Lagoon

^Prologue Third Eye Blinded

The bat is thoroughly shaken.

She has eaten fifty mosquitoes. Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Her belly is full of insects. Her soft brown fur rustles as she flies. She knows where everyone else is; they are there above the gathering humans on the beach. This place teems with mosquitoes and gnats, who are attracted to their lights and body heat and blood. She discovered this earlier in the week and other young bats followed her. Now, they flit about so fast, the humans aren’t even aware of their presence.

She feels great. The moment before it happens, she catches and eats a mosquito and then does a barrel roll, pushing high into the sky, loving the humidity and the cool air. It makes her feel light and powerful. She drifts on the warm breeze. As she does, she sends a series of ultrasonic squeaks that show all the other bats the beauty of the evening.

Then the thick soupy haze lights up the horizon where it meets the ocean. Like the rotten inside of a crushed fruit. The haze rolls, folds and expands. It is heading right toward her.

BoOm!

Visceral, thick, but not quite substantial. She sees it perfectly because, for her, sound is as near solid as a sound can be. Deep and ample and spreading. Fast. Then it washes over her as the waves wash over the sand below.

She feels it like she felt the first breath of life when she was born. She remembers the moment of her birth clearly. She had opened her eyes and seen little. But then she chirped, and the sound found her mother. Then the others. Then the cave. And a few weeks later, when she echolocated the night, she thought she’d die from the beauty of the trees and the land.

Now she is in the middle of… of red, pink, green, yellow, blue, periwinkle. She has no words for color because she is a bat and bats do not see colors. But she sees them now. She sees a thousand of them. She can taste them. They are meaty like mosquitoes, leafy like palm fronds, fruity like mangos. She tumbles in the air and then falls to the sand. She struggles to stay conscious, stretching her wings and twisting her head. She looks into the sky and sees… lights. At this moment, she is the only bat on earth seeing the stars in the sky. But she doesn’t know what those are either. Her echolocation will never reach that far. The stars become many. They seem to grow closer, too. It is overwhelming.

Then everything is dead quiet. No air. No sound. No earth. She is in space. Farther, deeper. She sees a planet of stone. Red oily stone and liquid air. Then an aqueous world of blue, blue waters. Then a yellow fast-spinning sphere lit by three suns. World after world. She wakes in a tiny warm cave of darkness, but there is energy here, too. She is being jolted by sound, by rhythm. What kind of higher echolocation is this?

This is what awakens her. Jars her back into her body, back to life. Then the darkness opens into the night and she is hurled into the sky. Grateful to the Supreme Being that she has been given another chance at life, she flies into the night, her mind buzzing, her perspective changed.

Nevertheless, sound and sight – now she has both. She looks up and sees the stars. She echolocates for miles. Her world is suddenly huge.

She does not eat a thing. She only wants to fly and see with her new senses. She has grown an eye in the middle of her forehead but she doesn’t know this. And if she could, she would not know what to make of it. She flies higher than she’s ever flown before. Maybe she is trying to leave the earth. She isn’t sure. She isn’t thinking about it.

She’s far in her mind, deep in her own thoughts. The air on her wings feels amazing. She is swimming, rolling through the air as if it’s water. She lifts her head as she flies and lets out a series of loud chirps. And that’s when she sees it. The largest bird ever. Flying faster than any hawk or eagle or owl. Roaring like some sort of monster. She doesn’t know the human word “dragon”, otherwise she would call it that.

There is no time to flee. No time to turn. No time to shriek. And no pain. It is like being thrown into the stars.

The pilot of the Nigerian president’s plane has no clue that the plane he is flying has just killed the most enlightened bat on earth. After obliterating this bat as it passes, the plane flies on toward the airport on the strangest night in the city of Lagos’s history.

^{Chapter 43} Yawa Don Gas

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Adaora pressed her head to the car seat and shut her eyes. For the first time in years, she prayed. She prayed to her father, who’d been crushed to death by a speeding truck on the Lagos–Benin Expressway, she prayed to all those spirits she knew lived deep in the polluted soil of Lagos, she even prayed to the Christian god she didn’t believe in and the Muslim god she’d never learned about. Lastly, she prayed she was doing the right thing by getting in the car with Agu, Anthony, the President’s wives and the two security guards, and leaving the President of Nigeria out there with Ayodele the alien.

“GAAAAAAAH!” the President continued to scream.

Agu was holding down Zena and one of the soldiers was holding Hawra.

“LET ME OUT!” Zena screeched, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Ah-ah, what is she doing to him?” one of the soldiers moaned.

The screaming stopped. Adaora listened with all her being, but there was no sound to indicate whether the man had died or run off or fainted or ceased to exist. Moments passed. Adaora opened her eyes to find Anthony staring at her, sweat pouring down his face. The minute Agu let go of Zena, she leaped out of the car.

Adaora went after her. Hawra ran a few steps, her thick legs carrying her as fast as they could, and then slowed down. The President and Ayodele were seated face to face on the tarmac in front of the plane. Zena had stopped, standing over them.

“My love, are you OK?” Zena asked.

Adaora stepped up behind her, staring at the President. Even in the darkness, she could see that his eyes were clear, no longer rheumy. The lines on his face were still there but his skin had cleared up. He was sitting with his back straight, unbent. He was smiling.

“I’m fine,” he said. Even his voice was louder. Clearer. Stronger. He chuckled, looking up at the sky with a smile on his face. “I’m fine.”

“What did she do to you?” Zena cried. “It sounded like…”

“She healed me, Zena.”

“Praise Allah,” Zena whispered, tears running down her cheeks. She bent forward and put her hands on her knees, attempting to catch her breath. Hawra came up behind her, her eyes wide.

Ayodele said nothing. She was looking up at the sky with the President.

The others got out of the car and slowly approached.

“The air is so sweet,” the President said. He inhaled and exhaled. “Allah is great.” Slowly, he stood up.

Zena blinked and then cocked her head, frowning suspiciously now. “Help our husband,” Zena said, pushing Hawra forward. “You are stronger.” Hawra moved toward the President.

“My mind… it is clear,” he said, his arm around his second wife. He chuckled again and Adaora looked at Agu, who shrugged.

The President turned to Ayodele, who’d also stood up and was looking at the airplane. “Take me to your leader,” he said.

Ayodele turned around and smiled. “Leaders.”

“Where will I meet them?” he asked.

“In the water.”

Agu moaned.

The President looked at him. “Private Agu, where can we get a boat?”

^{Chapter 44} Narrator’s Welcome

The sea always takes more than it gives.

Right now, as I weave, the sea roils and boils with life.

About a day and a half ago, the oceans were ailing from pollution.

Today, as the sun rises, there may as well be a sign on all Lagos beaches that reads:

“Here There Be Monsters”.

This has always been the truth, but today it is truer.

They must understand this. But I hope they do not understand any of it. If they do, then they will not step on to that boat and the story will not continue. My strong webbing will snap. The story will stop growing and spreading. Let them venture forth. I will throw out a strong thread, maybe three. Then I will anchor it firmly to Lagos. That way, I can continue to narrate this tale while I enjoy it.

I am Udide, the narrator, the story weaver, the Great Spider.

I live in this great cave beneath the city. I have been here for centuries and I will be here for centuries more. This metropolis is just getting started. The coming of these new people is indeed a great twist to Lagos’s tale. Who saw it coming? Even I did not.

I roll onto my back and place my hairy feet to the earth above me. I feel the vibrations of Lagos. This way, I see everything. What a story this has been. The sun will soon come up and I will watch everyone see what they have done. The chaos will be on display.

The sun rises.

Dawn is here, and the dust settles.

The streets are full of mayhem’s terrible fruits.

Burned vehicles. Smoldering buildings. Dead animals.

The waking giant of the road goes back to sleep, leaving a trail of terror.

The death of the boy on the road has already been seen by over three million people around the world and will be seen by millions more.

There are new people amongst the old people.

And the digital ether has gone wild.

The great Ijele leads the wildness and the tricky Legba laughs.

The Bight of Biafra’s waters are teeming.

The President is healed.

His eyes are dry and white. His skin is clear and brown.

His mind is strong and free.

I revel in it all.

I am stronger than ever. I approach the end of this leg of the tale.

And here, I greet you.

Welcome, listener, welcome.

I press my sensitive feet to the cave’s ceiling.

Na good good story.

I go continue to listen, o. Quietly…

^{Chapter 45} On the Water

The President of Nigeria walked along the narrow path outside his mansion, inhaling the scent of lilacs and lilies. The small garden between the mansion and the guesthouse in the back was his sanctuary. Well-paid gardeners tended to these flowers daily and it was worth the cost. This was where the President usually came in the morning to think. Nevertheless, this particular morning was not the usual morning at all, so he walked swiftly past the flowers toward the guesthouse.

He’d dressed in a white sukodo and buba, his finest attire. Granted, if he fell in the water, he suspected his clothes would make swimming hell. But he didn’t plan to fall in the water. He imagined that the aliens would come to his boat on whatever contraption they used as transportation and talks would ensue. Talks of what? He’d cross that bridge when he got to it. The fact was that the woman Ayodele, who was not a woman, had healed him. She was a child of Allah. So everything was good.

“I’m not going,” Zena said, holding her delicate black veil over her face as they stood outside the guesthouse. She’d stayed here since they’d arrived. She didn’t want to be in the same house as “that creature in women’s clothing”. Nor did she want to be near her husband, who’d surely been infected with whatever the creature was spreading. Though Zena had hated watching her husband deteriorate, there had been comfort to be taken from his illness. It was Allah’s will and she’d come to terms with that.

But there had been more to it than she’d admit. When he’d been healthy he’d married two other wives and slowly her role in his life had dwindled. With the onset of his illness, Zena had become his support system again; she’d become his mouth, his confidante. His third and youngest wife, Caroline, had even grown jealous and moved to their home in Abuja. Now, with him being healed, all that would change.

“One of us should stay here,” Zena snapped. “Let Hawra go.” And may she never come back, she thought. Zena was tired of the overeducated, PhD-wielding, cheeky Hawra. Let her go and never come back.

Hawra dressed in fitted jeans and a T-shirt, and then donned her veil. All her life she’d dreamed of being a part of something huge. Something that would bring a change to all things as she knew them. She wouldn’t miss what was going to happen next for the world.

^{Chapter 46} The Glass House

Father Oke rested his back against the wrought-iron bars of the gate that surrounded the Glass House in downtown Lagos. He had a pounding headache. But at least he was alive. When he’d come back to himself on the lawn of Chris’s home, everyone was gone and the house was on fire. They’d left him there. His flock. Maybe they’d even joined the aliens.

He shoved the thoughts away as he looked at the road. It was a bright early morning. Quiet, too. Not only were there no people in the area, the power in the city had been completely knocked out by the last sonic boom. Once in a while a group of young raucous boys or a car would pass, but otherwise the road was empty. Here, Lagos was desolate, except for a smoldering car down the road. Most likely all the worst madness was in Oshodi or near Mile 2.

Along with his head pounding, his face burned from where he’d been slapped. He’d thrown off his filthy white robes long ago. Then wearing his grey pants, white shirt and grey tie, he’d walked the streets for a while. He’d seen a woman laughing as a man ravaged her from behind against a stalled vehicle. She’d been screaming and laughing that an alien was probing her. Father Oke had helped a young woman with three young children cross a street. He’d seen several go-slows that were so solid that people had abandoned their vehicles. He’d seen Area Boys carrying branches and palm fronds that they used to threaten people, moving in on the abandoned vehicles like vultures. And worst of all he’d seen many of them.

