by Wab Kinew
The teacher walked in and the class began. Feng turned to face the teacher, but for the rest of homeroom Bugz watched him from the corner of her eye.
CHAPTER 17
The moon shone high above Lake of the Torches, its reflection shimmering across rolling waves. Bugz paddled slowly in a birchbark canoe, pausing after each stroke to let the black water drip slowly back into the lake. The ripples from these droplets caught the dim light for a moment before they flattened into the nothingness of the expansive waters. Bugz and her canoe coasted smoothly through the simulated darkness of the Spirit World.
Overhead, the northern lights danced in the distance.
“Hello, Ancestors,” Bugz whispered to them.
She blew air softly through her lips, increasing the pressure on her lower lip until she found a whistling tone. Bugz craned her head to the northern lights. She whistled the melody of an old prayer song she knew, one she learned from YouTube. She ran through it once and paused, gliding her canoe through the water, waiting for the virtual northern lights to respond to her tune.
Nothing.
“I guess they didn’t program that into this universe,” Bugz said to herself.
As her canoe drifted, a giant black diamondback surfaced in the water on her port side. Then another on her starboard side, and more behind her. As Bugz scanned the surface of the waters around her, dozens more shiny-plated beasts emerged from the dancing waters in every direction.
“Nameg.” She whispered the Anishinaabe word for sturgeon. “You’re so beautiful.”
She paddled again.
“I love you all…”
Her voice trailed off as she scanned each of the prehistoric-looking life-forms around her, concentrating on paddling a weaving path between them.
“But which of you is my favorite?”
Suddenly, she noticed how quiet the Floraverse had become. She looked to the shore and saw a strange bounty hunter–looking ’Versona waving to her. God, these fans, Bugz thought. Can’t leave me alone. The figure waved with greater urgency and brought their hands to their mouth, as though trying to yell. Bugz focused on what the person was saying. It sounded like “watch out.”
She unmuted her chat.
Messages poured into her heads-up display.
“therealNix: Look out!”
“Feelthevern: They’re about to attack!”
“Raven_womxn: Clan:LESS is closing in Bugz, pay attention!”
“Iamtheone: Stupid B—”
“Oh shoot. Too much time enjoying nature,” Bugz said, still lost in the virtual scene. “Where are these losers coming from?”
A murder of crows scattered from a poplar tree to her right. Bugz turned and held her breath. No movement, no sound, not even a reflection across the water.
Bugz unholstered a flare gun from her thigh and fired it high above the offending tree. The flare exploded like a shimmering orange firework and illuminated hundreds of Clan:LESS soldiers struggling to stay hidden behind cloaking shields. These handheld defenses actually hid the soldiers from Bugz, for the most part. However, her flare revealed scores of battle helmets, antennae, and scalp locks sticking out over the top of the invisibility screens.
“Formation 2-1-2!” A voice that sounded an awful lot like Alpha’s rang out across the water.
“Oh, so they got formations now?” Bugz asked for the benefit of her fans watching along on the livestream. The flood of gifts appearing in her chat window acted as a visual laugh track.
She turned her canoe to face the oncoming attack. She could see the horde splitting into two roughly even groups, each circling along the shore in opposite directions, one to the south and one to the north. Of course Alpha is coming back for more. A never-ending hunger.
Bugz opened a screen to quickly show a video about Alpha’s backstory for the benefit of her followers. Alpha’s first clan had bullied him and, just like the runt of the litter, the experience soured him. You could see the resentment on his face in the video as he endured taunts and insults. Then the action cut to a replay of Alpha following his clan into battle. They were trusting him to protect their flank, but instead, he slaughtered each and every one of them. Alpha pillaged their weapons and resources. Bugz paused the video and zoomed in on the charred remains of his former clanmates, their faces frozen in horror at his treachery. She skipped ahead of the short work Alpha had made of the other clan they’d battled that day and watched the climax of the clip. Alpha, still unharmed in this playback, and spurred on by virtual adrenaline, slowly cut his own face with a hunting knife, leaving himself with his signature scar.
Bugz snapped the video window shut to face this scarred warrior and the clan that was not a clan.
CHAPTER 18
Feng battled to keep up with the crowd of centurions, marines, and orcs rushing to Bugz’s southern flank.
“Lock and load!” came the order over their voice communication system.
Feng pumped the action on a super-charged shotgun, boarded a speedboat—one of fifty that launched from this shore—and headed for the armada of sturgeon surrounding a single birchbark canoe in the middle of the lake.
