhi with my left arm," Isaac supposed. He wouldn't admit it, but he did like feeling Ms. Mogami's soft, gentle grip.
"Get that fool of a teacher of yours to teach you someday," Ms. Mogami said playfully.
"You mean Mr. Shokahu?" Isaac asked.
Ms. Mogami winked. "To me, he's Frank."
With that, Ms. Mogami let go of his arm and smiled in farewell.
"...Frank?" Isaac called out after her, but no response came. Left by himself, and with the healing process sapping his strength, Isaac let himself fall asleep again.
"...the Canadian government has officially protested General Marco's declaration, stating that New England has no right to interfere with their internal affairs. This statement, of course, has come in the wake of the turmoil in eastern Canada that has resulted in lawlessness and anarchy reigning in much of Quebec and New Brunswick..."
"Turn that off, will ya?"
Isaac's neighbor for the past few hours had been Reed, who fell asleep soon after arriving and was only waking now.
Before she fell asleep, Reed appeared comfortable with the whole broken arm thing.
"I was thinking, right?" Reed said as Loper and Axelman helped her into bed. The two saluted at her and Isaac – earnestly, with respect – and departed.
"You think?" Isaac absent-mindedly commented, more focused on the equality the soldiers had just treated him with for the first time.
"I've been known too," Reed answered dryly. "But anyway, I've been thinking, right? You know those real emotional scenes in Japanimations?"
Isaac had to stifle a laugh. Both of them were dealing with injures, hers far more serious this his, and her first thoughts in the aftermath were about television.
"What about them?" Isaac asked, not sure where she was going with this.
Reed used her good arm to prop herself up in bed. Her right arm was heavily bandaged, with the rest of her body covered in a patchwork array of gauze to cover the random slashes and cuts she got in the sewers. "It'll be a scene with two characters. The guy says something real negative about himself. Then the girl says something like, 'Don't worry, Protagonist-kun. I think you'll be fine.'"
"...yeah?"
"And then she does this."
Reed closed her eyes and leaned her head forward, letting out a small noise as she smiled.
Isaac raised an eyebrow.
She opened her eyes and the usual dour look returned to her face. "You see? The girl always does a closed-eye smile."
"A closed-eye smile?"
Reed nodded. "Her face moves forward a little bit, she closes her eyes, and she smiles. There might even be that little Japanimation noise thing they do."
Isaac thought about it for a moment.
"Alright, I get what you mean, but what are you getting at?"
"Why do they do that?" Reed asked. "That's not a normal human thing. I've never seen someone move their head forward and do a closed-eye smile."
"It's a cliché I guess," Isaac supposed. He thought about it some more. "You know, you actually got a point, Reed. I've never seen anybody do that. Is it like a Japanese thing? Why do they do that?"
No answer came. From the slight rise and fall of her chest, Isaac realized Reed had fallen asleep.
Hours later, back in the present, Isaac glanced at the radio.
"It's important news," Isaac said, looking back at Reed from across the gap between their beds. "There's been a lot of tension in Upper Vermont recently."
"Let the people in Upper Vermont worry about that."
Isaac noticed the usual bored fire in her voice wasn't there. She just sounded tired.
Even though he didn't agree with her reasoning, Isaac turned the radio off.
The two were silent for a moment.
"I'm sorry," Isaac said.
Reed raised an eyebrow.
"For what?"
Isaac struggled to find the right words. "I think...I mean, I don't really know what you're going through or anything, right? I think I do take things a little too seriously sometimes and that can hurt our friendship. I argue with you a lot but maybe it would be better for me to let things go. So...I'm sorry."
Reed thought about the words.
"It's alright."
The silence hung in the sterile air of the medical room.
Isaac coughed. "This is the part where you apologize too, you know?"
"What for?"
Not the usual fire. Just tired.
"Friendships go two ways."
Reed sighed.
"Alright. I admit, I can occasionally be a little...abrasive. Sometimes I'm not real pleasant to deal with. I appreciate you guys sticking with me despite it all. And for all the times I lie or do something selfish, I'm...I'm..."
Isaac couldn't believe what he was hearing. Reed usually placed herself on a pedestal; she never backed down, never admitted her own faults. So, to hear her be honest like this, Isaac found himself looking at her in a way he never looked at her before.
She sat upright in the hospital bed, except she was actually slightly hunched over, as if to protect herself. Her hair was a light brown that looked so faded it almost appeared gray, as if the life got sucked out of it, as it tumbled messily down to her shoulders. Her eyes were green and clear and the circles beneath them dark. This was a version of Reed that Isaac had never noticed before. Reed was usually so confident, so larger than life, that he never realized how small and vulnerable she could actually be.