It wasn’t something most people around him noticed. Everyone was too busy doing whatever they were doing. But Father Oke wasn’t going anywhere. He was not lost. For the first time in his life, his eyes were open. So he noticed those people who seemed a little off. Their faces didn’t carry as much emotion as other people’s. Or they seemed too calm. Too comfortable. Too adapted to the situation. They walked with too much grace. And they were everywhere.

He saw them helping people escape Area Boys. He saw two putting out the flames in a burning truck. He saw one helping a little girl find her father. He saw them watching as so many people of Lagos made fools of themselves.

“Oh Lord,” he said, rubbing his temples. “Oh my Lord, save us, o.”

“Excuse me, sir. Did you say something?”

He looked up. The woman was standing in the parking lot, looking at the building. She was curvy, wearing tight blue jeans and a white short-sleeve blouse that barely contained her large breasts. On each of her wrists she wore a shiny silver watch. Their faces sparkled in the moonlight. Only watches encrusted with diamonds did that. Father Oke remembered admiring the watch of a rapper once while he was in the United States at a fundraiser. Yes, those were very large breasts and very large diamonds.

“Uh, no, no, I didn’t say anything,” he said, his eyes taking all of her in. He regularly bedded his house girls and paid them to keep quiet about it. They were sexy, docile, pliable and certainly sweet. But this woman was something else. This woman was mysterious. And she reminded him of a woman he’d loved years ago.

She sashayed over to him. She wore those high-platformed heels he saw all the Nigerian actresses wearing in their films. Shoes that lifted them up but could never make them truly tall. He loved to watch them walk in those heels.

“Oh, I thought you did,” she said. She spoke like she was from the Niger Delta region. She was still looking at the building with a grand smile on her face.

He smiled, too. “Are you looking for someone in there?”

“No, no, I just love this building,” she said.

“Well, this is not the best time to come out and see it.”

“It’s crazy, yeah?” she said. She looked up at the bank. Father Oke frowned at the beautiful woman’s strangeness. She chuckled and looked at Father Oke. “The city is breaking itself,” she said. “But not one single pane of this building is broken.”

Father Oke looked at the Fin Bank and winced. The Fin Bank was one of Lagos’s most artistic structures, a gigantic trapezoid with arched wings made entirely out of square panes of glass. A few were red, but the majority of them were an ocean blue. It had gone by many names over the years but Lagosians had always called it the Glass House. He hated this building. He was sure that it was evil. Not surprising, with all the evil that was flooding the city tonight, that the Glass House should be spared.

“Do you want to come with me?”

He smirked. “Come with you where?”

“Answer my question first.”

Father Oke looked from her to the building and then to the sky. He could hear someone shout nearby and the sound of tires screeching. The worst night of his life had melted into the worst day. The night and day that everything fell apart. He turned to her. “Fuck it,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.” He laughed, imagining her heaving breasts bouncing above him as he took her right there on the deserted beach. He was already soiled, why not soil himself more? Might as well get some pleasure from the night.

“You know the mythology behind this place, sha?”

“Yes, yes,” he quickly said. He didn’t want to think about it “Let’s go.”

“They say that because this building is so shiny and the color of the water, it creates an aura that attracts the sea. You see, the Atlantic always overflows at Bar Beach and that’s close to this building. So this place is always flooding.”

“OK, o,” he said, wanting to get moving before she said more. He took her arm and pulled. But she wouldn’t move. He frowned. She was like a heavy stone. He shoved her hard and still she didn’t budge.

She chuckled. “You know what they also say? That it’s not the ocean that is attracted to this place. That it is Mami Wata who loves this building. Do you know Mami Wata?”

“Yes,” he said. Mami Wata was the goddess of all marine witches.

She looked squarely at him. “This is my favorite building, o.”

Many things happened to Father Oke at once. He felt his heart break. Why had he slapped that woman so hard yesterday morning? Why had he slapped her at all? Twice in one night he had met a woman who was not really a woman. The first had been from outer space. This second was from the earth’s water. For the first time in his life, Father Oke truly realized that he lived in a glass palace, while others around him lived in a ghetto.

He gave up.

Father Oke gave in.

They left the Glass House, crossing the empty street. They were heading toward the beach.

No one ever saw Father Oke again.

^{Chapter 47} Femi

Adaora, Anthony and Agu led the way as they walked along the beach, the President and his second wife behind them, flanked by his guards, Bamidele and Chucks. The morning sun was just warming the sky. The President was excited to get some fresh ocean air but there was a greater purpose in their long walk to the army boats.

“What is that?” Adaora said, pinching her nose. The sight of it was worse than the stench. A giant carcass stripped of all skin, putrefying in the increasing morning heat.

“That used to be a whale,” Agu said.

There were still a few people carving out pink slivers of unspoiled or semi-putrid meat. All were young men, many with desperate looks on their faces. To make the situation sadder, there was a camera crew filming them, and several well-dressed journalists interviewing people. There were even youths standing around holding their mobile phones up as they recorded the pathetic scene and probably posted it on YouTube. Adaora felt her gorge rise in her throat as she thought of the little boy on the monster road. Hadn’t these people gotten enough last night? Someone pointed at them and the President’s guards raised their weapons.

“Na de President!” a man carrying three slabs of stinky meat shouted.

“Oh my living God! Na dream I dey dream so.”

“How e go be de President? Dem been don deport de President.”

“And him been don die before dem deport am!”

Several of the people laughed hard.

“Na him be dat, sha. See him flat-chest wife, na.”

“Na him!”

Soon the President and his wife were surrounded by journalists, camera technicians and chattering civilians.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the President snapped. He frowned, wanting them to understand. He switched to Pidgin English, which he hated speaking. It was the ignorant man’s language. “Nothing do me,” he loudly proclaimed. “See me well well!”

The five journalists jostled to get a statement from him.

“Do you have anything to say about last night?”

“Where have you been?”

“How come you did not—”

“Last night,” the President said, switching to Standard English, “our biggest city ate itself. Now it is full and ready to give birth to itself. That is all I have to say on that.”

“Where have you been?” a male reporter asked.

“Sick. But now I am well.”

“Where are you going?”

“To see if I can make this better. You may follow us if you like. But do not try to follow us once we are on the water.”

“Oh my God,” a woman reporter said, pointing at Ayodele. “Isn’t that the woman extraterrestrial who got into all our technology yesterday?”

As one, the crowd forgot the President and focused on Ayodele. A cameraman swung his camera into her face and moved it down her body. Adaora shoved the camera away. “Enough,” she said. “She is not a piece of whale meat.”

“We don’t know what she is,” the cameraman muttered. He stepped back a few paces as Ayodele turned to him.

“I am taking them to the Elders,” Ayodele said. “Your leader will meet mine.”

“Why can’t we come along?” one of the male journalists asked. Adaora recognized him immediately. Femi Adewumi. He wrote features and a column for the Guardian. She’d always thought he looked handsome in his column photo – her husband used to get annoyed whenever he saw her reading Femi’s writing – and he was just as handsome in person. Adaora frowned at the direction her thoughts had taken. What am I becoming? she wondered.

“You may,” Ayodele said, after looking him over. “But only you.”

Femi grinned and stepped beside Agu.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Agu told him.

“This is the story of a lifetime,” Femi excitedly said. “Sometimes a man must throw caution to the wind!”

“Madam,” said a female journalist. “Please. Can I come, too?”

Ayodele looked her over. “You can’t swim. You stay here.”

The woman’s face fell but she didn’t argue.

Several others asked after that, including two men carrying rotting meat. Ayodele said “no” to them all.

“Let’s move on,” Ayodele said.

Agu nodded. “This way.”

There were nine of them: Ayodele, Adaora, Agu, Anthony, Femi, the President, Hawra, and Bamidele and Chucks. The sleek white speedboat was made to take ten, but this didn’t set Agu’s mind at ease. The boat, like most government-issued equipment, was a piece of shit, with leaks and a faulty motor that backfired randomly at high speeds.

“You can drive this thing?” the President asked Agu.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Usually it takes two people, but I can drive it. My job is to patrol the water. Amphibious Division 81, five years.” As he watched everyone climb aboard, Agu shuddered. After his experience in the water, he was not in a hurry to get back out on it. How much was Ayodele going to be able to protect them?

“Put your life vests on,” he said. He undid the rope and got in. “Adaora,” he whispered.

She looked at him and said nothing. But she took his hand.

“Ayodele,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“Take us far out,” she said.

Agu started the motor.

Adaora looked out into the water as they left the shore. The morning sun was warming up, its rays penetrating deeply into the water. So deeply that she could have sworn she saw the bottom, over thirteen meters below. But that was impossible. No water was that clear when it was that deep. Adaora sat down and focused on the horizon. The water’s unnatural clarity was the least of her worries.

The trouble started minutes after they fired up the engine. The boat kept lurching up as if it were driving over wide speed bumps. The fifth bump was a big one and Hawra screeched and grabbed the President. But his attention was already elsewhere.

“What is that?” he shouted, pointing.

“God of Abraham,” Femi exclaimed, his camera up as he snapped photos. “No, no, video, video’s better,” he muttered, looking at his camera, his hands shaking.

Bamidele and Chucks were looking into the water directly below the boat, their guns drawn. But the President was pointing into the distance. Adaora followed the line of his arm just in time to see it break the surface.

It was black and looked about the size of a house. As it fell back into the water, all three of its huge tentacles slapped the surface, creating large waves that rocked the boat. Adaora shuddered. She could name most cephalopods down to their local and scientific names. But what she’d just seen didn’t have a name.

The President’s guards scrambled to the center of the boat. “Oh my God, oh my God! Oh my God!” Bamidele babbled.

“Don’t do that,” Chucks said as Femi held his camera over the boat’s edge.

“It looked like a giant swordfish,” Chucks said. “The size of a bus!”

“Ayodele,” Anthony said. “What is all—”

The boat lurched again and everyone held on.

The flash of Femi’s camera as he photographed Ayodele made her frown. He lowered his camera and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. There usually isn’t a flash in sunshine like this.”

“It’s the people of the waters,” Ayodele said. “They are tired of boats and human beings.”

“Then why’d you bring us out here?” Hawra shouted.

“Your leader must meet the Elders,” Ayodele said, matter-of-factly. “The world is not yet safe.”

“Meeting the Elders is fine, but tell the fish to leave us alone!” Adaora cried.

“They do as they wish. They won’t listen to me. Some of my people have even mixed with them. Once we make it to the ship, we’ll be safe.”

Femi’s camera beeped as he took another photo of Ayodele.

^{Chapter 48} Here There be Monsters

Fifteen minutes later, a three-tentacled sea beast leaped over them, spiraling wildly through the air. It splayed all its thick purple fifty-foot tentacles wide for full effect, splashing loudly into the water.

“Keep going,” Ayodele said. “This creature is too strong. I will catch up.” Then without a word, she leaped into the water and was gone. They all looked at each other for several moments. Then Agu pushed the boat to top speed.

No one spoke, no one moved. Everyone watched the water. For several minutes, the surface was calm.

“That thing is the… ship?” Hawra asked, pointing at the undulating black and brown mass hovering above the water miles away.