Another fifty speedboats and Zodiacs launched from the north shore.
Feng watched Bugz’s livestream through his heads-up display. He heard her speak.
“Are these guys serious?” Bugz asked her fans. “Splitting up into two? Making each of their groups weaker? Just like Custer at Little Bighorn.”
Feng muted her feed as Bugz knelt down in her canoe. Suddenly, the sturgeon submerged themselves in the black water, darting away with shocking speed.
Seconds later the first sturgeon tore through the waters directly in front of Feng’s speedboat. The monstrous bottom-feeder rammed the boat so hard Feng and the other five Clan:LESS warriors riding in it were launched airborne and fell in to the lake. Sturgeon now rammed Clan:LESS boats left and right, pitching dozens upon dozens of soldiers into the churning waters around them.
Alpha surveyed the damage from a dinghy that broke through the masses of sturgeon. Over voice-com he ordered, “Call in the second wave!”
Thirty-five elite Clan:LESS fighters jumped from a floating aerial platform high above Lake of the Torches and skydived toward the battle below. Their forms could be made out against the starry night sky.
CHAPTER 19
“Come on, where are you?” Bugz, still kneeling, whispered into the waters around her canoe. “Come to me. Don’t worry, they’re not going to find it. I need you now.”
Bugz heard the roar of motorboats closing in around her. A fiery arrow pierced the bow of her canoe and flames engulfed the birchbark, a remarkably flammable material. Bugz broke the first rule of canoeing by standing up in her vessel. In every direction she turned, she stared down barrels of guns drawn and trained on her. They would fire in an instant.
“Mishi-pizhiw, now!” she screamed.
An observer able to parse the nanoseconds from the milliseconds would’ve seen the individual laser beams, bullets, fire-tipped arrows, and buckshot closing in on Bugz from nearly every one of the 360 degrees around her. As the fire raced toward Bugz, the giant underwater serpent she’d summoned shot up from the depths below, smashing the burning canoe to embers and tossing the young woman high into the air. Bugz grabbed the supernatural being’s horns as it continued to climb in altitude. The gunfire and projectiles rammed into the monster’s ascending body and ricocheted off like sound waves from a metal wall. The beast appeared impenetrable.
Feng now thrashed in dark waters among many of his clanmates. He reached for an outstretched hand and looked in fear at Mishi-pizhiw. A comrade dragged him aboard a Zodiac and he lay on his back for a moment watching Bugz’s giant snake. He shook his head.
The paratroopers still hurtling down toward the lake opened fire on Bugz and Mishi-pizhiw as they came
within a few hundred yards of the still-ascending pair. While Mishi-pizhiw’s body may have been nearly bulletproof, his face was not. The fire from above affected him: it slowed his climb, forcing him to turn back toward the water’s surface. Mishi-pizhiw’s dark body dove deep into the waters, with Bugz hanging on like a lamprey on a shark.
The Clan:LESS skydivers tore into the water headfirst, each wearing a diving suit capable of withstanding the tremendous force of their mile-high plunge. The thirty-five hunters kicked their webbed feet furiously as they chased Bugz and her partner into the deep.
In the depths of the water, like the gates of Atlantis, a ring of stones sat in a rough arrangement on the lake’s floor.
“Sir, I think we’ve got eyes on it. It must be her power source.”
“Mark its location,” Alpha shouted through the voice-com. “Maybe we’ve finally solved the mystery. The secret source of Bugz’s power.”
By now Bugz had hacked into their communication system and was eavesdropping.
“Do you copy?” Alpha’s voice asked.
Silence.
“Divers, do you copy?”
Static.
“Copy?”
In the depths, emerald light caught the lead diver’s lifeless ’Versona, trapped in Mishi-pizhiw’s jaws. The saber-toothed snake played with it like a cat with a mouse.
“That’s enough!” Bugz yelled, struggling to hold on. “He’s finished!”
The thirty-four remaining divers, now swimming furiously to the surface, pointed their guns back down into the depths and fired toward Mishi-pizhiw’s head.
Mishi-pizhiw unclenched his jaw and virtual blood clouded the waters. He and Bugz chased the divers to the surface, picking off three more along the way, before turning away.
CHAPTER 20
Feng helped two divers board his boat as the other surviving SEALS scrambled onto watercraft around them.
“Should we head for shore?” The question came over the Clan:LESS voice-com.
“No!” Alpha shouted back. “We stay and fight!”