"I'm sorry."
Isaac was so focused on this new way of looking at her that he almost didn't notice those two magical words Reed had never said before in living memory.
"It's alright."
The two friends looked at each other in comfortable silence.
"I see what you mean now!" Isaac realized.
"See?" Reed pointed out. "Right there, that would be the moment in a Japanimation where you close your eyes and smiled."
"I just don't get it! Why would I close my eyes? It's a good time to smile, but the closed-eye smile? I just don't get it!"
"Who would do something like that? Makes no sense."
The two of them laughed for a while.
"I mean, it's ridiculous. Every Japanimation does it." Reed started counting on her fingers. "Melody Nonoka - right in the opening credits, for Christ's sake. Spirit Hunter. Hell, even Banana Split, the greatest cultural achievement humanity has ever produced, even Banana Split has the closed-eye smile."
Isaac crossed his arms - well, he crossed the overused arm, the relatively good one at the moment. "Are you still on about that show?"
Reed looked at Isaac the way someone would look at a person who had accidentally run over someone, then ran over them again to make sure they were dead to avoid paying for that person's medical care (funerals and criminal penalties were cheaper). "Are you serious? The way you say it. 'That show'. Banana Split is the pinnacle of humanity's creative output."
Isaac shook his head. "It's alright. But pinnacle? Are you telling me something like Banana Split is better than, I don't know, the Mona Lisa? The Sistine Chapel? The Golden Gate Bridge?"
"You're telling me some random bridge blown up two hundred years ago is better than Banana Split?"
Isaac was growing rather incensed. "I'll have you know the Golden Gate Bridge was declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Engineers, and I have to assume they knew what they were talking about. Banana Split is from two hundred years ago, too, and it couldn't even get a second season!"
Reed leaned back on her bed, resting her head on her pillow. "It was unappreciated in its time. All they do in that show is talk. Talk about trees, talk about television, talk about little mysteries in life, like who took the club's last thing of pudding? There's even an entire episode where the two leads just talk about Japanimations."
Isaac took a sip of water from the glass on the table next to his bed. "That really interests you? The two leads talking about a Japanimation?"
Reed nodded with passion. "Extremely. Because that's how life oughta be." She raised her bandaged, mangled limb. "No broken arms, no death, no war, no poverty or disease or nothing. Life should be carefree. It's how it used to be. We were born two hundred years too late. Isn't that a shame?"
Isaac wasn't really about to agree with her - in fact, he was about to emphatically argue the opposite - but their conversation was interrupted by the sudden opening of the hospital room door.
"You guys!" Audrey greeted, breathing heavily, as if she had ran the whole way here, probably because she did.
Isaac gave a relaxed wave. "Hey, Audrey."
"You got the donuts?" Reed asked.
Audrey raised the Calvin's Corner bag in her hand. "Even better! You see, you wanted jelly, and Isaac wanted anything but jelly, so I compromised by getting blueberry muffins!"
Audrey handed a muffin over to Reed, who looked at it in her hands with a mute expression and blank face.
Isaac let out an amused sigh. He didn't understand the logic – no one could have – but food was food, and Isaac realized he was starving. Audrey gave him one and stood between the foots (feet?) of their bed, smiling.
"Hey, Audrey, we have something to say," Isaac began, looking a little forcefully over Reed. Reed sighed and relented.
Audrey looked at them in confusion.
"Reed and I did a lot of things and said a lot of things down there," Isaac admitted. "But after going through a morning of hell with you guys, I think maybe some of those things were uncalled for."
He looked over at Reed, who shifted a little in her bed. "Alright," Reed said. "I didn't take the mission seriously enough and could've got you guys hurt."
"And I took it too seriously and almost got you guys hurt, too. So, from now, we'll try to take things at an appropriate level of seriousness, okay? We'll form solid plans, go in with a clear head. Sound good?"
"Wow, I'm impressed, you guys," Audrey exclaimed, handing over another muffin to Reed. "It's pretty funny, you know? Reed fought someone who took things very seriously, and Isaac fought someone who wasn't that serious. It's like, you fought your opposites, and learned a valuable lesson along the way! Isn't life fantastic like that?"
Reed handed the stumps of the two muffins back to Audrey.
"I only eat the muffin tops," Reed explained dryly.
Audrey looked at the leftover stumps mutely. "...you're going to hell, Reed, you really are."
"I'll see you there."
"Well, wherever we go, as long as it's us three going there, nothing can stop us!" Audrey looked at both of them. "So let's stick together in the future, alright?"
Audrey leaned over with her eyes closed and smiled, even making a soft noise full of friendship.
