Lagoon

by Nnedi Okorafor

  Adaora looked up at her, pleading silently. She didn’t know what she was asking for but she was pleading. These aliens had come in peace. Had come. Had.

  Ayodele turned to the bloody lumps, and Adaora hid her face in Kola’s neck. “It’s going to be fine,” she murmured into her daughter’s ear. She heard the sound of marbles again. And when she looked up this time, she hoped that Ayodele would be gone. She was not. But the wet piles of meat, the scattered clothes, even the spattered blood, were gone as though they had never been there.

  In their place was a plantain tree, heavy with unripe plantain. Adaora stared at it, understanding what had happened. She felt like both vomiting and sighing with relief. Ayodele had taken the elements of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium that had been Benson and the other soldiers and rearranged them into a plant. Does the soul transform too? Adaora wondered. She’d never believed in God, but she was a scientist and knew that matter could be neither created nor destroyed. It just changed form.

  “Are you happy with that?” Ayodele snapped at Adaora.

  Adaora nodded.

  “I am not,” Ayodele said. She walked toward the gate. In the emptying street, a few people were fighting, some were gawking, others crying, but most of them fleeing. Adaora’s mouth fell open as she noticed this for the first time. She’d been so focused on what was happening in the yard that she hadn’t realized that something worse had happened in the street! There were bodies lying on the road, wounded people crawling to safety, a car burning, people crying. Adaora could hear the sound of glass breaking.

  “Don’t,” Kola whispered. She cringed at the pain in her arm. She was looking at Ayodele, now halfway across the yard. “We need you.”

  Adaora looked at her daughter, shocked. No! No, leave us. Keep going, she thought to Ayodele. I beg you.

  Somehow, over all the noise, Ayodele heard Kola’s soft words. She stopped.

  “I’m sorry that you hurt,” Kola said weakly. “So do I.”

  Ayodele came back to them. Chris got to his feet and picked up Fred, backing away from Ayodele as she knelt beside Kola. There were tears in Ayodele’s eyes. Adaora put a protective arm around Kola as Ayodele looked at them. As Adaora watched, two tiny, dented metal objects fell from beneath Ayodele’s brown gown; one landed in the grass beside her, and the other landed on her thigh and tumbled to the grass. It was still hot, but not enough to burn. A bullet.

  Ayodele looked into Adaora’s eyes. Adaora held her breath. The warm, curious, lighthearted being that Ayodele had been was gone. The eyes Adaora looked into now were those of an angry, bitter old woman. Adaora didn’t move away with Kola as Ayodele leaned closer. It was instinct. Despite the look on Ayodele’s face, Adaora knew this creature would not harm her child. Ayodele unwrapped the tight bandage from Kola’s arm. Blood immediately began to seep out of the wound.

  “Mommy,” Kola moaned. Adaora took her other hand.

  “It’s okay,” Adaora whispered.

  The expression on Ayodele’s face softened as she ran her hand over the blood on Kola’s arm. Wherever her hand touched, it absorbed the blood like a sponge. Soon, there was only the bullet wound left. Adaora’s stomach clenched at the sight of it. Ayodele lightly touched the injury, and her hand seemed to disintegrate into a colorful mist like the type one would see rising from a waterfall in the early-morning sun. Kola tensed as the mist sank into her arm.

  “Does it hurt?” Adaora asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

  “Feels like ants,” Kola whimpered. “I hate ants. I hate ants, Mommy!”

  “They are not ants, dear,” Ayodele said, her voice gentle and soft, almost as it had been before. “It is me. I am speaking with you. Rebuild yourself, Kola.”

  Kola closed her eyes, and Adaora could have sworn she felt heat pulse from her daughter. She smelled smoke.

  “Good,” Ayodele said. “Become better.”

  Kola was breathing heavily now and frowning, her eyes still shut. Now Adaora could actually see the acrid-smelling smoke lifting from her daughter’s arm. It was thick and white and rose lazily into the air like incense.

  When Ayodele took her hand away, the hole was gone. Kola took one look at her healed flesh and then leaned forward and vomited, coughing between heaves from the smoke.

