by Wab Kinew
Feng, now running atop the rockslide, skipped ahead in the video playlist. After a two second pre-roll ad for a new phone, another video began, this one called “Bugz’s Top 10 Creations.” The narrator from the first video returned. “While other players struggle to build an arsenal that might include a few weapons and an animal to ride around on, Bugz, in her time in the Floraverse, has become the GOAT. She doesn’t ride a donkey; she rides supernatural beasts. Rumor has it her Indigenous identity plays a big role—she taps into the collective consciousness of her Ancestors. Her greatest weapon is not a gun or knife but her ability to summon all the virtual beings around her and create things no other player can imagine.”
“Hey, Bugz’s #1 fan,” a member of Clan:LESS named Joe said to Feng with a mocking smile. “Yeah, I saw you freeze up when you fell and she made eye contact with you.” Joe batted his eyelashes. “I know you love her. But you run faster when you’re not watching videos.”
“Shut up,” Feng responded with a laugh. He swiped the video window closed and ran harder. He felt good that a clanmate he looked up to had been watching him, even if it came with a little razzing. Feng put his head down and sprinted to catch up to his clanmates.
CHAPTER 3
Bugz’s legendary status was only as good as her last battle, and this time she knew she faced a huge challenge. Confidence and talent could only go so far when you were this badly outnumbered. The angry pack of clanmates chasing her had started out wanting her riches, but now after her ambush they’d surely want revenge too. They wouldn’t stop at simply defeating her either…they needed to humiliate her.
“Down there!” she said, pointing with her lips in traditional Anishinaabe fashion, to a lake that spread from the foot of the mountain and on to the horizon. The Thunderbird sped to within a few feet of the water’s surface. The first soldiers of the Clan:LESS horde poured over the mountaintop. The reflection of the winged giant shone across the water as Bugz and the Thunderbird flew by. The moonlight and the starry sky above lit the surroundings magically, the atmosphere amplifying every movement of the combatants below.
Laser beams sped past and bullets pierced the waves. Bugz named her home base Lake of the Torches in part because of the way the stars and moons danced across the waters. It reminded Bugz of her father teaching her to torch fish as a girl. Now, with an unholy military apocalypse raining down, the lake’s name took on a new meaning. The tracers of gunfire reflected back at the heavens as laser beams shone into the waters and scattered into oblivion.
The Thunderbird banked back toward the mountain as Bugz dove from her back and plunged deep beneath the waves.
“Get into the water!” Alpha yelled as the Clan:LESS horde reached the shores of the lake. Some pulled personal submersibles and scuba gear from their packs and plunged into the waters to pursue their target. Others assembled and launched gunships, tracking Bugz from the surface. On board one such ship, equipped with a massive cannon, Alpha set out to a spot where he guessed she might re-emerge. Flashlight and spotlight beams swept frantically across the surface of the lake as the search for Bugz continued—to no avail. Alpha and his crew saw nothing in the black waves except the reflections of the lights above. After five minutes, the excitement died down, and a deathly quiet settled on the water.
A rumbling began deep beneath the surface.
“She’s coming up!” The radio channel connecting all of the members of Clan:LESS crackled to life with a dispatch from one of the submersibles.
“Everyone train your sights on the target,” Alpha shouted across the waves. He located the radio signal flashing on his map and pointed to a spot on the lake. The rumbling grew louder.
“Give us an update,” Alpha yelled into his mic, his voice betraying a hint of nerves.
Silence spread across the radio channel as the sound of the rumble only increased.
Suddenly, the lake roared. The water frothed and parted as a massive snake tore through the surface, shooting into the sky above. It roared like a giant lion. This fierce, scaled creature looped high into the air and traced a Ferris wheel path against the stars above. The Clan:LESS soldiers stared in frozen awe, and remained that way for several seconds as the creature continued to arc across the heavens.