“Yes,” Anthony said. “When they brought us into it last time, it was under the water.”

“Wish it stayed there,” one of the soldiers muttered. “Dat ting, na wor wor. Look like sometin’ rotten.”

BONG! The entire boat vibrated from the impact of whatever had just rammed it. Agu and Adaora fell against the stern; the President and the two soldiers tumbled onto a pile of coiled rope. Femi screamed as he tried to grab Hawra, who was dangerously close to the boat’s edge. Something slammed into the boat again, and Hawra toppled over the side, grabbing the railing at the last moment.

“Help!” she screamed. “I can’t… I can’t!”

“Coming,” one of the soldiers called, trying to get to his feet.

Adaora looked into the water. “I see it! It’s a swordfish, it’s… oh God! Hold on!”

The swordfish monster rammed the boat again and Hawra dropped into the water. Her terrified shriek was abruptly cut off as her head went under.

The President ran to the edge of the boat and looked over the water. He was sure it was full of disease. Look what it had done to the sea creatures! “Hawra!” he screamed, holding on to the railing. “Hawra!” He let go of the railing as though to jump in after her. Anthony grabbed him. “No!” the President shouted as he strained to free himself from the other man’s grasp. He slapped at Anthony. The water now roiled with hundreds of glistening, eel-like fish. “Leave me! Leave me to save my wife! LET ME SAVE MY WIFE!”

Agu stumbled over and grabbed the President’s other shoulder. “No! Don’t jump in there!” Agu shouted. “You can’t—”

“Let me die, too! Let me DIE!” he screamed hysterically. What if the water did something worse than death to her?

Agu wanted to tell the President to stay calm, that his country needed him to remain on the boat, meet the Elders, but reason was a stupid thing to request. If Adaora had fallen off the boat, he’d do the same thing the President was doing, and nothing anyone said would change his mind. So Agu held the President of Nigeria with all his might. Anthony put his arms around the two of them and did the same.

Thump, thump, thump.

It was coming from the back of the boat, where Adaora crouched. She listened. Thump, thump, thump. “Help!” The word was nothing but a whisper. But it was human. Thump, thump, thump.

“Agu,” Adaora said. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he said from the other side of the boat.

“Please,” the voice wheezed.

Adaora took several breaths, working hard to ignore Femi, who was right beside her. They were under attack; a woman had fallen into the water, and yet this man was recording everything.

“Please, stop it,” she said to him calmly.

“No,” he whispered.

Fine. She had more important things to do. She stood up and looked into the blue waters. There was Hawra, clinging to the side of the boat. She was soaked but OK. “How…” Then Adaora saw something below Hawra swimming up, quickly. Something huge, black, with too many fins. Adaora threw herself forward. “Agu, come help me, o. Hurry!”

She could see the thing more clearly now. A mouth. Opening. Full of teeth. Adaora dug deep within herself. Within all that she was. Her love of logic and science. Her love of the water. Her love of the sea. She came to the story of her birth she’d heard so many times from her parents.

That.

She hung on to that.

It was in the knowing. She knew. She stepped over the side of the boat, out onto the water.

“No!” Hawra said. “What are you… ?”

Adaora’s feet landed on the water and the water held her up.

“Shit!” Femi shouted, camera pointed and recording.

Hawra clung to the side of the boat, eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. “Agu!” Adaora yelled back. “I need you!”

Then she knelt down and spread her hands, palms flat on the water’s surface. It felt solid and warm. She pushed, and felt something emanate from herself. Something solid. The enormous creature with the mouth full of teeth below slammed against Adaora’s invisible force. Adaora felt it push against what she’d sent. It was the same thing she’d done when she was fighting with Chris, except this time she did it to save another person. She took one hand from the water and reached out to Hawra. The other woman grabbed at her.

“Are you… ?” Agu was staring at Adaora, mouth agape, as she knelt on the water, holding Hawra up and pushing the thrashing monster down.

She looked into his eyes, needing him to understand, to trust her. “Remember how you got through the riot?” She motioned with her head to the waters behind her. “Do that again but keep all the monsters away while I help Hawra into the boat.”

Agu just stared at her.

“Go!” she shouted. “Don’t think! No time! Agu, go!”

To her relief, he blinked, twitched and then threw himself in the water. Something big was coming at them from her left and Agu swam right for it. He dropped beneath the water’s surface. Adaora saw the huge grey shark-like creature collide with Agu. A moment later, the creature was flying out of the water, hurled a hundred feet in the air. Adaora could see its great toothy jaws gape. Then splash!

Agu’s head popped out of the water. He looked around until he spotted them. He waved and Adaora waved back. Then he dove back down.

“Come, come, come,” Adaora said quickly, hoisting Hawra up until she, too, was standing on water.

“This is blasphemy,” Hawra whispered. But she giggled.

“I don’t know what it is,” Adaora said.

“Take my hand!” the President said. Chucks stood beside him, ready to help.

Another large creature, this one like a ropy, pink-purple squid, wildly flung itself out of the water. And from the front of the boat, Bamidele was shooting at something. “That one, chale! Shoot that one!” she heard Anthony yelling.

Just as Hawra got one leg onto the boat, a tentacle flew out of the water, past Adaora and slapped around Hawra’s other leg.

“Argh! Get it off!” she screamed. “It hurts! It—”

The President grabbed at the tentacle and then fell backwards, smoke rising from his hands. He must have received a horrible electric shock from the monster. Adaora felt the current trying to lock up her muscles, but her force field must have dampened the impact. She stumbled back, still on the water’s surface, as the tentacle dragged Hawra under.

Agu saw Hawra dragged toward the deep. The tentacle belonged to a great octopus. It glowed a smooth purple and was the size of two horses. He could feel the electrical current the creature put out. It tickled him, even underwater.

And it seemed the entire ocean had decided to come after them. Large fish, armored fish, spiked fish, monstrous sharks, a giant swordfish; he even thought he saw something that looked like a whale. All were bearing down on the boat, on him.

Why? What had they done? He knew the answer. He, Adaora, Anthony – everyone else – they were human. They didn’t belong here in the deep. So they would die here and it would be right. Best to leave these waters to the ocean animals, and the aliens.

A large shark was coming at him from his right, and the huge swordfish and a school of smaller fish were coming at him from his left. He couldn’t fight them all off. He was losing air. He needed to swim to the surface. But he didn’t want them to see him torn to bits. Better to stay down here. He would keep them safe for as long as he could.

Suddenly, Anthony torpedoed into the water. He looked right at Agu. As he swam he motioned frantically to the boat. For a moment, Agu didn’t understand, then he did. He propelled himself up, to the boat. Just before bringing his head above water, he looked back. In the morning sunshine, just below the surface of the water, Anthony was in clear view. He floated there. Then he thrust his arms and legs out.

Agu felt a hand grab him and he was hoisted up by the President and his soldiers. They all fell onto the deck and jammed their fists to their ears as a huge wave shoved them further out to sea.

MOOOOOOOOOM!

The boat rocked and swayed this way and that but thankfully, somehow, it did not capsize. Everyone felt the itchy buzz in their heads as their eardrums popped. Adaora felt as if she were covered with ants. Then there was nothing but the sound of lapping water against the side of the boat. After several moments, they got to their feet. The surface of the water was littered with the bodies of hundreds of tiny dead fish. Larger fish roiled in the water further away, all swimming away from Anthony. Away from the boat.

“Did he explode?” one of the guards asked, his gun still in his hand.

No one answered.

A head surfaced from the water at Adaora’s water-walking feet and then Hawra was flailing and coughing. Adaora dropped to her knees, pressing them down. Soft and warm, the water held her as she snatched Hawra’s shoulder then arm.

“Relax,” Adaora shouted. “Stop!”

“Oh Praise Allah! Praise the Most High!” Hawra gasped as Adaora pulled her up to also stand on the water.

“Wife!” the President shouted, leaning over the side and yanking Hawra onto the boat. “Oh, my wife, my wife, my wife.” They sat on the floor, cradling each other.

The air smelled sweet, with a hint of blood. Something slapped at the side of the boat, feet away.

“Someone, pull… me up.”

”Anthony!” Adaora said. Without a thought, she ran over to him, her feet supported by the water like those of a water skipping insect. She and Agu helped him crawl back onto the boat. Agu gave him the only towel onboard and Anthony wrapped it around himself. Once on the boat, Adaora ran over and hugged him tightly and kissed him on the cheek.

“You are amazing,” she said.

Anthony laughed weakly.

“What are you three?” the President asked. He was holding Hawra tightly and she was resting her wet head on his shoulder. The wig she had worn was gone, revealing her short Afro.

“We’re Nigerians,” Agu said. “Just Nigerians.” He looked at Anthony and added, “And one Ghanaian.”

There was the sound of metal balls rolling in a glass bowl and there Ayodele stood beside Adaora. “That is what I was telling them,” Ayodele said, motioning toward the water.

“Why did you leave us like that?” Adaora snapped. “Why—”

“If I hadn’t handled the larger creatures, none of you would be here,” Ayodele said. “That’s where I went. You think what you dealt with were the biggest?” She shrugged. “You saved each other but I saved you all. The going should be smoother from now on.”

Agu stumbled to the motor and breathed a sigh of relief when it started. He got them moving again. His skin felt prickly and tight. He’d gulped down several mouthfuls of salt water and felt that if he didn’t belch soon he’d throw up. Anthony was probably full of the water, too. And Hawra and Adaora.

Beep beep! Femi lowered his camera, his eyes wide, his mouth agape. “Wow.” He reached into his pocket and brought out his BlackBerry. Within ten minutes the footage was on YouTube.

^{Chapter 49} Respect Your Elders

Once they were back on the boat, everyone who’d been in the water threw up copious amounts of it. When there was none left in their stomachs, they dry heaved. Anthony was in the worst shape, breaking out in hives and plagued by a throbbing headache. Femi ran back and forth between Anthony and the side of the boat, dipping a cup in the water and then pouring it on Anthony’s arms and legs to help soothe the itchiness.

“Sorry,” Ayodele said. Adaora didn’t think she meant it at all but she was too weak to tell her so.

“Is it the water?” Femi asked. “I mean, I’m fine, and so are the President, Bamidele and Chucks. None of us were in there.”

“Yes, I think it is.”

Adaora felt her stomach lurch again. “What have you people done to it?”

“Nothing that didn’t want to be done.”

Done by whom? Adaora thought. She knew the answer. The sea creatures. They wanted the water to be “clean”. “Clean” for sea life… which meant toxic for modern, civilized, meat-eating, clean-water-drinking human beings. Shit, she thought. I’m going to die out here.

Adaora didn’t know how much time passed. All she knew was that when she next opened her eyes, the sun was somewhere else in the sky and the boat had stopped. She sat up. She felt a little better but she’d broken out in the same rash that Anthony had and her head pounded miserably. Anthony was lying on the boat’s floor, Agu and Femi beside him.

“Is he all right?” she whispered.

“He’s still breathing, but he won’t open his eyes,” Femi said. He got up and walked past Adaora.

“Agu?”

“Yes, Adaora,” he said.

“Are you—”

Splash!

Adaora was looking at Agu’s face. He was looking behind her, at the others at the far end of the boat. At the sound of the splash, his jaw dropped. She felt her heart sink. The President, Hawra, Ayodele, the guards. She didn’t want to turn around and see what had happened to them. She’d had enough.

