"So many tried before
And I've waited patiently
In the end it's always wrong
It's so hard for me to believe
That you can keep it goin'
Couldn't stop if I wanted to
So baby if you take my hand
Everyday can feel brand new
Even when we disagree
Ain't no need to get loud
Everything is worth a kiss
Baby that's what I'm talkin' bout"

Amerie – "Talkin' About"

Fear was all around.

After Erik and the others witnessed the first attack in Miami, another foreign submersible showed up minutes later off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina.

"What the fuck is happening?" Disa whispered as they kept a vigil around her TV.

The dinner party broke up with her friends on cell phones scurrying to be in their own homes. Erik was left behind with Yamilet and Hollis. Alexis offered to give him a ride, and he didn't want to leave, but Hollis was hugged up on Disa by then, and staying would cause animosity.

Riding in the backseat of Kwame's Honda, Erik watched Alexis speak on the phone to her parents in Michigan. Her Spanish flew off the hook when she spoke to her mother. Kwame didn't know what was said, but Erik caught every word. Her mother was terrified and wanted her to stay safe and indoors.

Erik's cell vibrated in his pocket.

Grandpop.

"Jaja, are you safe?"

"I'm on my way back to campus, Grandpop. We're fine here, don't worry."

"I called Bakari to see if he could find out anything. Seems like every day this country has pissed somebody off."

"Chickens do come home."

"Hope they don't roost on us. You know Black folks be the first to get the worst."

"I'll call you when I get to my dorm."

"Please be safe. You all I got, boy."

"I'm good, Grandpop."

"Make sure you call me."

Erik hung up. The fear in his grandfather's voice reached out through the phone and touched his spirit. The older Erik became, the more frightened his grandfather seemed. Their last conversation the week before had been long, complicated, and full of his grandfather trying to guide him into passive behavior on campus. Focus on classwork. Don't get caught up too much in campus activities with Chocolate City. When Grandpop handed the phone to his cousin Nevaeh, she sat outside the front stoop where they used to sit and play as children and told Erik the truth about Grandpop's fears.

"He sees your mother in you. He won't say it out loud, but he's afraid you may be hurt like her one day."

"So he thinks I'ma get murdered out here?"

"Don't say that Jaja—"

"I am her. She raised me to be the person I am. Your Mom had a hand in that too."

"My mother wants you to come home. She wants the elders to do a cleansing for you. To protect you."

"Tell Auntie Rolita I'm good. Give that cleansing protection to Granpop, aight?"

That wasn't the first time he heard that sentiment.

Erik's grandmother Melissa essentially told him the same thing but directly to his face on his last visit to her in New Jersey. He wasn't close to his grandmother. She wasn't a kind woman, not like Grandpop. After his mother's wrongful death in prison, his grandmother tried to take him from Oakland to live back east. Erik acted a whole ass fool on a summer stay… his first summer without his parents. He raged and had crying jags that lasted hours. He beat up kids on the block and cursed out his step-grandfather. His uncles tried to intervene and Erik fought each one until the police were called to contain him.

Two officers surrounded him on the front porch and he had his fingers hooked in the grappling fighting stance of ulwa, the martial art of Wakanda.

"Stop it, Erik! You're acting just like Califia and look where it got her, all this fighting and for what?! Do you want to end up like her? Dead in some hellhole?! Or be like your father, stabbed by some ghetto rats?!"

Erik lost it. He attacked the cops and was sent to a Jersey juvenile detention facility until Uncle Bakari flew out to get him. He brought in another lawyer friend who specialized in juvenile cases and Erik was released due to trauma. The courts there made him attend mandatory therapy for the rest of his stay there, but Grandma Melissa shipped him back to Oakland the moment his court-ordered therapy ended.

The rage.

It festered inside his small body and the resentment he felt toward Grandma Melissa spilled over onto Grandpop. Erik acted an even bigger fool in Oakland. He hooked up with a local Blood affiliated gang and played the part of a genius child by day, and ran the streets at night. Granpop pleaded with him to honor his parents by being a good boy, but Erik was so lost then. The rage had taken root in his blood. He couldn't shake it. It was more soothing to rob, fight, smoke weed and roam the streets than listen to the one man in the whole wide world that loved him the most.