  “It is overwhelming,” Ayodele said flatly. Adaora didn’t think she sounded all that overwhelmed.

  Something crashed, but not from the street. Adaora looked up at her house. “Oh my God!”

  The smell of smoke hadn’t come from her daughter’s healed arm. Something in the house was on fire. Her husband, Anthony, and the soldier who’d been helping Kola ran inside. Ayodele followed at a walk. Adaora scrambled to her feet, hesitated, and then followed, dragging Kola and Fred.

  While Ayodele had been transforming the soldiers, dispelling bullets from her flesh, and healing Kola’s arm, looters had stolen Chris and Adaora’s televisions and computers. They’d tracked in dirt and destroyed the back door. And someone had purposely turned on the gas stove and tried to set some yams from the pantry on fire. Chris put out the smoldering tubers with the fire extinguisher. The soldier, whose name was Hassam, helped too, though he had a glazed look of shock and confusion in his eyes. “That woman healed the child,” he said, turning the stove off and opening a window. “She kills and gives life.”

  Adaora sat the children at the kitchen table, and Ayodele sat across from them. She made a fist and rested it on the table. To Adaora, this was worse than slamming it. She paused, glancing at her husband, who was a few steps away. Then she went to check on her lab. The lab’s door was closed. A good sign.

  “I hate humans,” Ayodele said. Adaora could hear her clearly, even though Ayodele was in the kitchen and she was down the hall. “I want nothing to do with you,” Ayodele continued. “Any of you.”

  Adaora frowned, about to go back to the kitchen. She trusted Ayodele to not hurt her children, but that was as far as her trust went. Ayodele had caused those men to explode and then turned them into a tree. That’s what one got for trying to kill her. . . . Could she even be killed? Adaora didn’t know. Maybe Ayodele responded so strongly because they made her experience pain, Adaora thought. The way she was screaming and thrashing, she was not just in pain, she was shocked to be in it. Whatever the reason, it clearly wasn’t good to get on her bad side. Adaora brought out the key to her lab as she grasped the door’s knob. Her heart was racing.

  “Do you hate all of us?” she heard Kola ask Ayodele. “You just saved me.”

  Before inserting the key, Adaora tried the door knob. It turned. “Shit,” Adaora hissed. She leaned her head against the door, tears rolling down her cheeks. She focused on the voice of her children in the kitchen.

  “And just because a few humans acted stupid, it doesn’t mean we’re all stupid,” she heard Fred add. “We learned that in school. And you’re much smarter than everyone at school put together.”

  Adaora smiled, wiping away her tears.

  “And you can’t cause all that has happened and then just leave,” Kola said firmly. “You said you had a mission! That you were the am . . . ambah-sidoor, remember?”

  “I will think about it,” Ayodele said.

  Adaora went into her lab. As she descended the stairs, she could practically feel it. Yes, people had been down here. The broken lock made that clear. As soon as she’d turned on the lights, she turned them right back off again. She’d seen all she needed to see. Nothing was on fire. But the floors were wet from the smashed aquarium, the limp bodies of her beloved fish already drying. The television and computer were gone. The place was ransacked. They did all this while we were fighting for our lives in the front yard, she thought. What kind of people would do that? But she knew the answer. It didn’t take much in Lagos. All it took was a semi-peaceful alien invasion to destroy ev
erything she held dear. Well, nearly everything. Her children were alive and happy.

  She went back up.

  * * * *

  “Sit,” Anthony told Chris. The children were upstairs in Kola’s room, asleep, and Adaora was watching over them. Downstairs, Ayodele watched out the window with the soldier Hassam.

  In the kitchen, Chris sat down at the table. Anthony placed the large bowl of cold jollof rice before Chris and dug a spoon into it. The power was out, and it would have been crazy to turn on the generator; the noise would attract more attention. Plus, the microwave had been stolen.

  “Eat,” he said.

  “Do you think she’s an angel, then?” Chris asked.

  Anthony shook his head. “Not at all, chale. You need to start thinking outside the box, my friend.”