The snake reached the pinnacle of his flight path and turned back toward the soldiers, slowly at first but soon with an increasing and terrifying speed. He screamed again. In this instant, the beast showed his face to the mercenaries below, his head that of a giant panther crowned with two menacing horns. To some of the soldiers, he must have resembled a saber-toothed devil; others recognized him from the rock paintings flashing on their screens during tutorial videos. Either way, the soldiers did not move.
“FIRE!” yelled Alpha, charging his energy cannon.
One by one, the members of Clan:LESS sprang into action. They fired into the sky, but it amounted to nothing. Before they could train their sights on the creature, he struck. The horned serpent plunged into one of the gunships and ran through the soldiers on board. Clan:LESS fighters were tossed from his path like grass from a lawn mower. He carried the remnants of the boat deep underwater. Dozens of gamertags flew toward the sky as members of Clan:LESS departed the Spirit World. Silence returned for a moment before the leviathan resurfaced underneath another boat and trapped it in his jaws, shaking it from side to side in the air like a dog playing with a stick.
This beast was Mishi-pizhiw, perhaps the most intimidating of Bugz’s creations.
Mishi-pizhiw dove out over the water and his body crashed down across a huge tranche of the Clan:LESS armada. More than a hundred gamertags evaporated upward. In an instant, with the contours of the battle now shifted, Bugz was owning Clan:LESS.
“Retreat!” Alpha screamed, diving into the water just moments before the razor-sharp fins on Mishi-pizhiw’s back tore his boat in half. The ensuing wake swamped Alpha’s energy cannon. It blinked on and off listlessly a few times before sinking into the lake, never to be seen again. One of the remaining boats plucked Alpha from the waves as he and the surviving members of Clan:LESS made a break for the shore.
Once Alpha was safely on board the boat, Bugz heard him scream to his followers, “This is not a retreat, we are simply regrouping! We must always win!”
CHAPTER 4
Their horde now wrecked, Feng and the other Clan:LESS survivors beached their boats on the shore. He looked over his shoulder at the water-borne beast bearing down on them. Neither he nor any of his clanmates saw Bugz directly ahead of them, swinging her obsidian sword, until the first heads began to roll. More gamertags ascended to the heavens.
Feng tripped as he jumped off the boat and fired blindly behind him. From his hands and knees, he struggled onto the muddy shores of Lake of the Torches to reload his gun, cursing to himself as he went.
“Regroup on the far side of the mountain!” shouted one of Alpha’s henchmen, carrying their injured boss across his shoulders like a firefighter. Feng touched the raised Ø branded onto his arm.
“Well, they say Alpha likes to get carried away.” Joe grinned at his own dad-joke as he ran by in the direction of the retreating soldiers.
As Feng tried to get back to his feet, he saw a pair of sleek black shoes before him. Emblazoned on their vamps—in the style of traditional Anishinaabe moccasins—was a design familiar to many across the Floraverse: a neon-pink flower adorned by Day-Glo-green leaves. He looked up past the shoes, and past their owner’s hips, ripped torso, and shoulders.
“Bugz?” Feng asked, locking eyes with her. He sounded like a monk blessed by a visit from the Almighty. He shuddered as he exhaled.
“Don’t get all kissy-faced on me now. You’re making this awkward.” Bugz’s sword had already plunged through the top of Feng’s virtual skull before she finished speaking.
“You have been eliminated by Bugz. You cannot respawn at this time.”
&n
bsp; The words flashed across Feng’s display. He watched helplessly as Bugz ran off and dispatched another five of his clanmates at close range. In this moment Feng lost everything invested in his virtual life—years of his personal time and all of his money. But he felt neither rage nor frustration. He couldn’t help but admire how perfectly Bugz leapt from technique to technique, effortlessly thinning the ranks of Clan:LESS soldiers.