Erik was picked up by the Oakland police as he stood watch for some gun deal to go down in a trap house. A large pot-bellied Black cop put handcuffs on him and by the time word got back to Uncle Bakari in D.C. the courts removed him from Grandpop's care and placed him in several foster homes in East Oakland. The last straw was in Richmond when Erik tried to kill an older teenaged foster "brother" when the boy touched him in a way that Erik knew was sexual assault. The older boy misread Erik's introverted quiet nature as being a passive mark and grabbed for his crotch when he waited to take a shower before bed. The seventeen-year-old attacker had to have his retina re-attached, and his jaw wired after Erik was done with him. All he remembered as the authorities dragged him out in another pair of handcuffs was the relief in two other foster boys' eyes. Their victimizer had finally gotten his due thanks to a small boy with haunted eyes and the fast fists of his mother and father.

Juvie became his new home for six months.

Once Erik was released back to his grandfather he tried to stay on the straight and narrow but everyone knew him as Califia's kid. The boy whose father was killed for running guns. That was the rumor that went around. Uncle Bakari stepped in. Arranged for Grandpop to give him guardianship over Erik. It saved his life. Brought him closer to his grandfather.

Erik cried for months begging to come home, begging to return to Oakland and Walter and Nevaeh and all the things that were familiar to him. Grandpop stood firm even though it broke his heart not to have his beloved baby boy near him. The only link to his stolen daughter. The old man stood firm and only had weekly video chats with Erik even though it broke his heart to have him so far away.

Uncle Bakari transformed his life. Returned structure and respect. Returned love of self and hope for a better future. With the help of his mother's loyal friends in Martha's Vineyard, London, Brazil, and on a reservation in California, his extended family stepped in for N'Jobu and Califia and raised a boy into a young man. They all breathed easier when he was accepted into the Naval Academy.

Grandpop began to sense something was brewing after Erik left his Stark internship. Whatever high gloss that blinded them to Erik's new straight and narrow must've faded. Grandpop stayed on him. Grandma Melissa told him to stay out of campus politics too. The road to hell was paved by helping other people who wouldn't help themselves was her motto to him. Califia had gone out to save Black people, and they killed her. N'Jobu placed himself in an area of poverty and crime to be a role model of a good working-class Black man, and it killed him. Melissa wanted him to have a Boule life like her. Martha's Vineyard in the summer, Fortune 500 job, respectability, a cleansing of his pedigree from the son of a controversial murdered activist to a young man with a safe, predictable life in the suburbs.

They sat in traffic.

It seemed like a lot of people were swarming to get home. When they arrived back at M.I.T., Erik was exhausted and ready to sleep for hours. Kwame walked with them to their dorm building and Alexis dismissed him from trying to walk her to her room. Her boyfriend's lips curled down in a frown, but Erik left them to work it out as he made his way to the elevator.

Inside the commons, Erik's dorm mates watched laptops and cell phones as a TV blared the latest updates. Tension was high. His cell vibrated. Texts from Aunt Serah in London. Aunt Soliel in Sao Paulo. His cousin Marisol called him directly.

"JaJa."

Marisol's voice made him pause.

"I'm good over her. Don't worry."

He hurried her off so he could take a shower and sleep.

The next morning the President of the United States, a dough-faced blowhard, demanded justice for the fallen soldiers and Coast Guard casualties, but the U.N. convened quickly. Over the next few days, the U.S. President huffed and puffed, building up a large Naval presence in the Atlantic, but the Atlanteans, who were named by the U.S. government as the culprits, had disappeared.

On a rainy Sunday night, Erik ate a bowl of oatmeal soaked in butter and brown sugar and watched the flatscreen in the commons as a cable station aired a U.N. summit. Ten other dorm mates sat spread about watching the same TV as King T'Chaka Udaku stepped to a podium to address the assembly in a taped clip that made the rounds online. Erik witnessed for the first time the manipulative power T'Chaka had over people. Chest puffed out in his royal robes, T'Chaka gave a stern warning to other nations of the threat Atlantis had to the civilized world. The clip jumped back to a 60 Minutes TV interview, and Erik sat up in his seat. Lesly Stahl hosted the segment, and they all watched King T'Chaka and Prince T'Challa walk into a luxury hotel suite.

"My man got on all the drip, check out that shit!" Rasheed said.

"Daddy cold rocking all that ice too! Pops is draped!" Darcy said slapping hands with Mark who nodded at the TV.

They were impressive men. The Udaku Royal House. Erik's lips grew tight and his eyes narrowed.

"Nigga walks like your arrogant ass," Darcy said glancing over at Erik.

"Look like you too," Tamir said stuffing his face with potato chips.

"No, he don't," Rasheed said.

