While born in Nigeria, Mynama Barros and her mother, Ebele, emigrated to Portugal when she was very young. This is where Mynama spent her childhood, and where, at the age of 10, she first met Huruma. Mynama’s mother worked as a waitress at the time, and Huruma frequented the small restaurant in the afternoons when Mynama was not in school. A precocious and somewhat annoying child, Mynama was enthralled by Huruma and would often wheedle her way in to sharing the woman’s table or booth, despite her mother’s attempts to stop her. Mynama admired Huruma’s obvious strength as well as her independence, and began to playact as a warrior woman rather than a princess. Unbeknownst to Mynama, Huruma used the opportunity the child presented to steal Ebele’s identity for her own devices.
But childhood games soon fell by the wayside. Mynama’s mother flitted from job to job until she found a position as a temporary secretary at a government office. While there, a love affair with a low-level staffer named Oscar Nunes changed the Barros women’s lives. When Nunes was offered an opportunity to work with the Portuguese ambassador to the United Nations, he proposed marriage and moved Ebele and Mynama to New York. Though torn from her friends, eleven year-old Mynama took the change in stride, marveling at the home of pop and movie stars that she now shared.
As with so many others, the bomb changed everything for Mynama.%r%rWhile never confirmed dead, Mynama’s mother went missing after the blast that destroyed Midtown. Oscar had been at work in the United Nations office, while Ebele had been running an errand that took her to the Portuguese Embassy – right in the heart of the red zone. Oscar, upon learning of Ebele’s errand (and subsequent likely death), ensured that Mynama was safe before he was pulled away from his family to help hold down the fort with what few Portuguese Nationals could be found to help in the search for their compatriots. Once he had the opportunity to grieve, a full month after November 8th, Oscar Nunes filed the paperwork with the Portuguese government to adopt Mynama so that she could stay with him in the United States. The fact that there was little information known about her biological father and that Oscar had effectively completed the “care period” as outlined by Portuguese law, the process was relatively quick, though it did involve the pair having to make a trip back to Portugal for finalization. These months went by in a blur for Mynama. The loss of her mother, who had been the only constant in her life, devastated her, and no amount of love from the man who brought her to New York would change that.
At first, Mynama’s rebellions consisted of small things but soon grew larger - lying about her homework so that she could get away with video games or watching television only to hastily get it done before class, to covering up the smell of cigarettes on her breath by popping a ridiculous amount of Altoids. While others balked in fear of the Evolved following Senator Petrelli’s speech in February of 2007, and the various manifestations of Evolved abilities came to light, Mynama’s eyes widened in wonder. She began to fantasise about her mother being Evolved with such an ability that would make it so she could have survived the bomb, and she was just waiting, biding her time for some unknown yet crucial reason before she could come back and sweep Mynama back home to Portugal – anywhere far away from the man that refused to look for her. As Oscar managed his grief and slipped back into his routine, Mynama resented him more with each passing day.
Upon entering high school, Mynama bucked harder against her step-turned adoptive father’s already lenient rules. While he cherished her as a reminder of her mother, Oscar’s answers to Mynama’s misbehavior came in sharp contrast to his rewards. He would send her out with a wad of cash in order to give him space so he could get work done, and then lock her in her room when she failed to come back before curfew. She fell into the traps that most troubled teens do, with the difference of skillfully masking the more severe crimes from Oscar by admitting to the small ones and biding her time on the rare occasions that he really cracked down. Like many high schoolers with too much free time and money to burn at her moderately well-to-do private school, Mynama flirted with the underbelly of society. This meant frequent visits to East Harlem.
The youth of East Harlem and the Thomas Jefferson Trailer Farm presented Mynama with a reality that she hadn’t been exposed to. These were her real peers – those who had suffered and whose wounds didn’t respond to the balm of cash and material things. But becoming an accepted member of this netherworld meant Mynama had to participate in their sort of entertainment. It was here that Mynama learned how to pick a lock to sneak into an abandoned building turned hang-out. It was with these people that she first started to carry a knife and learn how to wield it effective defense. Her lack of physical strength bothered her, and when their group was accosted by a squatter in one of the buildings they’d holed up in to smoke pot, one of their number fended him off with a switchblade. Impressed, Mynama sought instruction, and while not extremely skilled and having never actually been in an altercation, knows a fair bit about knives and knife-fighting. This smattering of friends and acquaintances would teach Mynama everything she knows about the street and how to survive.
For all her sneaking out to visit her tight circle of friends, Mynama was careful to always sneak back to Morningside Heights and the apartment she shared with Oscar. One night in April of 2010, Mynama misjudged the time and was picked up by the police for being out after curfew. Enraged, Oscar lectured Mynama for hours, bringing all manner of past offenses against her and declaring her under the equivalent of house arrest. Rather than let Mynama take public transportation to and from school, or even walk, Oscar drove her. He was with her every waking moment until the end of the school year, and even went so far as to have the strongest lock he could find installed Mynama’s bedroom door as well as her window. As furious as she was with her “fascist” housemate, Mynama let her anger smolder rather than rage. She waited, playing the part of dutiful daughter, until he was convinced she was reformed.
When Mynama was once again free from Oscar’s tyranny, she waited to go and see the old gang in East Harlem. After all, she knew that even with the slack back in her leash, she couldn’t immediately test Oscar’s reflexes in reigning her in once more. So it wasn’t until mid-July that she ventured into the trailer park - only to find that everyone from the old crowd was gone for some reason or another. The loss was a difficult one, but it only deepened Mynama’s meaning of and need for independence.
So rather than taking nightly jaunts to East Harlem on a regular basis, Mynama spent the rest of her summer wandering the streets of New York, presumably going to a seminar here or taking a lesson there. Her favorite route took her through the ruins of Midtown at sunset, so she could watch the painted sky fade to black around the wreckage and imagine her mother appearing in various ways - flying, teleporting in, or simply just walking up and embracing her.
A week before the mandatory registration date, Mynama came down with a severe stomach flu. While being treated by her family doctor, she was given an SLC test, which came up positive. Mynama dutifully registered, but she still has no idea how her ability will manifest.