CHAPTER 5
Bugz ran back up the steep mountain in pursuit of the escaping members of Clan:LESS. But now, the forest creatures ran at her side. Moose, elk, and bears trampled and mauled the Clan:LESS soldiers. Smaller animals teamed up to take down enemies in their own almost-cartoonish fashion. A particularly embarrassing replay would show one clanmate taken down by a pack of rabbits and squirrels. Even the roots and vines grew speedily up the hill and enveloped the slowest of the retreating warriors, trapping them and suffocating them, turning their ’Versonas into plant food. Mishi-pizhiw transformed into his land form, that of a giant panther with diamondback plates running down his spine. He joined the chase for a moment but soon turned back to the lake, the battle already decided.
Bugz was hunting the last fifty or so Clan:LESS soldiers when a spaceship landing on the far side of the summit captured her attention. Clan:LESS planned to evacuate. They wanted to live to fight another day.
“I guess the bot can handle it from here,” she said to her online followers. She addressed her virtual assistant: “Shoot to kill, but don’t pursue them into space. Guard Lake of the Torches until I return.”
As the artificial intelligence system took over and gifts of gold and diamonds flooded her chat screen, Bugz pulled her VR headset off and shook her hair back to the way she liked it, with a side part framing one eye. She’d returned to the real world.
Bugz’s bedroom doorway framed the figure of her brother, Waawaate, who stood there grinning.
“Hey, nerd. Come and eat.” His invitation hung in the air as he turned to leave.
Bugz grabbed a half-empty bag of chips from her messy bedroom floor and chased him up the stairs to join her family for supper.
CHAPTER 6
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen.” The pow-wow emcee’s voice boomed over the massive sound system. “This young lady makes us all very proud with her talent online in what they call that vir-chew-al reality. And now, coming from a good pow-wow family, she wants to give back to the community in the Anishinaabe way. So she’s gonna dance in her jingle dress one time through and then all the other junior women’s jingle dress dancers are gonna join her for the last three push-ups of the song.”
I’m having an anxiety attack, Bugz thought. She often felt this way outside the Floraverse. Bugz did her best to keep it together in her jingle dress—black with pink-and-green beadwork accented by her metal-cone jingles. She pictured the many elegant Anishinaabe women she’d seen before. She knew their look: dignified, beautiful, calm—just like her mom. While she tried to focus on projecting that image externally, the inside of her head rat-a-tat-tatted a loop of her greatest insecurities. She would soon dance in front of all these people, solo. How many are there, a thousand? She felt the stares of everyone around the pow-wow arbor. Were they focused on her belly rolls? Of course her mom had lied to her earlier when she said Bugz looked great in this regalia. I look fat. I feel fat. I am fat.
Oh great, now I’m starting to sweat. Bugz’s internal monologue flared into full red-alert. She chastised herself for the need she felt to project an image of extreme poise. Gotta make the grandmas proud, right? But she could definitely feel sweat. Under her arms, running down her back. A hot, sweaty, sticky mess. Great.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is our pow-wow way, when one of us receives a great gift, as this young lady certainly has, our culture calls on us to give back with a giveaway ceremony and by sponsoring a pow-wow special like this one. Of course, we all watched her grow up dancing in the jingle dress, the healing dress…”
Of course the emcee has to go on and on. They always do. Nothing a pow-wow emcee liked better than to expound on every single detail of their teachings, to thank every blade of grass with their prayers, and to even explain their corny jokes.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is the pow-wow way…”
Isn’t the pow-wow way to dance and sing? Why all the talking? And why am I so negative right now? Gotta think positive. Well, at least I’m wearing black. No one can see I’m a sweaty mess. Unless my makeup starts running. God! I wish I could check myself in my phone right now.
“So, at this time we are going to ask the Lodge Pole Singers to give us that jingle dress song…”
Boom!
The sound of the big drum echoed over the PA system, reverberated around the Rez, and rang out across the universe. The drummers picked up a fast beat and the lead singer belted out a crisp, clear lead that the half-dozen other singers around him grabbed and blasted back to him. Bugz recognized the song immediately—the original jingle dress song given in a dream to her people generations ago.