  Chris frowned at him, frowned at the rice, and frowned at the spoon in the rice. He slowly picked it up. Then he ate, and as he ate, he began to feel better. Anthony crossed his arms over his chest, watching him.

  Upstairs, Adaora leaned against the wall, glad her two children were asleep before her. They were okay. Both of them. She felt emotion swell in her chest as she allowed herself to remember Kola being shot. The blood. The pain on her eight-year-old face. Adaora took a deep breath and steadied herself. When she turned to go downstairs, she realized that she was floating three inches above the ground. My idiot husband is right, she thought numbly. I am a witch.

  Outside, Lagos rioted and aliens invaded.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE EKO HOTEL

  They walked up the beach and into Lagos. All were well dressed. All were dry. There were about a hundred of them. They were solemn. Not serene like Ayodele. Though they did not shamble along, though they looked alive and well, they reminded Agu of zombies. It was something about the way they had walked out of the water and seemed so indifferent about doing so. As he sat there facing the ocean, his back to Lagos, he felt present at the death of something. The death of Lagos. The death of Nigeria. Africa. Everything?

  He squinted, the salt on his drying face stinging his eyes. The surf slapped his ankles as it rushed in and out, slowly retreating to its normal level. The spacecraft in the sky (this was all Agu could think to call it), spread across the entire near-dark horizon, hovering above the water. Shifting and undulating, peaks rising and melting and rising again. It was too far out for him to tell just how high it hovered over the water. Or what sound it made, if it made sound.

  Something huge and snakelike leaped out of the water. It arched in the air, twisting in a spiral and noiselessly dropping back into the depths. At least ten gray sharklike fins all in a row surfaced not far from shore. They—or it—sharply turned and headed farther out to sea. What have they done to the ocean? he wondered, pulling at his soaked clothes. He coughed as he inhaled a whiff of smoke. He could hear the distant crash of shattering glass, shouting, shots being fired, echoes of raucous laughter. Something had happened while he was out at sea. Wet warmth dribbled down his face, and he touched the cut on his forehead.

  “Dammit,” he moaned, leaning back on his elbows. His head ached, and his entire body felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He’d deal with the cut later. He’d deal with himself later. He coughed again as he pulled off his shirt. He wrung it out, the water spattering on his soaked boots, and put it back on. He was alive, and worse things had happened. He chuckled. This wasn’t the first invasion of Nigeria, after all.

  He trudged across the sand, then through the back roads to Adetokunbo Ademola Street. Here, the sound of many voices, honking horns, the patter of hundreds of feet increased the closer he got. He walked up an alley to the street, and for the first time, he saw what was happening.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed. “What in God’s name . . . ?”

  He couldn’t move; he became two eyes and a sinking stomach. The streets were full of people. A group of teenage girls ran by screaming, looking over their shoulders like they’d seen a ghost. There was a fight going on across the street. A group of boys was smashing car and building windows with wooden planks and hammers. They jumped on and kicked at unfortunate vehicles that had to slow down as they tried to get down the congested road.

  Several buildings were on fire. Competing music blasted from multiple places. There was a sudden rush as a white man ran by, pursued by ten Area Boys all shouting, “Stranger! Kill am! Kill the stranger! ” The man rounded a corner and the boys followed. After a moment, Agu heard the sounds of cheering and laughing and one voice screaming.

  To step into this nightmare was to step into the unknown. He’d seen such chaos before, when he was sent north during fresh riots between Christians and Muslims. He’d learned the hard way that he could never trust people during such times. Anyone could get swept in to the mob’s violent mentality at any moment.

  He spotted police and soldiers trying to break up a particularly large fight between many men. He felt a stab of guilt. He was supposed to be with them, working to restore peace and order. He shook his head and stepped into the street. No, he thought, remembering Benson and the others assaulting the woman and then beating him up when he tried to stop it. All that’s changed. He stepped back into the shadow of one of the beach shops and reached into his pocket, feeling for the piece of paper with Anthony’s phone number on it. It was mush, soaked through from the water. Slightly panicked, he ran through the number in his head. Relief. He remembered it clearly.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he called to a man rushing by. “Sir, abeg, may I borrow your phone?”