“Wait,” Agu said, getting up. He stumbled, grabbing hold of one of the seats. He started moving to the other side of the boat. “Wait!”

Adaora turned around. At first she didn’t know what she was seeing. Water? But it was solid. Solid enough for the President to step on, as Adaora had stepped on it. She dragged herself up.

“Wait a minute!” she said. She nearly fell to the floor as the world swam around her. Her belly cramped and she dropped to one knee. Agu was on the floor a few feet away. “Do… what… where are you going?” Adaora whispered.

She fought hard to focus. Ayodele was standing with the President on the water. Femi was still on the boat, snapping photos.

“I’ll be all right!” the President shouted as he was lowered below the side of the boat. By what? And into the water? Adaora couldn’t see. Hawra was clinging to one of the guards, weeping. Femi was doing something with his mobile phone. Agu was coughing. Anthony remained silent.

Adaora couldn’t stand any longer. She sat down hard on the boat floor and gazed out at the ocean whose water was clear as crystal. In the distance, she saw something huge leap up and then splash back in, and a group of flying fish passed by yards from their boat. Below the glass-like water, she imagined there was a great, great metropolis of ocean life below – giant, reaching, dark brown structures bloomed up from a flat surface beneath that she couldn’t see the end of. And the structures had slowly shrunk and expanded even as she watched, sea creatures darting, wiggling, spiraling everywhere.

She closed her eyes and everything went away.

Water is life.

Aman Iman.

Water.

Adaora was in water. Her hair was floating around her face. Yet… ? There was a rushing sensation in her neck that happened involuntarily. Her lungs didn’t hurt. She felt the rushing of water again. She brought her hands to her chest. She could feel her heart beating. Several yards below her was a brown crusty coral-like surface covered with green swaying seaweed. She could see a group of red crabs the size of small children plucking the seaweed and delicately munching it.

She shut her eyes, trying to focus. She touched her neck. Instead of smooth skin, her fingers slipped into large grooves, the edges of flesh loose and thick. She twitched, realizing what they were, then she shuddered and screamed. But no sound came out. Because she didn’t have lungs any more… she had gills. She tried to swim up. But which way was up? She opened her eyes and watched bubbles float past her. Upward. She followed the bubbles with her eyes. Upward. A glowing pink dot. The sun. The surface was more than a hundred feet above her.

Adaora realized several things at once. She was breathing water. She was not alone. She could see what was happening. She could hear it, too.

She focused on what was happening in front of her. The President. He was suspended in what looked like a giant bubble of air. He hung before five humanoid figures that reminded her of something out of Star Wars. She frowned. Hadn’t she read somewhere that the President loved the Star Wars movies? Adaora did, too, though she preferred the earlier films. But she’d watched the later films enough to recognize the aliens she was seeing. All of the creatures she saw now were whitish-blue-skinned, with huge black eyes and long long arms, legs and neck. They even moved with the same fluid motions as they had in the movies.

The President was talking to them. She moved toward the bubble of air and then stopped. What would happen if she tried to enter it? She touched the gills on her neck. They felt like several numb hairy flaps of skin. The flaps pumped up and down, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized she could do it voluntarily, too.

OK, she thought. But then she looked down and her mind reeled. Her legs were no longer legs. This part of her body had become the body of a giant metallic blue fish. The upper and lower lobes of it are equal in shape and pointy, she thought, twisting for a better look at herself. A lunate caudal fin, like that of a sailfish, marlin or swordfish. I was made for speed. Something tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and came face to face with Ayodele. Adaora swam back, surprised. The motion pushed water through her gills and her mind sharpened.

“Relax,” Ayodele said.

Adaora heard Ayodele’s voice in her head.

She opened her mouth and tried to speak. Again, no sound.

“Think your words,” Ayodele said. “Move your mouth if it helps, but think your words.”

Adaora moved her mouth as she thought, “What is happening? What have you done to me? Is this permanent? Where is everyone else? Agu and Anthony? Where are they? Are they OK?”

She heard Ayodele laugh. “Calm down,” Ayodele said. She reconfigured her body. Ayodele was now a dolphin. No, she was too long to be a dolphin. And dolphins did not have such large eyes. Ayodele swam in a circle around Adaora.

“Swim with me,” she said. “I will explain.” When Adaora didn’t move, she laughed again. “Your Agu is fine. Anthony is fine. They are all fine. Your president is meeting with the Elders, as you see. You cannot join them. Now come.”

Adaora hesitated. Beyond the President and the Elders, she could see a very large swordfish monster hovering in the background. Was it the same angry swordfish that had nearly killed them all? She shuddered.

“Come,” Ayodele said again.

Adaora followed only because Ayodele was swimming in the opposite direction from the swordfish. Ayodele moved fast and Adaora was surprised to find she could keep up easily. As she swam, she realized that all around her were bone-white edifices that were at least thirty feet high. As Adaora and Ayodele passed, some collapsed, and others grew. Sea creatures from fish to crabs to sea cucumbers clung, swam through, crawled and wiggled past. Adaora could not tell which were the aliens and which were the earthlings.

“Everything you see here is the ship,” Ayodele said as they swam through a yawning cave. Some kind of fish with a sucker mouth clung to the lip of the cave above them. “The longer we stay here, the more we shift and become like the people of the water.”

“What about on land?” Adaora thought. This time, she didn’t move her mouth.

“Yes, there, too.”

“Why am I not sick anymore?”

“Why is your body part-fish?”

Adaora paused. “Because this is… what… I wanted?”

“Is it what you wanted?”

Adaora had always loved the water. And she didn’t want to die of whatever pollutants were in the water. Yes, it was.

“Is this place your ship?” Adaora asked.

“Yes,” Ayodele answered. “One of them.”

“How far does it extend?”

“Many many miles, I suspect,” Ayodele said. “That may change.”

“If I swim beyond, will my body change back?”

“I don’t know. I think you will change back when you reach land. Isn’t that how you imagine maidens?”

“Mermaids.”

Ayodele laughed, shifting into a mermaid herself. Her face looked nearly identical to that of Adaora’s friend Ayodele Olayiwola, the one Adaora had named her for. Adaora found herself smiling.

“Will you take me to see Agu?”

“That’s where we are going.”

Agu and Anthony were trapped in a bubble. They’d woken up inside it, at what they thought might be the bottom of the sea. They stood on hard white stone and above swam monsters and sea creatures. Most ignored them but a few came for a curious look before moving on.

Anthony paced back and forth, muttering in Twi. He was no longer sick, and he was viciously hungry. He rubbed his hands over his rough wet hair. Images of being underwater as all those monstrous creatures came at him kept crowding his mind. When he pushed these away, he would look around and see more such creatures swimming about, watching him, perhaps even plotting revenge. Which was crazy. If he didn’t get out of here soon, Anthony realized, he’d go mad. “What are we even doing here?” he muttered.

“No clue,” Agu said, sitting down in the center of the white stone. He rested his head on the palms of his hands. “Don’t even know how we got here.” He looked at his hands. He had punched that kid so hard when he was twelve that the boy had lost consciousness. Less than two days ago, the power had boiled up again and he’d nearly killed Benson. And, last night, when he’d run through Lagos trying to get back to Adaora, he was sure he had killed some people.

“You are useless,” Agu said to his hands. “I am useless.”

Now he and Anthony were imprisoned at the bottom of the sea, to starve to death or eventually be eaten by the first sea monster aggressive enough to bite into the bubble. He noticed two figures swimming toward them. They were not as large as some of the other creatures lingering around the bubble, but they were moving fast. He got up and moved a few feet back, as far from them as he could.

Agu and Anthony were trapped in a bubble. Its shimmery surface made it difficult to see inside but she was sure it was them. It was a dome the size of a small room. She waved her hands as she swam toward them and they both waved back.

“How did they get in there?” Adaora asked.

“The same way you got to where you were.”

This answered nothing and Adaora sucked her teeth, frustrated with Ayodele’s vagueness. Sucking her teeth yielded no sound and this annoyed Adaora more. When they got to the bubble, she hovered before Agu and Anthony, unsure of how to communicate with them. She waved her hands and moved her lips and she tried to say, “Are you OK?”

“What?” she heard Agu shout, the sound of his voice muted by the water.

Anthony was frowning deeply and pointing at her fin. Agu looked at it and then his face went slack.

Adaora thought for a moment, then she turned to Ayodele. She wanted to ask, Will I drown? Will I die if I go in there? But she didn’t. There was only one way to find out, and she wanted to find out for herself. If I can’t breathe… I will just crawl back in the water.

She put her hand through the bubble’s surface into the dry air. Then she pushed herself in up to her waist. Anthony and Agu quickly pulled her in the rest of the way.

As they lay her on the dry ocean floor, Adaora felt fully disoriented. Up became sideways and sideways became up. The dry air bit at her skin and the inside of her gills. Worst of all, she couldn’t breathe! Her body arched as she fought for air. “Put me back in the water!” she wanted to scream. But her new body was not capable of speech. She bucked, hoping Agu would drop her and she could crawl back through the bubble.

Agu struggled but managed to hold her tightly. “Can she—”

“Throw her back in the water!” Anthony screamed.

Adaora twisted again, turned her head to the side, and vomited water. It felt like she was heaving from the very tip of her tail. Then she threw her head back and inhaled loudly and long, air rushing into her lungs like the wind itself. Lungs. She had them. Now.

She shut her eyes and felt her neck. The gill flaps were still there. “Who am I?” she whispered. Her voice was her own, albeit rough. When she opened her eyes, she was looking into Agu’s. A tear was falling down his cheek. He was shaking from the strain of her weight.

“Something new,” he said.

“Something old,” Anthony said. He laughed. “Something borrowed, more than gold, something true, never sold, goddamn aliens too fuckin’ bold. Chale, see I spit am!” Then he grinned and shouted, “I dey Craaaaaaze!”

Adaora was so surprised that she burst out laughing, which made her cough,

“Oh my God, the man dey craze,” Agu muttered, but the corners of his mouth quivered as he fought his laughter.

“You should have plenty of new material for a new album,” Adaora told Anthony.

“Artist is artist,” he agreed.

“Agu, you can put me down now. Before you pass out. I know I’m heavy.”

Anthony put his arms beneath her and helped Agu lower her to the sea bed. Once seated, she crossed her arms over her bare chest. Her fin felt heavy and useless.

Agu sat beside her and Anthony sat across from her. For a long time, they were silent, Adaora more than aware of her strange naked mermaid body and the cold dryness of the air. Anthony thinking and thinking about all he’d discussed with the Elders when they were first pulled into the ocean, only two nights ago. And Agu looking out into the water.

“I thought it would kill me the first time it happened,” Anthony said. He’d spoken in Twi, so the others didn’t understand. He switched to English. “I call it the rhythm.” He recounted the story of the day he’d discovered his power. A story that he’d never told a soul.

“Wow,” Adaora whispered when he finished.

Agu laughed hard and clapped him on the shoulder. “Do you believe in God now?”

Anthony chuckled. “Yeah.”

The three of them burst out laughing and didn’t stop for the next minute. Adaora’s eyes watered and her fin slapped the damp stone. Agu rolled on the sea bed as he guffawed. And Anthony held his cramping belly. In the water outside the bubble, clouds of fish wiggled toward the surface and a giant pink squid spiraled by. This sent them into more hysterics.

Several minutes passed and they calmed.