Bugz jumped to the balls of her feet and started to dance. Instantly, her nerves and anxieties dissipated, washed away by the swishing sounds of the dozens of metal cones fastened to her dress. The baseball-park lights surrounding the arbor flared in a million directions from the jingles as they swung and swayed with Bugz’s every move. She hit a quick double-time pattern with her feet to accentuate the contours of the song’s melody. With one hand on her waist and the other gripping a fan of spotted eagle feathers, she lost track of all her worries, focusing deeper, only on the moment she inhabited. No more self-doubt, no more crowd of onlookers…just her and the drum. For once, Bugz even stopped thinking about the Floraverse and her phone.
In her mind’s eye, Bugz transformed into the visionary young woman who’d received the jingle dress so long ago. The healing dance. Bugz scanned the sidelines and saw the other dancers waiting to join in. Most of these young women danced on the contest pow-wow trail all summer long. Some of Bugz’s cousins even made a living this way, making car payments and paying rent with their prize money. But as she took in the proud smiles in the Elders’ seating section of the crowd, Bugz knew that here, in this part of Anishinaabe country, the jingle dress meant something deeper. Here, it was more than a dance…it was closer to a religion. The people here still believed the jingle dress dancers could make sick people well. The people here still offered tobacco to jingle dress dancers for their relatives who wanted to sober up. The people here still spoke of how this dance would heal their nation from the hangover of colonization. And so Bugz danced, for her family, her people, her way of life.
The honor beats struck, loud drum beats accentuating the rhythm of the song, and Bugz raised her eagle fan high in the air. She swung it from side to side with the downbeats as though brushing the pain and sickness from her community in one direction, boom, boom, boom, and then lifting their spirits back up in the other direction, boom, boom. As the honor beats ended, she kept her fan in the air for a moment. Her jingles splayed in all directions, the eagle plume in her hair danced in the breeze, and her expression froze with the realization of her inheritance. In this moment, Bugz found peace. She no longer projected the image of a strong Anishinaabe woman—she simply shone the light of her spirit on all those around her.
As the singers at the big drum started the next push-up, or cycle, of their song, two dozen other young jingle dress dancers stepped from the periphery and into the center of the arbor to dance their styles. Each used the same basic steps, but just as their regalia featured colors and designs that brought their personalities into stark relief, so too did their moves embody the uniqueness of their characters. Together, these women inspired an invisible wave of pride to sweep across the crowd. A round of applause broke out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let them know if you like what you see…”
Of course the pow-wow emcee can’t let a beauti
ful moment pass without trying to put his stamp on it. Bugz’s internal monologue rebooted, but her pow-wow spirit overrode it. She was on autopilot and would dance to the end of the song in fine form. For five minutes, she defeated her anxiety.
Bugz glanced at the emcee stand on the east side of the arbor and glimpsed her parents. They stood in the same spot as twelve years earlier, when Bugz had walked out into the circle in ceremony, when her community welcomed her into the pow-wow circle for her first dance and followed her around the arbor for the first time. Her father, Frank Holiday, in jeans and a baseball cap, stood with his chest wide and smile wider. Her mother, Summer, stood to the right, wearing one of those cheesy smiles Bugz saw on parents recording videos of their child’s first steps. Bugz studied her mother, the very picture of Anishinaabe royalty. Summer wore a Pendleton jacket, a white cowboy hat, and an eagle-whistle necklace adorned with beautiful beadwork.
Bugz eyed the whistle, made from the wing bone of a bald eagle, a ceremonial item sacred to those on the pow-wow trail and to the Anishinaabe way of life. Bugz longed for her mother to pass it on to her. Bugz wanted it so bad she licked her lips, triggering a hunger as old as she could remember. Perhaps in a few more years.
Bugz’s mom looked like an Anishinaabe princess, but she meant more to her people than a simple figurehead. She led the community as an elected Chief. Every few minutes, some member of the crowd would walk up and shake her hand. Bugz, still dancing, spun in place and returned her gaze to her parents, remembering an old story she’d heard from when they first dated. At that time, her mom worried whether she should really take Frank’s last name or whether it would sound too much like a joke.