Tamir paused the screen and stood up. He pointed to T'Challa's lips and forehead.

"Same crease, same fat mouth pout. Hair 'bout the same too. Nigga just darker-skinned," Tamir said.

Erik grew uncomfortable when a few of the other students took a peek at him to confirm.

"Shit, we all come from slaves and we mixed up with a whole lotta tribes. We all might be related to them," Darcy joked.

Erik stuffed oatmeal in his mouth and stared at T'Challa. The resemblance was there. Especially the walk. Erik couldn't deny that.

The King of Wakanda perched himself in a high-back chair and behind him, Prince T'Challa sat tugging on the jacket of his pale blue designer suit.

Small talk commenced, and then Leslie hit the King with his reaction to the Atlanteans becoming aggressive in American waters.

"It is rare for the Atlanteans to become so visibly public and this aggressive toward others on this side of the world. It is imperative that other nations prepare themselves for more caustic behavior such as this. I have warned the U.N. and your President of the vicious nature of the Atlanteans. They are not to be trusted when they behave with such barbaric actions."

"Have you had interactions with the leaders of Atlantis?"

"In the past, my father and his father before him have tried to bring Atlantis into the fold of humanity that seeks peace and prosperity for all."

"Why should other nations listen to Wakanda and your leadership? You are a pastoral people, and forgive me for saying this… I don't mean to be rude… but you have no military power or far-reaching political influence to dictate what other nations should do. Clearly the Atlanteans have the technology and a naval force on the level of the U.S.-"

"Do not underestimate the voice of a pastoral people. We may not have an impressive GNP or the resources that you Americans seem to worship in other G7 nations, but we are an ancient people with wisdom to share for the benefit of all."

Erik saw it then.

The glint in T'Challa's eye as his father spoke.

How uncomfortable it must feel to have a nation no smarter than a toddler speaking to a hidden powerhouse that could wipe America from the history books if they chose to on a whim. T'Challa wanted to slap the taste out of Leslie Stahl's condescending mouth.

King T'Chaka laid out a plan of action for America, and in the subtext, Erik heard the manipulation laced throughout. Wakanda was positioning itself as the great moderator. T'Chaka was already becoming revered as an elder statesmen in Europe and China. The seductive voice of wisdom would lull America into viewing the King that way too.

The man was a cunning trickster.

"From what we've learned in the last seventy-two hours since the attack in Miami, Atlantis claims that the U.S. has overstepped its bounds with deep ocean drilling and crossing territories in international waters—"

"What bounds do they speak of exactly? Environmental concerns are legitimate points of contention, but where have they been letting us know of their world? They made an unprovoked attack near American soil… murdered American citizens, but now there is talk of drilling…"

By the end of the interview, he had Leslie laughing with him, asking him for nuggets of cute ancient African colloquialisms, and then she asked T'Challa a few questions. Princess Vivienne of Monaco came up, and that was the one time T'Challa smiled. The camera cut to a picture of the Prince and Princess having a romantic moment in France at a tennis match. The Princess looked deeply tanned with her hair in thick twists looking more Black than she ever had back in Monaco. He remembered his time with her there when he traveled with Tony Stark. He remembered having her in her bed too. And T'Challa finding out. Erik smiled knowing he had something that belonged to his rival. The man didn't even know it even as he stared at Erik while he wore dark shades to cover brooding eyes that they both shared from their bloodline.

"She fine, yo," Rasheed said as another picture of Vivienne popped up, this time showing her with her royal family on vacation in the French Riviera. She looked more ambiguous there, her mixed heritage making Leslie gush over her beauty.

The interview ended with a final shot of King T'Chaka with T'Challa by his side as they entered the U.N. building with the American Ambassador. Erik finished his oatmeal and went to their kitchen and cleaned up his dishes. King T'Chaka was reeling in supporters. What was he planning? His current public persona was so different from the ultra-isolationist stance Wakanda historically took with the outside world. Did they want to plan global dominance before Atlantis did?

His father's executioner played chess in front of an American audience and they fell for it. Erik gripped the edge of the sink to calm the shaking in his hands. He clenched and unclenched several times before he went to his room and flopped on his bed to finish work on a paper.

Things were tense on the international political scene for a few weeks, but like anything American, people went on about their business as if it didn't affect them. The Atlanteans disappeared. Congress bandied talks of war, but then videos of illegal drilling from the U.S. side showed up online and a few countries felt Atlantis was justified in flexing. No one could find the submersibles. The Atlantic Ocean was scanned, crisscrossed by subs, destroyers, and divers, but no traces of the Atlanteans were detected or found. It shook the U.S. up. But King T'Chaka's authoritative voice and knowledge of those people brought him closer to the U.S. and the U.N. He was asked to join a special council. Checkmate.