  The man stopped and turned to him with eyes so wild that Agu stepped back.

  “Eh,” the man said, frowning and stepping toward Agu. “My phone, you say?”

  There was a loud crash. Agu and the man whipped around. There were cheers as someone smashed through a computer storefront window. The alarm went off as over thirty people rushed in, then it died. Agu could hear the people inside.

  “Yes,” Agu said, fighting to focus. “I just . . . I just need . . .”

  “Why?” the man said, now narrowing his eyes. “Why do you want to use my phone? What for?”

  “To reach my friends,” Agu begged. “Please, o. Something is happening on Bar Beach, I have to—”

  “Your friends? What about Bar Beach, eh? Are you one of them?” the man gasped, stepping farther away. He spoke in Igbo. “Do you want to communicate with them?”

  “What?” Agu asked in English.

  The man turned on his heel and ran off, as did a few others who had heard what the man said. Agu felt the air leave his lungs; something was very wrong. Looters, rioters, several of them stopped to stare at him. Some moved toward him. A group of Area Boys gathered to his left.

  “This man!” a woman shouted, pointing at Agu. She had short wild hair and no shoes. She looked like she’d just walked out of the ocean herself. “He is one of them! Look am. Get am! He is one of them! I saw him go into the ocean last night and come out!” Her eyes bulged with madness. “He was taken by the aliens and infected with alien disease!”

  Agu felt a flash of rage toward Ayodele. What has she done?! But he was trapped. All he could do was turn and run like hell. The Area Boys and who knew how many others gave chase. They came at Agu from all directions, but he dodged them. He ran past a burning car. He leaped over two women fighting. He crunched over the glass of a broken window in front of a burning building. Then something smashed against the side of his head and crashed to the ground. A bottle. Coca-Cola? he wondered. The gods must really be crazy.

  He stumbled, his head hurting. But he had to admit, he did not feel like a man who’d just been smashed upside the head with a glass bottle. He felt . . . fine. He touched the spot where he’d been hit and pressed it. No pain. No swelling. But his hand came away bloody. The other cut was still seeping. He was okay. But the rage that was already boiling in him surged. This time toward the people who’d just tried
to kill him . . . for being something he was not. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

  A man ran up and punched him in the face. “Kill you,” the man growled. He punched Agu again. Two other men joined in, kicking him in the small of his back and kneeing him in the balls. His goddamn balls! Yet it didn’t hurt. He felt nothing but a fresh hot flare of fury, and it filled his entire being.

  He grabbed the man who’d kneed him, brought his fist back, and smashed him in the belly. The man flew back, his arm denting the side of a car before he tumbled over it and fell into a group of onlookers like a meteorite crashing to earth. Everyone on the street went completely silent, staring at the pile of unmoving people, knocked over like bowling pins; the man Agu had grabbed lay among them, one of his legs twisted in a bizarre direction. Agu blinked, his mind calming, the red clearing.

  So Agu, the soldier, trained to defend people during a time of need, who had instead probably just killed someone, turned and ran like hell.

  * * * *

  Shouting, fighting, breaking, laughing, running, hiding: This was the scene on Adetokunbo Ademola Street. Agu needed a mobile phone. But something had happened while he was riding the manatee, and now asking to use one suddenly seemed like a bad, bad idea. Thankfully, Agu had a plan B.

  He stumbled up a manicured driveway to the luxurious Eko Hotel, skirting around the over-maintained palm trees and past the locked-up gift shop. As it was a haven for expats, he’d expected the place to be like a fortress. The Eko Hotel was made for times like this. Instead it was surrounded by skittish armed security guards who barely said a word to him as he passed. They let him, because he knew every single one of them. He’d known them for years. Thank­fully, for the moment, the rioters weren’t focused on the Eko Hotel, but Agu had a feeling that the respite was only temporary. Any symbol of wealth in Lagos would eventually become a target.