Then it was Agu’s turn. “I have no name for it. But the first time I used it was to save a boy we called Stick Boy.” He told them about punching the other boy unconscious and how as the boy lay there, he decided to become a soldier. Then he told them about nearly killing Benson. Then he told them everything that had happened in the streets of Lagos. As he spoke, he watched Adaora’s eyes grow wider and wider, especially when he spoke of possibly killing people in the streets during the riots.

No one laughed when he finished.

Adaora knew they were expecting her to explain the origins of her powers, just as they had. But her story was different. “OK,” she said. She looked around. They were at the bottom of the ocean in a bubble created by aliens, surrounded by sea monsters. She shut her eyes, still aware of her fin. It was drying out and her scaled skin was starting to sting. She opened her eyes and looked at both of them. “I don’t know what this is,” she said. “Mine wasn’t something that kicked in when I was a girl, as it did when you were boys.” She paused, fighting the voice that told her never to speak of such taboos. The knowledge that made her feel like she was evil. The stigma that burned brightest when she thought about her husband’s constant accusations of witchcraft. And the fact that after all her denials, maybe she was a witch. Well, she was certainly something.

“I was born with webbed feet and hands,” she blurted. “And my legs were joined together by flesh.” Even after everything they’d been through, she half expected them to recoil in disgust.

“That’s… that’s disgusting,” Anthony said. But he smiled as he said it.

Agu was laughing.

“My father… he said that if it were the old days, they would have thrown me in the bush,” Adaora continued. “He liked to remind me of that whenever my grades were too low in school. It always worked.” She sighed. “Anyway, they surgically separated my fingers, toes and legs. Still, from the moment that my mother first took me to the ocean, I could swim. No one ever taught me. I was… like a fish.”

Both Agu and Anthony burst out laughing. Adaora wanted to cry, but she laughed, too. “I’ve always loved the sea. I am fascinated by it, the smell, the creatures, its size and depth. It is no surprise that I became a marine biologist. But that’s all there is. I don’t have any childhood stories about doing amazing things. All this…” she gestured to her tail, “is completely new. Two nights ago when I was fighting my husband, that’s the first time anything ever happened!” She frowned. “But… maybe it’s always been there. Beneath the surface.”

Agu nodded. “I was about to say that.”

“What are we?” Adaora asked, after a moment.

“We’re people,” Agu said. He looked at Anthony. “You can make a sonic boom.” To Adaora, he said, “You can create some sort of force field. I have super-human strength. And we all walked into each other’s lives just as aliens invaded Lagos.”

“Not a coincidence,” Anthony said. “Na the work of de universe.”

“It’s the work of something,” Agu said.

Adaora shivered. “My father would have said it’s the work of the gods.”

As Adaora finished speaking, she felt a terrible pressure, enough to make her ears hurt. She looked up and saw the bubble’s bowl shape distorting, as though something were pressing on it. The air pressure dropped. The temperature dropped. Adaora’s fin stung horribly as her sleek fish skin continued to dry and began to turn brown.

They all saw it at once.

Adaora screamed.

Anthony whimpered.

Agu began to cry.

The spider standing above them was the size of a mansion. Rough hair covered its eight endlessly long legs and bulbous body. It – she, Adaora instinctively knew – was looking right at them, down at them. With all eight of her intense black eyes.

“Even in the corners of palaces, spiders dwell,” she said. “Remember that, if you ever find yourself walking the halls of the great and powerful.” Then she was gone.

“What the fuck was that?” Anthony asked.

There was a wet splashing sound behind Adaora. It was Ayodele flipping water into the bubble as she hovered outside it. “They are ready for you. Come.”

^{Chapter 50} Second Contact

Adaora, Agu and Anthony met with the Elders.

There were eight of them.

And that is all that Adaora, Agu and Anthony will ever remember about that thirty minutes of their lives.

^{Chapter 51} The Magical Negress

Anthony and Agu had been given bubbles of air, like helmets around their heads, and they’d all swum back to where Adaora had seen the President speaking with the Star Wars-like creatures.

Then her memory grew hazy and she remembered nothing until her head was breaking the surface of the water beneath the late-afternoon sun. She felt as though she had encountered something enormous; something so far beyond anything she could have imagined, and that its presence threatened to force her out of existence. Whatever had happened with the… spider, with the Elders – it was all too huge to contemplate.

Hawra and the President, Femi and the two guards were on the boat when Agu, Ayodele and Anthony emerged from the water. All but Ayodele looked shell-shocked and none said a thing as Adaora was pulled onto the boat, naked, half fish and half human. Hawra fanned Adaora’s fin and each burst of air was like a thousand needles against her scaly flesh. But soon the scales of her fin grew transparent and began to flake away, revealing her brown human legs.

“Can you imagine?” Hawra whispered over and over as she helped Adaora pick the peeling scales from her flesh. All the men had turned their backs to give Adaora some privacy.

“I can imagine anything,” Adaora murmured.

Hawra leaned close to Adaora, smiling. “I spoke to a giant swordfish,” she whispered. “I heard its voice in my head.”

“What did it say?” Adaora asked, glad to focus on something other than removing her scales. She peeled away a large swatch. It left a patch of fishy-smelling slime on her skin.

“It spoke like a member of that group Greenpeace!”

Adaora laughed, her body aching. “Was it enormous? With spines coming out of its back?”

Hawra nodded.

“That swordfish hates us,” Adaora said.

There was an extra army uniform in a compartment on the boat. After Adaora had slipped into the garments, Hawra helped her to her feet. She was shaky. Air didn’t hold her the way water did.

The President was talking on Femi’s mobile phone. “Have the set ready for when we arrive,” he said. “And make sure I have a change of clothes.”

“Us too,” one of the guards added.

The President nodded. “And, and, bring two army uniforms. Pressed. Crisp. I’m not having these two guys leave my side, even while I am on camera. These guys have kept me alive, o!”

Still leaning on Hawra, Adaora stepped up to Agu, Anthony and Ayodele. They’d been quietly discussing something but she didn’t want to know what. “Is there a plan?” she asked instead.

“We’re going to Tin Can Island,” Agu said. “Trust me, it’s the easiest, safest port to use to get ourselves, and the President, back to land. We need a place that’s safe from the monsters.”

Tin Can Island, a mostly industrial area and one of Lagos’s main cargo ports, took its name from the biscuit tins used to transport mail to and from the island by strong swimmers, who would ferry them to and from passing ships. Vessels couldn’t dock at the island as it had no natural harbor or wharf – only a small creek, whose waters were far shallower than the open waters where the alien ship rested. And because of that, Agu reasoned, if there were beasts there, they wouldn’t be nearly as huge as the ones in the deep.

They heard the gunshots long before they arrived at the island. A mobile phone in Femi’s pocket went off. “Your phone, Mr President,” Femi said, frowning and handing it to the President. The President grabbed it. “What is going on?” he shouted.

He listened and frowned.

He turned to his guards with wide eyes, and then to Agu. “Ssss, sss!” he said, waving a hand at Agu. “Stop the boat! Femi, give me your camera.”

Agu brought them to a halt, as Femi handed it to the President. The President continued to hold the phone to his ear as he fumbled with the camera. “There’s something—”

More gunshots rang out from the island.

“What’s going on?” Adaora shouted. She squinted, barely able to make out a large group of men waiting at the dock. Bang bang bang! She could see a man firing. At the water. Beside the shooter, several men seemed to be trying to drag something out of the water. No, Adaora realized. Someone.

“Please,” Adaora said to the President. “Give me the camera!”

“Why?” the President asked, frowning as he continued fiddling with it. “What do you—”

“Just let me have it!” She snatched it from him and held it up to Femi. “Make it zoom in.”

When he handed it back to her, she held it up. She focused on the men. There was something in the water… and it was trying to drag a man under. Then two red tentacles shot out of the water. One smashed a window of the black car behind them and the other slapped at one of the men. He fell back. Adaora could have sworn she saw blood spatter. More men began shooting into the water.

“Shit!” she screamed, nearly dropping the camera.

The President grabbed it from her just as Femi’s phone buzzed.

“What is going on?” the President shouted into the phone.

“There’s something in the water, attacking them,” Adaora said.

“Oh Jesu Christi,” one of the guards moaned. “Will we never get out of this infested water?”

“We will, cousin, we will,” the other guard said.

“Are you people stupid? Stay away from the water!” the President shouted into his phone. There were tears in his wild eyes.

“I think it’s some sort of octopus or squid, “Adaora said.

“Chale, those things are smart,” Anthony said. Adaora had been thinking the same thing. Cephalopods were the smartest invertebrates on earth. One that was alien-enhanced… those men didn’t stand a chance.

“Ten men? You let it… oh my God.” The President sat down on the floor of the boat, the phone pressed to his ear. “Oh my God. OK… yes, save them.”

The boat started moving. The President turned to Agu. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m not letting more soldiers die,” Agu said. “I’m getting us close enough for me to swim to them.”

“Why’d they station themselves right in front of the water?” the President moaned. Hawra sat beside him, her arm around his shoulder. “It got ten of them before they realized what was happening.”

“I will go, too,” Anthony said.

Adaora hesitated. Agu had super strength, Anthony had his rhythm. But she could levitate, walk on water and protect herself with a force field. If she got into the water, would she grow her fin back?

“It will kill you both,” Ayodele said. “I will go.”

Again, she jumped into the water before anyone could protest. Agu pushed the boat faster. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. When no one argued, it was clear that he wasn’t the only one who felt it.

Finally they were close enough that they could see what was happening perfectly. There was a body floating in the water. Some soldiers were behind a black car, firing wildly. Others were standing on the dock at the edge of the creek, screaming and shooting. As they drew into view, some yelled at them; a few frantically waved them away.

When the boat was less than ten yards away from the island, a deep moan came from beneath the water. And then it surfaced. The monster was a bundle of slimy red tentacles, ridged with horrible black, bony spokes. The tentacle ball tumbled and rolled on the surface of the water and then parted to reveal an enormous, gaping, pink, parrot-like beak. Adaora had to tense every part of her body to keep herself from screaming. The creature’s beak snapped opened and shut. And then it plunged back beneath the water and disappeared.

All was silent as they stared at where the monster had been and now was not. They waited, but it didn’t return. The water rippled gently, and then was still. The soldiers on land slowly stood back from the edge of the dock. The others emerged from behind the car.

Adaora leaned over the side of the boat. “What did she… ?”

“Ayodele!” Agu called.

The boat bumped softly against the dock and everyone jumped off except Adaora, Anthony and Agu. They leaned over the side, looking into the water. Femi jogged toward the soldiers, who were also watching the water. He was taking pictures as he approached, saying, “Gentlemen! Hello! Excuse me, can I ask you some questions? I am with the press…”

“This way, Mr President,” one of the soldiers said, leading the President to the black car. “Sorry about the window.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the President said, clasping Hawra’s hand as they walked. “We saw everything.”

“What of the others?” Hawra said, looking back.

“They’re coming,” the President replied.

“No, they’re not.” Hawra pulled her hand away.

Adaora knew the creature was gone. Had it eaten Ayodele and thus been satisfied? Adaora whipped around, her head pounding. Too much. Too fast. There she was. Ayodele was pulling herself onto the far side of the dock, a hundred feet away. Right in front of the soldiers. Adaora felt relief flood her body. Then she saw one of the soldiers roughly grab Ayodele by the arm and yank her onto the concrete, bring his huge booted foot back and, with all his might, kick her squarely in the side.