Isaac and Reed looked at each other.
"I could definitely beat an orangutan in a fist fight," Reed confidently declared, still sitting in the hospital bed. She went to cross her arms, but one arm was in a sling.
"You have absolutely no chance," Isaac told her from his own bed. "Before they went extinct, orangutans would climb around trees and swing from them and stuff. Think of how strong their arms are. Once he gets a hold of you, it's game over."
"You act like I'd let him get his hands on me," Reed countered. "I'd just give him a quick hit to the nose to stun him. That's how you beat up a shark too. Just hit 'em in the nose."
"Sharks don't have arms, so how would you fight one?" Audrey asked.
"Very carefully," Reed answered dryly. "And as for you Isaac, Mr. I Know So Much About Monkeys, it's not about the size of the dog in the fight, it's about the size of the fight in the dog."
"It's about who has arms of steel and who has arms that only have human strength. And just so you know, orangutans aren't monkeys. They're different."
Reed looked over at Audrey. "See what I mean with this guy?"
The door to the hospital room slid open. Upon seeing the man entering, Reed immediately frowned and clenched her good fist; Isaac looked at him in saddened betrayal; Audrey didn't understand their reactions, so she aped them both by looking both sad and angry.
Mr. Shokahu sighed. "I'm glad you guys made it back."
"Oh, really?" Reed asked in angered disbelief. "I seem to recall you stating that there was only one guy down there. Unless your Rddhi Detection Network screwed the pooch, then you tricked us, Mr. 'My Family Is Gonna Follow The Japanimation Naming Convention Of Using Imperial Japanese Navy Ship Names As Last Names, Except My Family Misspelled Shokaku And Instead Used Shokahu.'"
Mr. Shokahu let her finish.
"...fair enough," he simply said. "I admit, I did trick you guys."
Reed felt smug about being right, so smug that she forgot why she was angry. Isaac simmered in his bed, but at least Shokahu was honest about his dishonesty. Audrey seemed to be in her own world of hurt confusion. Something extra was there, and Isaac briefly wondered what it was.
But he brought his attention back to Shokahu. "Why'd you trick us?"
Mr. Shokahu sighed. "I didn't want to. The higher-ups ordered it. But I could've said no, so I won't blame you guys for blaming me."
"Good. Because I do blame you."
Shokahu's face remained mellow. "That's understandable, Reed, if that's your prerogative. But anyway, trick is a strong word. Lie by omission might be a better way to put it."
"Lie by omission?" Isaac repeated.
"You guys have to remember. We're training with the Rddhi for the next war. All our training sessions, school curriculums, they're designed to produce the best soldiers for the next war."
The next war, Isaac mentally repeated. The next war. The capstone to the New England mindset, coming all the way from the Presidential Administration. The next war. To avenge the loss in the last one.
Isaac understood the deception better now.
But a part of him didn't understand the relationship between avenging a loss and what happened to Myra. He simply decided to file that issue away deep in the back of his mind for a later time.
"In combat, you won't always have all the facts on you," Shokahu continued. "You'll have to make decisions on the fly. And based on the post battle analysis, it seems like you guys did...well, you survived."
"We learned a lesson about teamwork," Isaac said. "Next time, we can apply that lesson."
"Then it's a mission well-done. You got the two agents and secured the tunnels. Should be less infiltrators now. I'll tell Stockham the good news."
Mr. Shokahu rose, but his departure was interrupted by Audrey. Her eyes remained unusually downcast as she spoke. "Where did the lie start?"
Isaac and even Reed were surprised by the sullenness in her voice.
Mr. Shokahu's face remained expressionless. "Your friend Mackenzie and the Rddhi Detection Network, they detected two people and informed us that there were two. The higher-ups and myself were the ones who decided to tell you there was only one. Don't think Mackenzie and her friends lied to you. They assumed we told you that there was going to be two people. If they never mentioned two people, it's just because it never came up in conversation."
Mr. Shokahu reached for the door. "Your classmates will always have your back. Make sure you guys stick together. Monday morning, you'll be missing second period to meet with me individually to record your after action reports."
Reed pumped her fist. "Hell yeah, no biology. Who cares about organelles anyway?"
Audrey was less enthusiastic.
"Did Esther...know? Did Esther know there were two people? And did she know you guys were telling us there was only going to be one?"
Shokahu remained quiet for a moment. "Ask her that yourself," he finally said. He departed, leaving the three friends to reflect on it.
Audrey wiped her eyes. "I'm sure she didn't know. And if she did know...well, I got you guys, right?"
"You can count on me!" Isaac declared. He looked expectantly at Reed.