Erik kept busy with school, but he made time to listen to Disa every night. The first big snow came down, and she invited him over for another dinner. This time the meal was in honor of her ex-boyfriend Samir's birthday, and she cooked traditional Yemen foods from his mother's recipes and the man cried when she brought him into her dining room.

Platters were piled high with chicken and grilled fish with two round silver pans of fresh-baked kubana. There was lamb broth soup, carrot rice, savory peas in a tomato base, and stacks of flat bread to break into pieces for them to eat with their fingers mainly.

"Bismillah," she said and they all ate.

Disa served Turkish coffee to go with the dessert of round donut-holes fried and dipped in overly sweet liquid syrup. While the others drank wine and coffee, Samir sipped on lemon rosewater and smiled the entire time as they all feasted.

Erik liked Samir. He didn't feel weird about Disa being with him a long time ago. They were teenagers then, and it didn't sound like a serious relationship. He was Disa's first college boyfriend, and they broke up after two months knowing they were friends for life.

At the table, Samir taught Erik some Arabic words for the few utensils they used at the table. Samir and Disa were impressed with how fast Erik memorized the words. Disa corrected his pronunciation and later in her living room, she read the words of the Suras she had hanging on her wall near the TV.

"What does this one say?" he asked.

A gold and green frame that had a gorgeous Arabic script in silver hung behind her DJ set up.

"Oh, that's not from the Quran. It's a poem by Nizar Qabbani."

She read it to him in Arabic by heart and smiled.

"It says, 'Because my love for you is higher than words, I have decided to fall silent.' I hung it here because I love sharing music on my turntables, and once I get behind the wheels of steel, I don't have to talk. The music does it for me."

"What about that one?" he said pointing to another framed script.

"Hmmm, that is from Khalil Gibran. 'One day you will ask me… which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine… and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.' My father gave that to my mother years after they divorced. She gave it to me when I came here. It's a gorgeous frame, but the words are sad. Like my parent's marriage when I got older. Funny though… they are better friends now and spend more time together now that he's ill. I guess the thought of losing him smoothed over some of her pain from the past. I sometimes think they've fallen in love with each other again."

Her eyes glossed over the script and then she turned on some good music and conversations flowed. Erik was surprised to see Svetlana back with her husband, Matthew. He learned that Disa allowed hard conversations and her friends accepted that. There were discussions about U.S. foreign policy and speculations about the Atlanteans before there was wild dancing with more drinking and the presentation of a small cake for Samir. Samir didn't partake of alcohol, but he was drunk on his friendship with all the people present. He planted sloppy kisses on Disa's cheek and grew emotional when they sang Happy Birthday to him.

Erik savored the feeling in her home. He kept very few people close to him and he envied the ease in which Disa brought people together to relax and enjoy one another. She welcomed him among her social group and he attended more dinner parties. She didn't allow him to sit back and observe; he had to take part in conversations and defend positions that others disagreed with. Disa held his feet to the fire when he pushed back on giving too much personal information out.

It came to a head when Alexis and Kwame attended a raucous Saturday night soiree and Disa held court at the head of her dining table and congratulated Alexis on securing a fellowship in Spain for the summer. The cold February night called for hot toddies and spicy hot apple cider and Erik watched Disa gush over Alexis and brag about her mentee to all the others. Alexis admired Disa as much as Erik did, and he reached out and patted Alexis's hand. The wine he drank made him show public affection for her and Kwame didn't like it, especially when Erik gave Alexis cheeks kisses the way Disa did all her friends in greetings and departures.

Erik was surprised that Kwame never once confronted him about sleeping with Alexis. Erik ended their sexual union months ago, right after the first appearance of the Atlanteans when they all fled Disa's home like it was War of the Worlds. He had slowed down all sexual connections the past few months once he came into Disa's orbit. The dinner conversations, his studies, and his tracking Wakanda's moves at the U.N. kept him preoccupied. His physical needs took a back seat as his mind went into overdrive. Even Hollis had him thinking beyond the box in class.

Erik touched Alexis and Kwame picked up a glass of water and drained it to the bottom before he sat forward in his chair and threw Erik's business on front street.

"Is Califia Stevens your mother?"

Erik nearly broke the stem on his wineglass.

