Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

“Ayodele,” she whispered. “Thank God.”

All around, people began to scream and press their hands to their ears as they stared into Adaora’s yard. There were the clicking sounds of guns being raised and aimed. But all Adaora saw was the creased, starved, unshaven, raging face of her husband as he swung her by the arm and slammed her against the fence.

Moziz looked out the open door at the surging crowd. “We need comot for here, jo !” he shouted. “Now!” At his words, Ayodele the lizard became Ayodele the woman. Tolu whimpered, still clutching his gun, and backed into the house. They all followed, including Philo, fleeing into the house and out the back door to Troy, who waited in Moziz’ car.

“Where she dey?” Troy asked, as they threw themselves into the Nissan.

“Drive!” Moziz shouted. They peeled out exactly one minute before soldiers and police flooded into the narrow road behind Adaora’s house like water flooding a beach.

This time when he attacked her, nothing magical happened. He wasn’t held down by some mysterious force or anything like that. Then again, this time she felt no fear, no desperation, no shock. And she wasn’t alone with him in their home, as she had been last night; there were soldiers and a mob around her. But still, she realized, she’d expected the strange force to have its effect, if necessary. She could make it happen.

Oh God , she thought.

It took two soldiers to pull Chris off Adaora. They wrestled him to the ground. Adaora grasped the gate for balance. She stared down at the man she’d lived with for over a decade who’d never ever laid a hand on her up until last night.

“Witch!” Chris sobbed, as a soldier pushed his head to the concrete.

Benson took her arm, more gently than before. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s move to the front. Maybe you can help.”

It was easy for them to get through the captivated crowd of fans, Christians, soldiers, Black Nexus members, curious passers-by and press people now. Even Father Oke was speechless, the metal cross in his hands forgotten.

Where a moment before there had been a tiny green lizard, a woman now stood. Ayodele, in the middle of the lawn, looking at the crowd.

“Mommy!” Fred shouted when he spotted Adaora through the fence. Anthony squinted then waved. Adaora waved back. At least she’s alive , Anthony thought. Before he could stop the child, Adaora’s son ran across the lawn to his mother. Anthony didn’t dare move. The crowd was bewildered, confused, frightened. Anything could set them off. They didn’t need to see him do anything but stay where he was.

As Fred ran towards Adaora, Ayodele looked down at Kola, who was still filming her. “You are doing a good job, Kola,” Ayodele said. Kola grinned and continued filming. “You see your mother?” She pointed and Kola looked.

“Mommy!” Kola said, waving.

Adaora waved back with her free hand. Fred had reached her and was holding her other hand through the gate.

“Keep the camera on me, Kola,” Ayodele instructed. Kola nodded, holding the camera up. She had about two hours of battery time left; she’d checked.

Ayodele looked over her captivated audience. She raised her chin and smiled.

“Greetings, people of Lagos,” she said.

The Lagos internet café was full of the usual suspects. There was the owner, Nonso Daouda, who sat behind his counter doing a poor job of not seeing what his customers did with his computers and internet connections. Then there were about twenty men between the ages of nineteen and forty – all were in the process of emailing, texting, chatting, researching. Some were legit, most were up to some sort of 419. There was also one woman chatting with her boyfriend overseas. There was not one person here who had not been here yesterday doing the exact same thing.

Suddenly all the screens blinked off. They came back on showing the face of a young woman, who called herself Ayodele. Everyone in the café sat back, watched and listened. One guy who’d been in the process of texting his sister was watching the beautiful woman with long braids on his mobile phone.

“We landed here in the night,” the woman said, her strange voice smooth and confident. The picture moved a bit. It was obvious that someone was holding the camera and trying his best to stay still. “From beyond earth. From space. You all will call us aliens. We are guests who wish to become citizens… here . We chose here. I am the first to come and I greet you.”

The Lagos restaurant served everything from Nigerian cuisine to Chinese food. Expats and locals alike frequented the place. That’s what gave The Tribe’s Calabash its reputation and popularity. Today it was full. But, now, all the eating and conversation had stopped. The eyes that weren’t watching the widescreen high-definition television on the wall were glued to mobile phones, computers, an iPad prototype, even e-readers, where the same slightly shaky footage aired.

“I apologize for the noise of our arrival and your rising waters from our landing,” Ayodele said. “Nobody is attacking you. And nobody will dare now. The winds of change are blowing. We are change. You will see.”

In a busy open-air market in the Central Nigerian city of Abuja, people crowded around a clunky television that was for sale in a used electronics booth.

“In less than twenty-four hours, I have seen love, hate, greed, ambition and obsession amongst you,” Ayodele said. “I have seen compassion, hope, sadness, insecurity, art, intelligence, ingenuity, corruption, curiosity and violence. This is life. We love life.”

Unoma was driving her old but wonderfully reliable off-white Peugeot down the Lagos Expressway listening to an Anthony Dey Craze song when her mobile phone buzzed. When she flipped it open to answer, the footage Kola was filming showed on the small screen.

Unoma worked hard to keep her eye on the road. “What the—?”

“Please, listen to me,” Ayodele was saying. “Consider me, consider us. As you have much to offer, so do we.”

Unoma pulled her car over to the side of the road to watch Ayodele on her phone. There were several cars in front of her that had also pulled over. Every single one was filled with people holding their mobile phones.

In Lagos, father, mother and boy child sat in their family room, watching the alien on their old television. The adults wondered if what they were witnessing was real. Or maybe this woman on TV claiming she was from outer space was some sort of elaborate hoax. The mother had flipped through the channels and the alien was speaking from every single one. But how hard could it be to take over Nigeria’s broadcasting networks?

The boy child soaked in every word. Why not? It was so cool, sha !

“We come to bring you together and refuel your future,” Ayodele said. “Your land is full of a fuel that is tearing you apart.”

In Saudi Arabia, the Nigerian president, the First Lady and two other officials, Yuusuf and Nicholas, were in the President’s hospital room watching Ayodele on Yuusuf’s mobile phone. It was a cheap phone he’d bought in Lagos. He hadn’t turned it on in weeks, since he’d arrived in Saudi Arabia with the President. Why would he, when his phone service didn’t reach outside of Nigeria? However, minutes ago, it had turned itself on and started communicating a most peculiar message from a strange woman.

“We do not seek your oil or your other resources,” she said. “We are here to nurture your world.”

A single thought went through the President’s mind: Benson was telling the truth .