Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

Sufficiently opiated by the words of his beloved priest, Chris felt better. He even gave a shaky smile. “I will, Father. Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

The digital video camera Adaora used when she went diving was old and its battery was dead. But it still worked when plugged in. She put the camera on a tripod and set a folding chair in front of the fish tank.

“Sit here,” she told Ayodele. Adaora felt thick and groggy. While Agu and Anthony had stayed up watching TV with Ayodele and talking, she’d curled up on the sofa and gotten a few hours of sleep.

Adaora peered into the camera’s window and was relieved when she could see Ayodele clearly. “OK, good,” she said. “Look this way.” She pointed at the camera’s lens. “Now, just talk, Ayodele, tell me about yourself.”

Ayodele smiled and nodded, gazing into the camera. Adaora shivered. If there was any strong hint of the alien in Ayodele’s appearance, it was in her eyes. When Adaora looked into them, she felt unsure… of everything. A college friend of hers used to say that everything human beings perceived as real was only a matter of the information their bodies recorded. “And that information isn’t always correct or complete,” he said. Back then, Adaora had dismissively rolled her eyes. Now, she understood.

“You have named me Ayodele. You people will call me an alien because I am from space, your outer heavens, beyond. I am what you all call an ambassador, the first to come and communicate with you people. I was sent. We landed in your waters and have been communicating with other people there and they’ve been good to us. Now we want your help.”

“What do you eat?” Adaora asked.

“We take in matter,” she said. “What we can find. Dust, stone, metal, elements. We alter whatever substance we find to suit us.”

Adaora smiled. “But you are most fond of my jollof rice and fried plantain.” Ayodele had eaten every scrap of food Adaora placed before her, and then several more platefuls, commenting the entire time about how enjoyable it all was. The only thing she hadn’t really liked was bread.

Ayodele smiled. “In this form, consuming your jollof rice and fried plantain gave me great pleasure. And what was it… garden eggs and yam.”

“You liked both of them raw… uncooked?” Adaora pressed.

“Yes, especially the garden eggs. The yam was nice, too, though. It heightened my senses.”

Adaora considered asking her for details of this but decided to move on instead. “Do you drink water?”

“In this form, yes.”

“Do you enjoy taking human form?”

Ayodele smiled. “Yes.”

“It’s easy?”

“After the first time, yes.”

“But it’s hard the first time?”

“It’s not easy.”

“How do you change?”

“We have control of all our parts, great and small, and the forces influencing them.”

“Can you die?” Adaora carefully asked.

Ayodele narrowed her eyes and looked at Adaora instead of at the camera. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because I’m a scientist,” Adaora said. “I just want to know, to understand.”

Ayodele turned back to the camera. “I prefer not to answer that.”

“Why?”

But Ayodele just looked at the camera and said nothing.

“OK, fine,” Adaora said, after a moment. “Did you bring me, Agu and Anthony together? Was that a coincidence? Why do all our names start with A?”

Across the room, Agu perked up.

“It was not a coincidence,” Ayodele said. “I am an ambassador. I know—”

“Wait a minute!” Agu jumped up and rushed over. “Did you make all that happen so we’d all be there at the same time? Did you make my superior and the others attack that girl? Did you make me—”

“We are change,” Ayodele calmly responded “The sentiments were already there. I know nothing about those other things.”

“But you pushed them over the edge!” Agu said, stepping into the camera’s view. “You hurt people! Do you understand that ? You… I’ve seen what you can do, what you all are! You…”

“Agu,” Adaora said. “I’m filming.”

He shot Adaora a look that was way too similar to the one she’d seen in her husband’s eyes. “Let me do this,” she added quietly. “Please.”

“Your husband slapped you!” he shouted. “Has he ever done that before?”

“No. But my husband and I have some… serious problems that I wouldn’t blame Ayodele for in a million years. Would you really hold her responsible for your fellow soldiers, your ahoa , behaving that way? Think hard about it. They acted on impulses already present in their minds. And the other thing that happened… was it her fault? Maybe it was yours.”

Still breathing heavily, Agu shut his eyes, his shoulders slumping.

Adaora breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to Ayodele.

“So there are more of you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“How many?”

“I don’t know. We don’t count ourselves.”

“Many?”

“You would think so.”

“And what do your people need?”

“Nothing. We have chosen to live here.”

“Here on… earth?”

“Here.”

“The land?”

“Your land.”

“Africa?”

“Yes.”

“So you are all over the continent?”

“No.”

“Part of it? Like West Africa? Nigeria?”

“The city, Lagos?” Anthony asked, walking over.

Ayodele looked at him and grinned. “And the waters.”

“Why Lagos? Why the water?” Adaora asked.

Ayodele shrugged. “These seemed good places for us.”

Agu and Adaora both frowned deeply but neither said a word.

Anthony laughed. “You bring in what you put out. Lagos…” He patted Agu and Adaora on the shoulders and dropped into Pidgin English. “‘Lasgidi’ you dey call am, right? Eko? Isn’t that what you people call Lagos? Place of belle-sweet, gidi gidi, kata kata, isu and wahala. Lagos is energy. It never stops. That’s why I like coming here, too.”

“We can work with you people,” Ayodele said. “And we will. We’re coming.”

Adaora stepped around and stood before the camera, looking into its eye. “Nine January, 6.39 a.m. You heard it directly from the horse’s mouth. One is here, the rest are coming.” She switched the camera off.

The gateman opened the gate in the back of the house to let in the shiny silver Mercedes. He watched admiringly as it pulled into the side driveway. The vehicle gleamed like a diamond. The gateman had dreamed of owning such a car since he was a boy. Now that he was thirty-five, it was a fading dream, but one that still made him smile.

When the bishop got out, the gateman frowned and blinked. He always experienced the same mild surprise when this man came over. His brain simply couldn’t hold the fact that a holy man could and wanted to afford such a vehicle. Ahmed Ubangiji was a Muslim and lived ten minutes away with his two wives and five children. He had nothing against Christians or any other people of the world. But a bishop displaying such extravagance seemed wrong. Then again, a lot of things seemed odd lately. He closed the gate and went back to his station to continue listening to the news of the flooding and strangeness on Bar Beach. If worse came to worst, he’d pack his family up and head north for a few days. Surely his boss would understand.

Father Oke stretched his arms and shut the car door. He’d been coming here too often, of late. Brother Chris was too needy. But he was one of Father Oke’s biggest supporters, donating an ever-increasing amount of money from year to year. Brother Chris had been blessed by God, who’d made him a wealthy accountant. Even though his wife was a problem, she too brought in good money as a professor and a scientist. Yes, they were good people to have in his congregation, so dealing with Chris more than he wanted to was worth it.