"Well, you know me. I don't like being open with my feelings or whatever, but, well..." Reed shrugged with a small smile. "I got your back, Audrey."
"Ah, you guys!" Audrey rose and went to bear hug Reed.
It looked like Reed didn't particularly enjoy Audrey climbing into her bed and giving her the mother of all hugs, but the sigh that escaped her lips seemed like it came from a place of relief and appreciation.
"Alright, alright..."
Curley Park, located a block away from the Suffolk Apartments. Sunset. Behind power lines and high rises, the sun dipped below the horizon, sending off warm rays of orange and purple as it went. Audrey tossed her empty steak and cheese bag from Calvin's Corner into the black receptacle in the park. She took a moment to admire the view, the way the swaying trees melted into the autumnal setting sun. As Audrey stepped away from the trashcan, she felt something crunching underneath it. Lifting her foot revealed a flattened, auburn leaf. Audrey laughed to herself and then continued on.
Isaac, one arm in a sling, stood next to a merry-go-round, once a shining yellow, now more of a brownish shade. On the merry-go-round sat Reed, one arm in a sling, the other wrapped tightly around a metal bar.
"Are you sure about this, Reed?" Audrey asked as she arrived back at the merry-go-round.
"It's a Sunday sunset," Reed explained. "The worst sight in the world. It means you're locked into the new week and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Aw, c'mon, Reed, school's not that bad!"
Reed pointed to her sling. "I break my arm for this school and they can't even give me a day off."
Audrey sat near her on the merry-go-round, gripping a metal bar of her own. "It's another day you get to see our bright shining faces."
Reed thought about it for a moment.
"Spin me, Isaac."
"Yeah, yeah."
Isaac pushed the merry-go-round with his good arm, sending it around a few times until it spun rapidly own its own. The girls inside laughed and laughed, mostly Audrey, but Reed had that small smile on her face, and Isaac supposed he liked the view of the whole thing, sunset on an endless merry-go-round, spinning to infinity.
"Hiya, Isaac!"
Isaac recognized the easygoing voice and saw the two classmates approaching. "Hey, what brings you guys here? Passing through?"
Lynn lifted the bag in her hand. "Me and Mackenzie made some food and we're bringing leftovers to the Rddhi Detection Network members. They live around here."
From the way Mackenzie looked like she didn't want to bring up her own generosity, Isaac supposed she was alright, that Mackenzie, with her own occasional humility.
If only she didn't have that dumb rivalry with Reed!
Speaking of that, Isaac realized the merry-go-round had slowed down. In the span it took Isaac to give a long sigh at what he was seeing, Reed slid off the merry-go-round, reached into her backpack, and targeted Mackenzie. The stupid water balloon filled with sewer water!
Reed launched it as hard as she could. Her aim seemed to be dead-on, heading right for her face-
A vortex ring of energy came out of Mackenzie. As the ring struck the balloon, Isaac expected the pressure to pop it, but instead, the balloon's speed slowed significantly. Carried by Mackenzie's manipulation of the Rddhi, the sewer water balloon landed calmly in her hand.
Reed realized the tables had turned. She raised her wounded arm.
"You wouldn't hit a cripple, would you?"
Mackenzie chuckled, then winded up. Reed sighed, accepting her fate-
When the balloon struck Reed square in the forehead, it didn't explode. Instead, it made a sound of solid impact. Reed immediately fell over backwards, eyes closed.
"Reed!" Mackenzie called out.
"It was Panama," Isaac realized. "When she was fighting him, he must've changed the viscosity of the water in the balloon. You basically threw an ice ball at her!"
"You think it's my fault?" Mackenzie held Reed's unconscious head, a small red mark on her forehead where the balloon hit her.
"How'd you not notice when it was in your hand?" Isaac questioned.
Mackenzie swallowed as Lynn knelt to her. "This all happened pretty effing fast, in case you didn't notice!"
"Aw, she'll be alright, fellas," Lynn said calmly. She hoisted Reed up onto her back and held her there carefully. "Let's just get her back to the hospital, easy."
The four began a sheepish walk toward the nearest bus station.
Reed blinked, realized what had happened, and sighed. At least Lynn, even after she realized Reed was awake, kept carrying her, smiling all the way.
"You know, this is funny," Audrey supposed aloud. "Well, sort of funny, right? Reed was going to throw that at you, but you ended up throwing it at her! It's ironic, right? I like when something from earlier on gets brought back later. It all ties together really neatly, you know?"
Lynn plucked a nearby reed as they exited the park and handed it up to Reed, who let it hang in her mouth.
"I think that's something we can all appreciate," Reed supposed.
They walked into the setting sun.