Adaora could hear the meaty sound of the boot smashing into Ayodele’s flesh even from where she was. The man kicked Ayodele again, another man joining him. He smashed at her face with the butt of his AK-47 and Ayodele’s head flew back to smack against the concrete, her nose spraying red blood. Adaora jumped off the boat. Everything went silent as all the blood rushed to Adaora’s head. What was she seeing? Why was Ayodele letting it happen?

Anthony was already off the boat and running toward the men. Adaora ran after him, Agu behind her.

“Stop!” he shouted, waving his hands about. “STOP IT!”

But they didn’t stop anything. Ayodele did not get up, nor did she do anything to protect herself. It all happened in seconds. There were five soldiers now, all dressed in green, brown, and black fatigues with black shiny boots and dull black guns. These men rained blows on every part of Ayodele’s body with their boots, the butts of their guns, their fists.

“Winch, I kill you!” a man growled as he punched Ayodele in the face.

“Kill am!” another man shrieked as he kicked.

Her white dress was splotched with spreading patches of red as they stamped on her torso, chest, legs and arms. They crushed bone and mashed muscle and organs. One man brought his foot down squarely on her exposed neck.

Bang! The gunshot tore open Ayodele’s side.

Another man smashed his gun into her lolling head.

Anthony had stopped, yards from the chaos, swaying on his feet. Even as she ran, Adaora could feel everything around her being pulled toward Anthony.

“Anthony, don’t!” Adaora shouted as she ran up behind him. “DON’T DO IT!”

“Why?” Anthony asked calmly.

“No more killing,” she said, panting. She turned to Agu behind her. He had murder on his face. “No killing! They don’t know what they are doing, they don’t know what she is, they are confused…” She was confused, too. What was she saying? She shook her head at both Agu and Anthony. She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Let me,” she said, and ran to the mob of soldiers surrounding Ayodele.

She didn’t hesitate. Adaora plunged into the melee and began to shove aside the men beating Ayodele. Someone kicked at Ayodele but missed, landing on Adaora instead. Ignoring the pain, Adaora fell to her knees and threw her arms around the limp Ayodele. Then she flexed what was hers.

It felt like staticy heat bursting from her back and washing over her, and then toward the soldiers, shoving them all away. When they tried to press forward against it, the force repelled them, sending them flying back.

Adaora grasped Ayodele tightly, pressing her face to the alien woman’s neck. She could feel Ayodele’s warm blood seeping into her clothes. She could smell its coppery scent, mixed with sea water and urine. Ayodele was breathing in raspy gulps.

Why? Adaora thought. Why why why? Why was Ayodele bleeding? Why was she not changing? Why had she allowed them to beat her? Why had they beaten her? She continued to hold them back, as she pressed Ayodele’s broken body into her own.

“Witchcraft,” one of the men grunted.

Bang!

One of the soldiers must have fired at her. The noise was deafening, but Adaora felt no bullet. Just before the soldier could fire again, Agu ran up and punched the man so hard that he flew across the concrete, nearly tumbling into the deadly water.

Adaora brought her face close to Ayodele’s. She held the alien woman’s wide gaze. So different from the woman she had seen first on the beach less than two days ago. She’d experienced so much humanity in so little time.

“I saw you first. It started with you,” Ayodele whispered. “My people sent me for a reason. I’ve known all along…” Blood dribbled from her lips and Adaora shuddered. “Your people. They wanted to use me, kidnap me, kill me…”

“I’m sorry,” Adaora said. “We are better than that.”

“The Elders sent me,” Ayodele whispered. “We are a collective. Every part of us, every tiny universe within us is conscious. I am we, I am me…” She coughed up more blood.

“But why… ?”

“You people need help on the outside but also within,” she said. “I will go within… Adaora… let go of me… cover your ears.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

“Ayodele, please.”

“You’ll all be a bit… alien.”

Slowly, Adaora laid Ayodele on the ground. Then she looked up. Everything around her was slightly tinted periwinkle, the same color her fin had been. It must have been the effect of her force field. The soldiers were staring and staring, their guns raised, fists clenched. She could see Anthony and Agu not far behind the men.

Ayodele was looking up at her and for the first time, Adaora could see how badly hurt she really was. Her neck bulged grotesquely and Adaora could see the white of bone. One of Ayodele’s legs was twisted in an impossible direction, as were both her arms. She had been shot in the abdomen; bright red blood was soaking through her white dress. Her face was swollen and bruised. Her eyes were battered nearly shut.

“Garden eggs. Nothing better,” Ayodele chuckled weakly.

Adaora smiled, remembering how Ayodele had eaten the vegetables raw like candy.

“Close your ears,” Ayodele said, placing a hand on her knee. Adaora put her hands over her ears. She looked across at Anthony and Agu. They did the same and dropped to the ground.

Ayodele mouthed something to Adaora and she understood. “Let go,” Ayodele had said. And Adaora let the force field drop as she squeezed her eyes shut.

GBOOOM!

When she felt Ayodele’s hand leave her knee, Adaora opened her eyes. In the space where Ayodele had lain a white mist swirled, as if a fog had rolled in off the water. It had the faint tomatoey scent of… garden eggs. As she knelt on the concrete, covered in Ayodele’s blood, Adaora was overcome with a craving for garden eggs. For their crunchy cool fruit, sweet or bitter. “Oh,” Adaora whispered. And instinctively, she knew that this fog was rolling like a great wave over all of Lagos. She could almost see it in her mind. And everyone was inhaling it. Everyone in Lagos was craving garden eggs. Ayodele. What had she done?

She felt hands on her shoulders. “Please,” a man said. “Let me help.” It was one of the soldiers.

“Leave her!” she heard Agu shout.

“Agu, it’s OK, please,” she said.

“Are you all right?” Anthony asked.

She nodded. She could see the soldiers who’d beaten Ayodele standing all around her. She didn’t want to look into their guilty faces.

Ayodele was gone. Ayodele was here. “Lagos will never be the same,” Adaora said.

^{Chapter 52} Infinite Possibilities

The President of Nigeria sat in the middle of the back seat of the armored black Mercedes. Already he was writing his speech in his head. Originally, he’d planned to present the one named Ayodele as he gave his speech, but she’d died. He didn’t understand what Adaora had said about inhaling her essence. That wasn’t important.

Beside him was his second wife, Hawra. She had never been so proud and happy to be in Lagos. Her husband was thinking like a president, but she knew he had to think even more broadly. There were infinite possibilities.

Anthony sat to the President’s right, his cheek pressed to the window. He would go home to Ghana. What had happened was only the beginning. The Elders had plans for him and his country.

Agu and Adaora were squeezed into the passenger seat. Agu held Adaora’s cool hand as he thought it all over. He was a home-wrecker with super-human strength that came from the Ancestors or the soil or whatever. And he had a new purpose in life – to be a proud soldier for the New Nigeria, whatever that was. When things calmed down, he would go and see his family in Arondizuogu. Hopefully, Adaora would come with him. They wouldn’t stay long because they would certainly be needed in Lagos. But he would make sure they were OK and maybe tell them his story. He touched the cut on his forehead. It had finally stopped bleeding.

Adaora’s mind was blank. Whenever she tried to think, she only saw Ayodele.

One of the soldiers from Tin Can Island drove the vehicle. Over and over, he replayed the memory of his ahoa being pulled into the sea by some sort of giant squid. And then how they’d beaten the woman, and how she’d disappeared. His hands shook as he grasped the wheel.

The other soldiers followed in a second vehicle. They were confused, afraid and eager to see what would happen next.

How would you have felt?

^{Chapter 53} Casting Broadly

The drive was smooth. Many had left Lagos and those who had stayed were safely in their homes, waiting to see what would happen next. The Area Boys who haunted the streets were waiting for the sun to set, which would be in less than an hour.

The President had never felt so calm. His body seemed to hum. His mind was clear. Ever since Ayodele had dissipated, he’d been feeling strange. Not only did he crave raw garden eggs but he felt so calm, as if all that had happened was something he could understand. He had been in Saudi Arabia yesterday. He’d been more than half dead. Yesterday, he had felt his death in his bones. Today, he felt like he’d live forever.

The Elders. They’d told him the waters off the coast hid aquatic forests. All the offshore drilling facilities would be destroyed by the people of the water. Even in the delta, all was lost. Oil could no longer be Nigeria’s top commodity. It could no longer be a commodity at all. “But we have something better to give you all,” the Elders had said. Their technology.

The President smiled. We will be a mighty nation, he thought. He made a few phone calls as they drove, managing to reach one soldier on Victoria Island who claimed he’d tried to help Adaora’s daughter when she was shot and that he now had the island back under control; his VP Wishwell Williams who was not surprisingly safe in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja; and two governors in northern and southeastern Nigeria. All that each reported made him smile more. Things were settling down and things were looking up.

When they arrived at the television station, there were three men and a woman waiting for him. All were dressed in semi-casual attire but three of the four of them looked nervous, staring at the President. The fourth, a short young woman with neat braids in a white blouse and a long black skirt, spoke first.

“You all can sit here,” she said, motioning to some chairs set up outside the broadcasting room. She picked up three stacks of clothes. “We have everything ready for your speech, Mr President.” She handed him a stack and then handed the guards theirs.

He blinked at her for a moment, looking into her brown eyes. She looked to be in her early fifties but she had the alertness of someone much younger. Her calmness reminded him of… Ayodele. “Oh,” he whispered, understanding why. “Em, Miss… I need a room where I can…”

“Get your thoughts together?” she asked, finishing his sentence.

“Yes.”

“Come, I’ll show you.”

“Honey, do you want me to go with you?” Hawra asked.

“No,” the President said. “Thank you.”

“We will stay outside your door,” one of the guards offered.

“That is all right. You need to change your clothes, too. I will be fine.”

The President glanced at Agu, who was watching him intensely. The President nodded reassuringly at him. Agu didn’t nod back.

They followed the woman to an office down the hall. The guards were shown into one room, the President into the one next door. He shut himself inside. The space was plain, with an old computer on the desk and some filing cabinets against the wall. It smelled of face powder and perfume; it was probably usually used by a woman. But he didn’t care. Not tonight. He sank into a cheap leather chair and sighed, glad for the solitude. It felt good to be alone for a moment. He’d composed his speech in his head, but he needed to just be still.

“This is all happening,” the President said aloud. “Just hold on.”

Everyone needed him to do this right. Everyone in Lagos. Everyone in Nigeria. Maybe everyone in the world. He worked best when people needed him. And as it always did, this knowledge calmed him down. Since taking office, he’d found himself powerless to fight against Nigeria’s soul-crushing corruption. Wherever he tried to make changes, people around him were always trying to drain some sort of shady profit from his efforts. If he tried to create a program to improve schools or hospitals, someone set up a fake contract that would bleed money from the program. When he tried to address unemployment, healthcare, inflation, electricity, education, agriculture, any time there was money to be spent, it was the same result: the vampires always came. This had worn him down. It had made him feel futile, useless. Now, for the first time, he felt like a president. And this speech would be his first real act as Nigeria’s true leader. Oh, it was exciting.

He removed his dirty clothes and stood in the room in his boxers, looking down at his body. He’d filled out since the alien woman healed him. His ribs were no longer so prominent. His skin was smooth instead of splotchy. Months before he had left for Saudi Arabia, he’d been so thin that he’d resorted to stuffing his clothes to appear bulkier. He slipped into the fresh white caftan and then the white pants. He filled them out nicely now. He truly was cured. They’d done this to him. He thought of Ayodele and wondered what else they’d done to him.

