KOPANO OKEKE
LAGOS, NIGERIA
THE WEEK BEFORE THE INVASION, KOPANO’S father, Udo, sold their TV. Despite his mother’s fervent prayers for his father to find a new job, Udo was unemployed, and they were three months behind on rent. Kopano didn’t mind. He knew a new TV would manifest soon. Football season was coming and his father wouldn’t miss it.
When the alien warships appeared, Kopano’s whole family crowded into his uncle’s apartment down the hall. Kopano’s first reaction was to grin at his two younger brothers.
“Don’t be stupid,” Kopano declared. “This is some bad American movie.”
“It’s on every channel!” Obi shouted at him.
“Be quiet, all of you,” Kopano’s father snapped.
They watched footage of a middle-aged man, an alien supposedly, giving a speech in front of the United Nations building in New York.
“See?” Kopano said. “I told you. That’s an actor. What’s his name?”
“Shh,” his brothers complained in unison.
Soon, the scene descended into chaos. New York was under attack by pale humanoid creatures that bled black and turned to ash when they were killed. Then some teenagers wielding powers that looked like special effects showed up and began to fight the aliens. These teenagers were only a little older than Kopano and, despite the madness their arrival had created, Kopano found himself rooting them on. In the coming days, Kopano would learn the names of the two sides. The Loric versus the Mogadorians. John Smith and Setrákus Ra. There was no question who the good guys were.
“Amazing!” Kopano said.
Not everyone shared Kopano’s enthusiasm. His mother knelt down and began to pray, feverishly muttering about Judgment Day until Kopano’s father gently escorted her from the room.
His youngest brother, Dubem, was frightened and clung to Kopano’s leg, so Kopano picked the boy up and held him. Kopano was short and stout like his father, but well muscled where his father was paunchy. He patted Dubem’s back. “Nothing to worry about, Dubem. This is all far, far away.”
They stayed glued to their uncle’s TV day into night. Even Kopano couldn’t maintain his good cheer when the footage of New York’s destruction was played. The broadcasters showed a map of the world, little red dots hovering over more than twenty different cities. Alien warships.
His father scoffed when he saw the map. “Cairo? Johannesburg? These places get aliens and not us?” He clapped his hands together. “Nigeria is the giant of Africa! Where is the respect?”
Kopano shook his head. “You don’t make any sense, old man. What would you do if the Mogadorians showed up here? Hide under the bed, probably.”
Udo raised his hand like he would slap his son, but Kopano didn’t even flinch. They stared at each other until Udo snorted and turned back to the TV.
“I would kill many of them,” Udo muttered.
Kopano knew his father to be a boastful man and an unrepentant schemer. It had been years since Kopano responded to Udo’s big talk with anything but scornful laughter. However, Kopano didn’t so much as chuckle when his father talked about killing Mogadorians. He felt it, too. Kopano itched to do something, to save the world like the guys he’d seen fighting at the UN. He wondered what happened to them. He hoped they were still out there, fighting, turning maggot-aliens to dust.
The Loric. How badass.
The second night of the invasion, Kopano stood outside on his uncle’s veranda. Never had Lagos been this quiet. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting for something terrible to happen.
Kopano went inside. His brothers and uncle were still blearily staring at the TV screen, watching horrific reports of a failed Chinese assault on a Mogadorian warship. His father slouched in an armchair, snoring. Exhausted, Kopano collapsed onto the futon.
He dreamed of the planet Lorien. Actually, it was more like a vision than a dream, the whole thing unfolding like a movie. He saw the origin of the war that had traveled to Earth, learned about the Mogadorian leader Setrákus Ra, and about the brave Garde who opposed him. The saga was like something out of Greek mythology.
And then, suddenly, he awoke. But Kopano wasn’t on his uncle’s futon in Lagos. He sat in a massive amphitheater alongside other young people from many different countries. Some of them were talking to each other, many were frightened, all were confused. They’d all experienced the same vision. Kopano overheard one boy say that a moment ago he was home eating dinner, he’d felt a strange sensation come over him and now here he was.
“What a bizarre dream this is,” Kopano remarked aloud. Some of the nearby kids murmured agreement. A Japanese girl seated next to him turned to regard Kopano.
“But is this my dream, or your dream?” she asked.
Then new people appeared out of thin air, all of them seated at the ornate table in the room’s center. Everyone in the audience recognized John Smith and the other Loric from TV and YouTube. Questions were shouted—What’s going on? Why did you bring us here? Are you going to save our planet? Kopano stayed quiet. He was too in awe and he wanted to know what his new heroes had to say.
John Smith spoke to them. He was confident in a humble way. Kopano liked him immediately. He told them—the humans sitting in the gallery—that they all had Legacies.
“I know this seems crazy,” John Smith said. “It also probably doesn’t seem fair. A few days ago, you were leading normal lives. Now, without warning, there are aliens on your planet and you can move objects with your minds. Right? I mean . . . how many of you have discovered your telekinesis?”
A lot of hands went up, including the Japanese girl’s. Kopano looked around, jealous and disappointed in himself. These other kids were learning telekinesis while he was sitting around watching TV.
A glowing Loric girl at the table with a strangely echoing voice displayed a map of Earth with locations marked. Loralite, a stone native to Lorien, now grew in these places. Those with Legacies—Human Garde, like Kopano was supposedly—could use these stones to teleport across the planet. They could join the fight.
“I obviously can’t make you join us,” John Smith said. “In a few minutes, you’ll wake up from this meeting back wherever you were before. Where it’s safe, hopefully. And maybe those of us who do fight, maybe the armies of the world, all of us . . . maybe that will be enough. Maybe we can fight off the Mogadorians and save Earth. But if we fail, even if you stay on the sidelines for this battle . . . they will come for you. So I’m asking you all, even though you don’t know me, even though we’ve royally shaken up your lives—stand with us. Help us save the world.”
