Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

“We’re Nigerians. Just Nigerians,” the one who the people in the video called Agu said. Agu looked at the guy with supersonic powers and added, “And one Ghanaian.”

“Wow,” Nature whispered as she refreshed the screen so they could watch it yet again. “Apparently, they on some X-Men shit in Africa.” She took off her coat and sweater. “I don’t think any of this is real.” She wore an orange Baby Phat T-shirt underneath with a shiny pink cat design on the front. The many thin gold bangles on her wrists jingled as she sat down in front of her laptop.

“Yeah man, this can’t be real,” Shaquille said, sitting back at his desk as he watched his laptop screen. He waved a hand. “Don’t play it again yet. I need to think.” He picked up his hefty red headphones and then put them down, a perplexed frown on his face. He rarely took off his headphones, not even during class; he liked his world to have a soundtrack. But this warranted taking them off. Anything linked to what was going on in Africa did. He needed to hear the audio as clearly as he could, even if the audio was shit. He was still wearing his heavy leather coat, the chill from outside still in his bones. “Shit’s totally fake,” he muttered.

“‘The President of Nigeria Saved by Witches and Warlocks!’” Jordan read, bending forward and bringing his face close to the screen. He laughed. “All right, the title’s kinda fucked up but , oh my God, come on, Shaq. What’chu think all this is, then?” Jordan wore a black T-shirt with a drawing of a marijuana leaf in the center. Being skinny and quite tall, he was more comfortable standing than sitting at a cramped, hard-seated desk.

He stood up straight and stamped a Timberland boot on the floor. “The kid dying in the street – dying , man, you see him die – people there tweeting and posting claims about seeing aliens and shit, folks reporting fear and crazy-ass riots, this X-Men in the ocean craziness… you think it’s some Orwellian shit?” Jordan asked. “Like that War of the Worlds radio broadcast back in the day that caused all that panic? You think Nigerians are that gullible? In this day and age? And look at the ‘stars’ of the show. They black. Even the heroes are black. You think they gon’ spend they money to put somethin’ together that looks this real and actually allow black folks to star in it? Real Africans ? And then set it in Africa?” He guffawed with glee and shook his head. “Nah man, not gonna happen. This shit real. That’s the more likely scenario.”

Nature sucked her teeth and pulled up her low-riding skinny jeans. “Man, I don’t care about no uppity Africans anyway. What’s Africa ever done for me?” She sucked her teeth again. “I think Shaq’s right. Or…” She shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Ey, I hear you, Nature,” Jordan said. “Africa ain’t done nothing for us but enslave our ancestors. Won’t disagree with you there.” He grinned. “But look, come on, if anyone gon’ be flying around, shootin’ lasers outta they eyes or jumping in the water and making shock waves because they can , it would be a bunch of Africans .”

The three students had a good laugh at this and then watched the footage again. No matter how hard they looked, even their Hollywood-level special-effects-accustomed eyes could not spot a flaw or an anomaly in the footage. Even the great shark-like beast that the guy Agu supposedly punched out of the water looked real. This along with the mainstream news reports of terrorist activity and rioting in Nigeria and the significantly different, more individual reports circulating on various social media outlets of an “alien” invasion had caught the attention of many Americans. These three students were certainly not the only ones bothered and confused by the stories and footage coming out of Africa.

Nature opened and closed a textbook. After a moment, she opened it again and brought out her syllabus from her backpack. She looked up. “I’m just glad it’s all happening over there. It’s freaking me out.”

The two boys nodded.

“You think it’s gon’ stay there, though?” Jordan asked.

Nature shrugged.

“Whatever’s going on, it’ll probably make more sense tomorrow,” Shaquille said, placing his big red headphones back over his ears. He turned on his iPod and clicked on Drake’s “Successful”. He didn’t care for Drake but he loved this particular song. It was a rare moment of real hip-hop from a shitty whiny rapper. He took his coat off.

They took out their pens and highlighters and opened their textbooks to Chapter 1 in Chemistry: The Central Science . Spring semester was going to be tough and they had to get ahead to get more ahead. In the meantime, the world would take care of itself.

Thank you, Lagos, Nigeria for being Lagos, Nigeria. Two decades ago, I knew I’d write about you someday. And someday, you will be the greatest city in the world.

I’d like to thank my significant other, Taofik Yusuf, for his help with the grittier Nigerian Pidgin English sections of the novel and insisting that I change the title of this book from Lagos to Lagoon . Thanks to Nollywood director and friend Tchidi Chikere for his meticulous help with the Pidgin English sections, as well. Thanks to my ambitious editor, Anne Perry, for convincing me to keep these Pidgin English sections as I originally intended them, as opposed to toning them down. Thanks to Beegeagle for all his first-hand information on the Nigerian military. Thanks to the Ethiopian-American rapper and visionary Gabriel Teodros and New Orleans artist Soraya Jean-Louis McElroy for being Lagoon ’s first readers. Both of them loved the opening swordfish chapter and this fact meant a lot to me.

Thanks to the South African science fiction film District 9 for both intriguing and pissing me off so much that I started daydreaming about what aliens would do in Nigeria. This novel was birthed from my anger at District 9 , but it quickly became something else entirely.

And of course, last but not least, I’d like to thank my daughter, Anyaugo, who was the first person to hear the summary of Lagoon (back when it was still titled Lagos ). She loves Nigeria as much as I do, and she thought the story was utterly hilarious (especially the road monster parts).

Nnedi Okorafor is the author of numerous novels and short stories, including Zahrah the Windseeker , which won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, and Who Fears Death , winner of the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. She lives in Chicago, where she is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University.

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright © Nnedi Okorafor 2014

The right of Nnedi Okorafor to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.