Someone knocked at his door. “Are you ready, sir?” It was the calm woman who reminded him of Ayodele.

“Yes. I’m coming.”

His guards followed behind him as he walked with the woman. “When the broadcast goes live,” she said, “it will appear on all of your people’s screens. As it did before. Everything with a screen will turn on, whether it is plugged in to anything or not.

He stopped walking, looking at her. She stopped, too, and smiled a small smile. “Mobile phones,” she said. “Computers, desktops and laptops, televisions, e-readers, all things with screens.”

“How?” he asked. “How do you do that?”

She laughed. “The knowledge is in you. Ayodele made sure of that. We will explain, later. But for now, just be aware, you are reaching everyone in this city.” She paused. “Unless you’d like it to reach further?”

He considered it. “Can you make it reach all of Nigeria?”

“It won’t be exact, there will be some spill-over into other countries, but sure.”

“OK, do it.” He considered his speech. No, he wouldn’t have to change much of what he was going to say. He hadn’t been thinking only about Lagos. He’d been thinking of his entire country.

Yes, it was right.

A leather chair nicer than the one in the office where he’d changed clothes was set behind a wooden desk. The Nigerian flag hung behind it, over a full bookcase. He sat down and his guards stood behind his chair in their fresh, spotless uniforms.

Technicians rolled the camera in front of him and someone applied make-up to his face. He smiled when she didn’t linger. He didn’t need much. Before, he’d needed thick make-up to make him look less sick.

“I don’t need the teleprompter,” he said. He tapped his forehead. “It’s all here.”

The technician nodded.

The President inhaled, watching the technicians. The woman who was not a woman stood on the other side of the camera. She placed her hand on it and he saw the tips of her fingers sink into its black casing.

A technician said, “Five, four, three, two…” He motioned to the President and the red light lit up. The President was on the air.

The woman who was not a woman’s fingertips were in the camera. Again it hit him. Oh God, he thought. He looked into the camera, his brilliant words escaping him. So much of Nigeria was seeing him right now. Even in the most rural places, these days more often than not someone carried a mobile phone or was near a television or a computer.

He sat up straight. This was his time.

“Greetings, Nigeria,” he said. He was strong. He was healthy. His country was seeing him. The world would see him. This was the most positive thing to come out of Nigeria in a long time. Let the world watch, the President thought. Let them see that we are mighty.

“This is a historic moment for our nation,” he began. “For it marks an important milestone in our march towards a maturing democracy.”

The President had never been a great orator. But today, this early evening, he was feeling his words. He was tasting them. They were humming to the rhythm of his soul. He smiled as he spoke. “For the first time since we cast off the shackles of colonialism, over a half-century ago, since we rolled through decades of corruption and internal struggle, we have reached the tipping point. And here in Lagos, we have passed it. Many of you have seen the footage on the internet or heard the news from loved ones. Last night, Lagos burned. But like a phoenix, it will rise from the ashes – a greater creature than ever before.

“The occasion that has put me here before you tonight is momentous. It marks another kind of transitional shift. Now listen closely to me. This shift is cause for celebration, not panic. I will say it again: celebration, not panic. There are others amongst us here in Lagos. They intend to stay. And I am happy about it. They have new technology, they have fresh ideas that we can combine with our own. Hold tight. We will be powerful again, o! People of Lagos, especially, look at your neighbor. See his race, tribe, or his alien blood. And call him brother. We have much work to do as a family.

“Now let me tell you about my own adventure. Then we will get down to business…”

The President spoke of his failure as a president and of the corruption he could not stand up to. He told of his pericarditis and fleeing to Saudi Arabia to die, away from his country. He spoke of his shame. Then he spoke of being healed by Ayodele. He said nothing of her subsequent sacrifice. He wasn’t sure how the people would take it, especially the part about her dissipating into a fog that they’d all inhaled.

He mentioned Adaora, the marine biologist, who would serve as his scientific expert because she’d been up close and studied their… guests. He spoke of Anthony the Ghanaian rapper, explaining that he was the man who “eagerly offers celebrity endorsement from a neighboring country”. The President knew Anthony wouldn’t mind because Anthony didn’t think the world needed to know what he planned to do, he just needed to do it. The President spoke of two soldiers, one named Agu who had interacted closely with the newcomers and developed a rapport with them, and the other the soldier he’d spoken with at length via phone. His name was Hassan and he’d restored order on Victoria Island. These were the trained officials he was appointing to take the lead in keeping everyone safe. All were part of the old world, the President explained, and part of the new world. However, he didn’t say a word about the fact that despite it all, he still felt Agu, Adaora and Anthony were witches. Good witches, but witches nonetheless. Old outdated ways of thinking don’t die easily, and sometimes they don’t die at all.

He warned people to stay away from the waters for now. And then finally he told of his meeting with the Elders. He spoke of aliens amongst the people and he spoke of them as friends.

“Listen to your own hearts and look around you,” he said. “We tore at our own flesh last night, as we have done many times in the past. Now, as we hurt from the pain and loss, let our minds clear. And see.”

Then he spoke of alien technology and how the land would be pure and palm nuts, cocoa and other crops would grow as they never had before. Extinct creatures would return and new ones would appear. Nigeria would have much to give the world – and to show it. “In the coming months, we will set up solid programs. The change will be both gradual and swift.” He paused. “Corruption is dead in Nigeria.” Then he smiled.

The red light went off. The broadcast had ended. The President felt his entire body relax. He was drenched in sweat. His armpits were soaked. He felt damn good.

^{Chapter 54} Spider’s Threads

As the President gave his speech, Adaora stood at a window, looking outside. There were speakers all around the studio; one could hear the broadcast in every room. The others had stayed to watch, but Adaora needed to be alone and gather her thoughts.

There would be meetings with reporters, local, national and international. There would be meetings with government officials and scientists. She’d collect a group of oceanographers and they would go on dangerous dives, document and research in labs, collect samples and creatures (at least the ones who would allow themselves to be collected). Maybe I will even call Moctar Ag Halaye, she thought. The Tuareg diver was one of the best and he’d gone on dives to study great whites many times off South Africa’s False Bay, so monsters didn’t scare him much.

She’d used the office phone to call Chris and the kids, speaking briefly to Chris’s mother before losing the connection. She hadn’t been able to reach them again. There were a lot of people trying to make calls.

But in their brief discussion, her mother-in-law had assured her that they were all OK. In the background, Kola and Fred had asked when she was coming to be with them. “Soon,” she said, and she was telling the truth. But she wouldn’t be able to stay because she had things to do that went beyond motherhood. She would risk never returning to them, every time she explored the dangerous waters. She sighed. What kind of mother am I? And what kind of wife?

“I am a marine witch,” she whispered.

She’d work it out, as her city would work out its alien issue. Adaora leaned against the window frame and her eyes fell on three women standing at a corner beneath a palm tree. They were huddled together, all watching their mobile phones. When the President finished his speech, Adaora observed closely.

The women looked up from their phones and stared at each other. Finally, one of them said something and another nodded. The third was pointing at the ground and laughing.

In the town of Arondizuogu, Agu’s younger brother Kelechi looked out the window of his uncle’s house and watched as the truck full of thugs drove away into the sunset. The thugs must have had mobile phones, too. They must have seen the President’s speech. Maybe they finally understood that people like them were no longer going to rule Nigeria’s present and future.

“Kai!” his father exclaimed, sitting back on his plush chair. He pulled at his short salt-and-pepper beard. “Part of me wants to think that this cannot be good, but I think it is!”

They had all watched it on his uncle’s television. Kelechi had gazed in astonishment at his cheap mobile phone. He’d seen people in Lagos with their BlackBerries watching videos on the small screens, but he’d never had the privilege of such a thing. What he remembered most was how clear the President had looked, even on the small screen of his flip phone, and how he’d sounded like he was right in the room, speaking personally to Kelechi.

“How can this be good? Aliens?” Kelechi’s wife muttered, setting a bowl of okra soup and gari on the portable table in front of him. Kelechi’s father leaned forward and smiled at the food. He was in a good mood. “They are probably devils,” she added.

“You’re a child,” his uncle said, irritably. “What can you know about devils except what those silly churches pound into your head?” He pounded his own head to illustrate his point. “What we just heard that normally brainless president say – that was the most wonderful thing I have heard any politician say in decades!”

Kelechi’s aunt came out with another bowl of okra soup and gari for his uncle.

“Have they gone?” his mother asked Kelechi.

“Yes,” he said. “I think so.”

“Thank God,” she said.

Kelechi laughed. “Well, thank something.”

“No, thank God.”

“If those idiots had not left, I’d have gone out to handle them, damn the consequences,” his uncle growled.

Kelechi’s father winked at him and nodded. “As we did during the civil war.”

“No one could stop us.”

“Not bullets, not armies.”

“If all the other rebels had been like that, we’d be citizens of the Republic of Biafra.”

They both laughed, sharing a knowing look as they ate their okra soup. Kelechi’s father bit into an excellent piece of goat meat. Still chewing, he said, “It is a good, good night.”

“Devilry,” Kelechi’s wife muttered, adjusting her wig.

The woman who looked straight out of a Nollywood film showed up at the door just as the sun set. Chris didn’t want to think about how she had gotten past the high concrete wall and locked gate of the community where his mother lived. The woman wore high heels, had the body of a goddess and spoke with a confidence that reminded Chris of the best lawyers. In a firm voice that Chris found impossible to disagree with, the woman invited herself in for a cup of tea. As he showed her to the kitchen, followed by his curious son and daughter and his anxious mother and two aunts, she said that a road monster that called itself the Bone Collector had eaten her. “Your roads are safe now,” she said.

Then, not even ten minutes later, there was another knock on the door. This time, it was an older Yoruba man with smooth onyx skin who said that he’d been inside the internet for hours and hours talking to Ijele. No matter Chris’s religious beliefs, even he knew that no one spoke directly with Ijele and lived. Not even one of… them. Still, he stepped aside and let the black-skinned man into his home. After that another seven aliens came. What was attracting them to his mother’s house and why, he did not know. But something deep in him had broken open, leaving him warm and curious. He wanted to be a part of whatever was happening.

His aunts were excited to have so many to cook for and they happily went to the kitchen to get to it. Nevertheless, his mother’s face looked pained. She must have had a feeling that this situation went beyond the family. Beyond their beliefs. Beyond their religion. His mother was a Pentecostal Christian widow who gave much of her ample savings to the church and fell over with the Holy Spirit regularly during mass. Still, she retreated to the kitchen and helped her sisters cook a feast. They cooked egusi soup, okra soup, pounded yam, fried fish and stew and rice. His mother even made chin chin. There was nothing left in the house’s two fridges when they were done. And when the strange guests had eaten their fill, there was no prepared food left, either.

Kola and Fred served the visitors and then after the visitors had eaten, Kola and Fred asked them questions. They joked and laughed and told them about Ayodele and about life in Nigeria.

Chris kept his distance, talking only to the Nollywood woman who called herself Stella Iboyi. And the only reason he talked to her was because she wouldn’t leave him alone. After a while, his blood pressure began to rise.

“Why did you people allow your roads to be so dangerous?” Stella asked.