Kopano cheered. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He was ready!
Suddenly, the evil Setrákus Ra was shouting threats, his black eyes scanning the room, his gaze boring into everyone. People started to disappear, blinking out of the dream. Kopano woke with a start, sweaty, his head aching.
Little Dubem was the only one still awake and he was staring at him. “Kopano,” Dubem whispered. “You were glowing!”
The next day, with his family once again gathered around the television, Kopano made his announcement.
“The Loric visited me in my sleep. John Smith himself asked me to come join them in the defense of Earth. They showed me a map of the world with the locations of stones that I may use to teleport to them. One of them is located at Zuma Rock. I must go there immediately to meet my destiny.”
Dubem nodded along solemnly while the rest of Kopano’s family stared at him. Then his father and uncle broke into laughter, soon joined by his brother Obi.
“Listen to this one!” his father shouted. “Meet his destiny! Shut up now, we can’t hear the news.”
“But I saw him,” Dubem said, his small voice shaky. “Kopano glowed!”
Their mother made the sign of the cross. “A devil has invaded our house.”
Udo regarded his son through eyes narrowed to slits. Kopano stood tall, chest puffed out, hoping to cut a striking figure.
“Okay, Mr. Superhero,” said Udo measuredly. “If you are an alien now, please show us your powers.”
Kopano took a deep breath. He looked down at his hands. He didn’t feel any different than he had yesterday, but that didn’t necessarily mean the great powers of the Loric weren’t lurking within him, right?
With a flourish worthy of a martial arts movie, Kopano thrust his hands towards his father. He hoped that his telekinesis would come rushing forth and knock his old man out of his chair. But while Udo flinched at the sudden move, nothing else happened.
Kopano’s uncle laughed again and slapped Udo on the back. “Your face! You looked like you might crap in your britches!”
Udo scowled, then snorted in Kopano’s direction. “You see? Noth—” His father’s face suddenly contorted in anguish. Udo clutched at his chest, feet kicking out in front of him in spasms. His eyes went wide in panic. “My insides!” he screamed. “My insides are boiling!”
Kopano’s mother screamed.
Kopano and his brothers all rushed to their father’s side. Their uncle took a frightened step back. Kopano grabbed his father’s arm.
“Father, I’m sorry! I don’t know what—”
His father slapped him on the side of the head and grinned. Just like that, he was miraculously recovered and already turning back to the television. A practical joke.
“You stupid boy, I’m fine. Or perhaps my alien powers are just greater than yours, hmm?” He waved Kopano away. “Go on. See to your mother. You scared her bad.”
Kopano slunk away. Had it really all been a dream? What would he have done with Legacies, anyway? A boy from Lagos rushing off to save the world? Even Nollywood didn’t make movies with premises so far-fetched.
Little Dubem clasped his hand.
“I believe you, Kopano,” his youngest brother whispered. “You will show them all.”
At least, for a few days after his embarrassing announcement, Kopano’s family was too glued to the news to mock him. But then the invasion ended, suddenly and brutally, with the nations of Earth coming together to simultaneously attack every Mogadorian warship. Meanwhile, the Garde, the ones who had invaded Kopano’s dreams and promised him bigger things than Lagos, went to the Mogadorians’ secret base in West Virginia and killed Setrákus Ra. Kopano imagined being there, fighting alongside the Garde, and melting Setrákus Ra with his fire-breath.
Fire-breath, Kopano had decided, would be his Legacy.
When the news broke that Earth was saved, they celebrated in the streets. His father hugged him close as they danced down the road, fireworks going off overhead. Kopano couldn’t remember the last time Udo had hugged him like that. Not since he was a boy.
But the next day, it started.
Alien son, go down to the market before school and pick up the items I am thinking about right now! Use your telepathy!
Alien son, did you finish your homework?
Alien son, use your telekinesis to get me a beer, eh?
Kopano grinned through it all, but inside he seethed. His unemployed father had nothing better to do than sit home all day and think up ways to humiliate him.
Worse still, his bigmouthed brother, Obi, had spread the word around school. Soon, Kopano’s classmates were teasing him, too. A stall in the marketplace had started selling rubber Mogadorian masks, hideous gray things with empty black eyes and tiny yellow teeth. A group of his older classmates chased Kopano through the halls wearing these masks and, when they caught him, they used rolls of duct tape to bind him to one of the football goals. They took turns kicking balls at him.
Until one day, when Kopano stopped a football in midair. When that happened, they all ran away screaming.
“Finally,” Kopano whispered to himself as he began wriggling free. “Finally.”
It had been three months since the invasion. Kopano, it turned out, was a late bloomer.
That evening, he strode into his family’s apartment to find his father napping on the couch. With his little brothers watching, Kopano used his telekinesis to levitate the couch high above the floor. Then he screamed, “Fire! Fire! Father, get up!”
His father sprung upright, swung his legs off the couch, and fell five feet to the floor. As he groaned and picked himself up, staring aghast at the couch still floating above him, Obi and Dubem cackled with laughter. Kopano simply grinned at his father, squaring his shoulders in the same noble way he had on that humiliating morning months ago.
“You see, old man? What did I tell you?”
Udo stumbled over to his son, a smile slowly spreading on his face. He grabbed Kopano’s cheeks and pinched. “My beautiful alien son, you are the answer to all of our problems.”
Many months later, when Kopano finally made it to America, the psychologist Linda Matheson would ask him what life was like back in Lagos, before he came to the Human Garde Academy.
Kopano would think about his answer for a long moment before answering.
“Well,” he said, “I guess for a little while I was a criminal.”