"Who is that?" Alexis asked.

Kwame glanced around the table.

"I've been listening to you speak at these dinners for months and there was something about you that made me look up some stuff—"

"Who is Califia Stevens?" Yamilet asked grabbing for her cell phone.

Erik's eyes dropped to his plate of salmon and yellow rice. His intestines knotted up. Hearing some stranger say her name out loud like that froze him. As if she were some footnote tab on a google search. His legs pushed his seat back, and he nearly bolted from the chair.

"You don't have to answer him, Erik," Disa said.

Her voice held him. Gave space for him to breathe normally once more. The knot in his guts twisted its way into his chest and anchored itself in his throat. Alexis cradled his fingers bringing the physical world back to him as he exhaled quickly.

"Oh wow," Yamilet said. Her eyes darted over to Disa.

"She's my Mom," Erik said, his voice fragile.

"The women in Brazil… the ones who started those marches for… Negra Lia…" Yamilet said.

"The Sao Paulo 4. She was one of them. Lia was my Aunt. My mother—"

"Was a powerful woman," Hollis said.

Erik's professor had been quiet but in a jovial mood all night and he and Erik shared a productive conversation before the meal comparing notes on cosmic ancestry and the latest theories on the physics of the universe. It was a heated and fascinating discussion and Erik felt at ease being around Hollis again. Probably because he viewed Erik as a helpless puppy around Disa. A non-threat.

Hollis wiped his hands on his linen napkin and took and good long hard look at Erik's face.

"Why would you bring up his mother, Kwame?" Disa asked.

"I was curious—"

"Liar," Alexis said.

"I was. He sits here at every gathering like some pompous know-it-all and never gives personal information about himself like the rest of us do. I just want to know who I'm eating with and I found out. His mother tried to kill people doing their jobs to protect people from extremists."

"Extremists?" Hollis said.

"She killed a cop."

Erik grabbed the knife near his plate and almost knocked Alexis over in her chair when he jumped up clutched Kwame's throat. He slammed the man down on the dining table knocking away food and wine bottles as he jabbed the knife just under Kwame's left eye. The man struggled and gripped Erik's hand to release the chokehold. His eyes bulged.

"Those cops killed my aunt! They murdered my mother! Don't you ever fucking say shit about her or I'll cut your throat out right here on this table. I'll kill you!"

Disa's guests scattered from the table. Hollis rushed over and stood a safe distance from Erik. Disa stood right from her chair.

"Erik, let him go, please!" Alexis whispered behind him.

Hollis moved closer and put a gentle hand on Erik's shoulder.

"He's not worth the trouble, Erik. Your mother was not an extremist—"

"I don't want to hear her name coming from his mouth!"

"Okay… okay… it won't. Release him and he'll leave. We'll make him leave. No harm, no foul."

"I should cut your tongue out-!"

"Erik… I will make him leave. He's no longer welcome here," Disa said.

She moved over and wrapped her hand around his knife-wielding one. He felt her lips near his ear.

"Just step back. He's gone," she said.

He tensed as her fingers pulled his hand away from Kwame. Hollis removed the knife and Erik stepped away, breathing hard, his eyes wild in his sockets.

"Kwame, get your things and get out of my house."

Kwame slinked away from the table rubbing his neck. His eyes darted to Alexis, but she had her arm wrapped around Erik's waist.

"Alexis, take him to the guest room, let him calm down there. Hollis?" Disa nodded her head in Kwame's direction.

"Come on," Hollis said guiding Kwame out to the living room.

Alexis guided Erik through the house to the other side where he had never been before. The guest room was a sleek furnished bedroom with its own restroom across the hall.

"Sit," Alexis said.

Erik sat on the bed and let Alexis stroke his face with her soft hands.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…" she said.

He sat in a daze. So ready to kill for his mother.

Erik heard chatter in the living room, and then Disa walked into the room.

"I messed up your gathering," he said standing up.

"Don't worry—"

"I'll leave too."

"No. You will stay here. You're in no shape to drive to the dorm right now. Alexis, can you stay here with him? I'm clearing things up with Yamilet—"

"I'll clean up. I made the mess—"

"Erik… listen to me. I need you to stay in here and relax your mind. We have everything under control," Disa said.

She left the room and closed the door behind her.

"She'll never let me come over here again," he whispered.

"Don't say that. She's very fond of you. Kwame was the asshole."

Erik pushed his body back on the cool indigo blanket and closed his eyes. He still felt his mother's ghost in his heart.