“We didn’t ‘allow’ it,” he said. “Our government—”

“Your wife’s father was eaten by the road monster, though. You never went to the road and asked it to give her father his life back.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” he snapped. “When a man dies, he goes to heaven or hell. He doesn’t…” He frowned. “Her father was hit by a truck. He wasn’t eaten by a road.”

The television, his mobile screen and his mother’s computer all came on at the same time. On their screens was the President. Everyone in the room grew quiet. Chris watched on his phone, everyone else watched on his mother’s most prized possession – the widescreen television. Adaora had bought it for her last year when his mother had broken her ankle and had to stay in the house for three weeks.

When he heard his wife’s name mentioned Chris felt his heart flip. Then a surprising emotion washed over him. He was proud, deeply proud. His witch of a wife was part of something that was going to be grand.

“In the name of Jesus,” he whispered.

In the city of Accra, Ghana, several people in a street market had stopped walking. They were looking at their mobiles. The sun was setting in a beautiful display of orange, pink and indigo but few noticed. Music drifted from the MP3 player of a man selling women’s dresses, then it stopped and began playing the voice of Nigeria’s president.

A woman who’d been walking down the middle of the busy dirt road that passed through the market wanted to throw her mobile phone away. She’d never liked mobile phones. She knew it sounded crazy but she had always been sure that they could do more than anyone let on. She had a feeling that they could watch you. That they could speak to you at night when you were asleep and brainwash you. “Maybe this is why Ghana is still the way it is,” she’d proclaim. “Because we all use phones and they all control us.”

Nevertheless, her boyfriend insisted she carry one. She’d only agreed because he was a sweet, sweet man and she liked the way he spoke Ewe, the language of her mother, whom she missed very much. She’d done exactly what he asked her to do, which was to carry the phone. When he called she answered, but that was as far as it went. She never used it otherwise. She wrapped it in tinfoil and kept it deep in her purse where it wouldn’t harm her.

She’d never set her phone to vibrate, but vibrate and vibrate it did as she walked through the market. Finally, she brought the thing out and unwrapped it. It was talking. And it was showing the Nigerian president. It wasn’t made to do any such thing! Her boyfriend had assured her. And what the Nigerian president was saying made her stop and stand still for many minutes. When he finished talking, he disappeared from her phone’s tiny screen and there was the date and time again. Like normal.

She frowned, her nostrils flaring. She squeezed the phone. Then she wrapped it in tinfoil and put it back in her purse. She started walking very fast, wanting to get home to check the news on her boyfriend’s computer. For the first time since the internet and mobile phones had come to Ghana, she wasn’t afraid.

A young man named Waydeep Kwesi slung a plastic bag over his shoulder as he stepped out of the fast-walking woman’s way. He watched her pass and then looked around. He didn’t have a mobile phone and he hadn’t been near any sort of screen in the last few minutes. He was more interested in the people around him, anyway. His belly growled. He reached into his bag and brought out one of the smaller garden eggs he’d just purchased. He’d been hungry for them for hours.

No one noticed as he bit into it like it was the sweetest mango and continued on his way.

^{Chapter 55} Good Journalism is Not Dead

Femi didn’t think he’d ever see his Honda Civic again. He sat in the grey, well-worn driver’s seat and sighed deeply. His car smelled faintly like his girlfriend’s perfume. Laughing, he’d sprayed the driver’s seat just before he left their apartment two days prior.

“God, that seems so long ago,” he whispered. He laughed. He was actually in his car again. They’d let him go. But he was planning to return to the President as soon as they called him. He took another breath and looked around. He was parked close enough to Bar Beach to see the water… and the part of the shape-shifting alien ship that hovered above the water, far out from shore. A few cars passed on the street and there were one or two people on the beach but no one nearby. Good, he thought.

He reached over to the passenger seat and undid the latch underneath. Then he flipped the passenger seat open. Quickly, from amongst various cables, chargers, batteries, SIM cards and mobile phones, he removed his car charger and his laptop. He’d owned this car for six years. He had bought a Honda for more than its plain, unassuming look. Hondas lasted. Even on the roads of Nigeria. And for this reason, he’d spent thousands of naira to have this secret hiding place custom-made for his car. He kept absolutely nothing else inside it. This kept him mobile. A journalist needed to be mobile.

He plugged his phone into his car charger, placed it on the armrest and then opened his laptop. Its background was black and there was only one icon on the screen. He kept all his links and folders inside and then opened his browser.

When he checked his YouTube account, his heart began to pound like crazy. The footage he’d posted of Agu, Adaora and Anthony saving him, the guards, the President and one of his First Lady on that boat had already gotten over three million hits. He’d named it ‘‘The President of Nigeria Saved by Witches and Warlocks!’’ That title coupled with his reputation as a respected journalist who’d once worked as a CNN correspondent, plus his substantial following, might have gotten the ball rolling.

“OK, Femi,” he whispered, opening his laptop wider. “This is happening. So make it happen.”

His inbox had over a thousand messages. Many were from Nigerians threatening to kill him for involving himself in witchcraft. Some were from Nigerians who called him a disgrace to journalism. The majority were from Lagosians asking him to please report more. He spotted several emails from newspapers around the world demanding more news. And there were some emails that accused Nigeria of being too backwards, undeserving of an alien visitation.

He found at least ten from news services including CNN, Fox News, the BBC, the Guardian, Reuters, the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera.

He read and then closed all of these and clicked on the one from the Nigerian Times. This one wasn’t asking to buy his story. It was his editor asking where he was. He typed a quick response: “I’m fine. I’ll have a story to you soon. Watch your inbox.” He paused. He still had the footage from Tin Can Island where the one called Ayodele had sacrificed herself. He clearly understood that this was what she’d done. He’d inhaled the fog like everyone else and he’d immediately felt a shift. In perspective; in memory. He’d only smoked weed once in his life, when he was seventeen. Within minutes he’d felt everything around him open up like a flower. He’d been horrified by the experience and never gone near the stuff again. This was how the perspective shift had felt, though smoother, more integrated with his own point of view. He felt it most when he looked at the sky.

Of all that had happened, of all he’d seen, Ayodele’s sacrifice was the real story. That was the story CNN and the BBC would really want. But that story wasn’t for sale. At least not to any foreign buyers. He quickly added a bit more to his email: “I’m fine. I’ll have a story to you soon. Watch your inbox. This isn’t a story for print. It’ll have the best effect if posted on the web. I have video.” Then he clicked send.

He settled back. All he needed to do his job was his car, his laptop and his mobile phone. He sat back and began to write.

My fellow Nigerians, my fellow humans, let me tell you about all that I have seen. I was there!…

It was the most honest piece of journalism he had ever produced. He did not write it hard news style, he wrote it as a memoir. He was a reporter sharing his experiences. He ended his 15,000-word article with what had happened on Tin Can Island.

…She saved them all and then they beat her to near death. But can you blame them? After all they had probably been through? Even before getting to Tin Can Island? What must they have seen during that night when Lagos burned, rioted, ate her young? So they beat her. I saw them stamp on her chest, kick her in the head, and worse. I was too far away to help. So the only way I knew I could help was to keep recording. This is what happened next. Do you all remember that fog? You should if you were in Lagos, wherever you were, whether you were inside or outside, you inhaled the fog. This is where it came from:

Then he embedded the footage he’d posted on his YouTube page. When his editor posted the story on the website, he’d make the YouTube footage live.

He reread his story, editing, adding where he saw fit. He didn’t censor a thing. He read it out loud. He read it aloud again and then he played the footage. The combination gave him the shivers. The world as he knew it had changed. He’d been sent out to cover the dead whale on Bar Beach. He never could have imagined what would happen next.

He clicked send. Then he sat back and waited for his world to turn yet again. He smiled. And it was good.

^{Chapter 56} The Swordfish

She swims around the alien home that was in the water three times. Three is a magic number to her. Her most memorable moments happen in threes. She’d never seen the massive ones in her entire life until one day while swimming far from land she saw three of them. Though they could stay underwater for a long time, they could not breathe it as she could. She’d enjoyed watching them meander to the surface and blow water out of a hole in the top of their heads. On the best day of her life, she’d eaten not one, not two, but three of her favorite fish in a row. And it had taken her three tries at spearing the dead snake thing in the water to make the dry creatures go away for good. They are gone for good. Yes, she is sure of this.

So she swims around the underwater part of the visitor’s home three times. As she does so, she inhales the sweet, sweet water. Her gills are enormous now. Her body is huge. She matches perfectly the golden light filtering through the clear water. Then she swims away. South. She swims out to sea, to see what she can see.

^{Chapter 57} Spider the Artist

I am the unseen.

For centuries, I have been here. Beneath this great city, this metropolis. I know your language. I know all languages. Legba is my cousin and he has taught me well. My cave is broad and cool. The sun cannot send its heat down here. The damp soil is rich and fragrant. I turn softly on my back and place my eight legs to the cave’s ceiling. Then, I listen.

I am the spider. I see sound. I feel taste. I hear touch.

I spin the story. This is the story I’ve spun.

I am Udide Okwanka.

I have been spinning these stories in this cave for centuries. I’ve spun the birth and growth of this great city. Watched through the vibrations that travel through my webs. Lagos. Nigeria. I know it all because I created it all. I have seen people come from across the ocean. I have seen people sell people. I’ve knitted their stories and watched them knit their own crude webs. They came in boats that creaked a desperate song and brought something I’d never have created. Lagos has fed me. Fast life, fast death. High life, low life. Skyscrapers, shanty towns. Flies, mosquitoes. The roads rumble as paths to the future, always hungry for blood. The Bone Collector will always be one of my favorite children. Ijele is my cousin.

I have watched, heard, tasted, touched these new people.

Shape-shifters of the third kind. Story weavers of their own time.

I respect them.

They brought Agu, Adaora and Anthony together. Adaora the brave. Agu the strong. Anthony the energetic. I know their stories as I know all stories. Do you want to know how their stories end? Do you want to know what happens to Chris? Does he get back together with his wife? Or will Adaora stay with Agu? What of Kola and Fred? What is Anthony’s place in the new world? Yes, you want to know. We all want to know things.

But I feel the press of other stories.

I wove that which Adaora draws from to practice her witchcraft. I wove that which gives Agu his leopard’s strength. Anthony’s life became part of my web when he first set foot in Lagos. I know the one who wove his rhythm. Anansi is my cousin. Anthony has always been within my reach. Fisayo’s destiny was written. The boy with no name had no destiny until I wrote that part of the story. Father Oke was destined to meet one of my cousins. The young man Benson and the other soldiers – they are all part of my great tapestry.

And now the world sees what is happening inside of Lagos and her waters. What is that sweet taste I feel with my feet? It is patriotism, loyalty. Not to the country of Nigeria but to the city of Lagos. Finally. Maybe it will flow and spread like a flood of clean water. What a story that would be. The waters off the coast are treacherous. They are clean. It is beautiful. But there is a problem. Other people in other parts of the world – they see what is happening here. And they fear it. They are agreed. Lagos is a cancer. They wish to cut the cancer out before it spreads. I will not let them. I don’t know who will launch them but these people are all in communication, so all are involved in the decision.

They will burn it away before it spreads.

I will not let them.

For the first time since the birth of Lagos, my glorious city, I will pause in my storytelling.

I will leave my web.

I become part of the story.

I will join my people.

And we spiders play dirty.