Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor Page A

was rarely home. After all the crazy events in Lagos, today was the first chance he’d gotten to see her.
    He’d met with Moziz, Tolu, and Troy earlier, so he’d only briefly heard Fisayo’s bizarre story about what she’d seen on Bar Beach when the boom hit. And that conversation was via mobile phone. He’d said nothing about the footage Moziz had shown him and the others, or the plan to kidnap the alien. Not yet.
    â€œYes, I think things are going to get weirder, too,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want you on the streets.”
    â€œBar Beach is closed anyway,” she shrugged. “My regular guys won’t even know where to find me.”
    The executive members of the Black Nexus, Rome and Seven, stood up when Jacobs and his sister entered the empty classroom. Rome was immaculate, as always. Tall, lean, and as statuesque as a runway model, he wore dark blue skinny jeans and a loose white blouse. His tiny gold hoop earrings perfectly accented his closely cut hair. Even without makeup, he passed as a beautiful woman. Though he never outright said he was one, most people on campus just assumed. Seven was only an inch shorter than Rome. She had the curves of Osun the Yoruba goddess, a shiny bald head, and eyes so expressive she barely had to speak.
    The two were the presidents of one of the only LGBT student organizations in Nigeria, the Black Nexus. Though most of its members were out or semi-out, the group still only met secretly once a month, in the dead of night. This was not one of thosemeetings. It was the afternoon, and this meeting’s purpose was more specific.
    â€œHi there,” Rome said, giving them each a hug.
    â€œIt’s good to see you,” Seven added, her voice low and husky. The hug she gave Fisayo lasted much longer than the one she gave Jacobs. Fisayo shyly stepped back. She was in no way attracted to women, yet Seven always made her want to giggle like a schoolgirl.
    Seven didn’t have to invite Jacobs and Fisayo to have a seat. They could read it in her eyes. Seven and Rome sat on desks across from them.
    â€œOkay, man, what’s so important that you dragged us out when Lagos is on lockdown?” Seven said, leaning forward. Her eyes added, And it better be a good reason.
    â€œIt’s a good reason,” Jacobs said, bringing out his mobile phone. “Come close. It’s better if we all see it at the same time.”
    Jacobs had a nice phone, so the footage was even clearer than it had been on Moziz’s cheap disposable one. Jacobs had watched it at least fifty times, and it still blew his mind. She was a young woman, then she seemed to turn inside herself to become a smoky, metallic-looking cloud, then she turned inside out again to become a completely different woman who was old and bent. She’d even spoken with an ancient-sounding voice. And Jacobs knew the man the shape-shifting thing was talking to; he was the bishop of his mother’s diocese. His mother had gotten Jacobs to attend service with her once, three years earlier.
    That day, Father Oke happened to be giving a sermon on the “evils and filth of homosexuality.” Jacobs had had to sit there beside his mother in his suit and tie, itchy and miserable with embarrassment and sweat as the bishop equated homosexual activity with bestiality. Afterward, the bishop had come up to him and said that Jacobs’s mother had told him all about Jacobs’s . . . habits. Jacobs experienced a moment of complete panic.
    He had seen Father Oke slapping the hell out of those hedisapproved of and calling them “the foulest devil .” And when the bishop slapped, he slapped you hard. The receivers of the front or back of his hand were usually women but, once in a while, he slapped a man, too. Jacobs knew that if the bishop “slap delivered” him, he’d punch the bishop in the face. But he also knew that, if he did, the bishop