Feng looked around. Clan:LESS’s chances of winning this showdown seemed to be slipping further away by the second. The last beatdown they’d received from Bugz had made it difficult to recruit more soldiers. With that livestreamed thrashing viewed by every serious gamer alive, and by tons of noobs too, Clan:LESS’s reputation had taken a nosedive. If they needed to rebuild their army a second time, they’d either have to leave many spots empty or accept much-lower-caliber recruits. But the boss had said what he’d said. Feng sighed.
Mishi-pizhiw jumped up from the water like an orca catching a seal and tore through a speedboat on the opposite side of the armada from Feng. Bugz, now straddling the beast’s back like a mounted warrior, fired her machine gun into the waters around the shattered vessel; a cloud of gamertags rose to the heavens in response. She showed no mercy.
Feng fired listlessly at Mishi-pizhiw, who bounced from boat to boat like a wakeboarder slaloming from wave to wave, leaving destruction in his path. Bugz picked off any clanmates who’d survived the initial onslaught. Fifty more gamertags rushed skyward.
From the sky, the Thunderbird descended like a screaming eagle and rained lightning bolts down on the remaining Clan:LESS watercraft.
“C’mon, this is getting ridiculous,” Feng said to the centurion beside him. He reloaded his weapon and fired several blasts at the Thunderbird above. “Let me guess, this one’s bulletproof too?”
Bulletproof, perhaps, but the physics of the blasts forced the bird to change her flight path.
As the Thunderbird arced along her new course, she caught sight of Mishi-pizhiw. Without seeing Bugz on board, the bird fired several lightning bolts at the underwater beast, striking him.
“Watch out! I’m right here!” Bugz yelled skyward.
As the Thunderbird came within striking distance, Mishi-pizhiw lunged forward like a cobra attacking its prey and snapped at the taloned feet of the Thunderbird. Bugz scrambled to keep her grip as the sudden movement nearly threw her into the water below.
“Could you guys NOT!” she screamed.
“What the heck is going on?” Feng asked of no one in particular.
“Looks like sibling rivalry, fighting for mom’s attention,” the centurion quipped. “I think the bottom line is, we’ve got an opening to get the hell out of here.”
“Retreat!” came the call across the voice-com. “We will win…later!”
“Finally!” Feng spun the motorboat’s steering wheel and headed for land.
As the dwindling fleet of Clan:LESS vehicles sped toward the nearest shore, the horned serpent and the thunder-being turned to give chase, one from the air and the other from the lake. They took turns striking down the remaining vehicles until there were eight, seven, and finally just six left.
Alpha’s ship ran aground first. He and the others spilled out and ran for the helicopter gunships waiting to ferry them to safety. Four other boats crash-landed immediately after. The occupants flooded out but landed in the crosshairs of the Thunderbird and fell to her.
Feng’s boat was last. He and his crew jumped off in the shallows of the lake, running through the mud after Alpha and the others, who waved them on. Mishi-pizhiw leapt from the waters, transforming along the way into his panther-like land form, and attacked the centurion. With Bugz still riding on his back, Mishi-pizhiw broke the Roman warrior’s neck and tossed him far away into the lake. A gamertag rose solemnly in the background. Four additional clanmates were dispatched with similar ease.
Feng fell into the mud and scrambled forward toward the choppers. It was pointless. Mishi-pizhiw caught him without effort.
Feng felt the beast’s massive paws pinning him on his belly, almost crushing him in the process, before flipping him onto his back. He saw Bugz on the beast’s neck, holding onto her pet’s head. As the cat’s giant fangs came within inches of Feng’s face, Bugz paused. A glimmer of recognition flickered across her eyes.
Feng looked up beyond the beast about to devour him and stared into Bugz’s face. He finally realized where he’d seen her before.
“Bagonegiizhigok,” he mouthed.
“Feng from homeroom,” she whispered.
“Triggered.”
Mishi-pizhiw growled.
“Let him go,” Bugz said.
Freed from the beast’s mouth, Feng tore off through the mud and climbed the rope dangling from one of the remaining helicopters.
He collapsed on board. Even from one helicopter over, he could see the look of supreme disgust on Alpha’s face. Feng wasn’t sure if his clan leader was upset with the outcome of the battle, or by Bugz’s mercy. A sense of dread overtook Feng as he thought about what had just happened—though no one in Clan:LESS would’ve understood why, they’d all seen he shared a connection with their mortal enemy, and he’d not disclosed it to them.
CHAPTER 21
As the Clan:LESS helicopters buzzed off like a ragtag group of dragonflies, Bugz climbed down from Mishi-pizhiw before he dove back into Lake of the Torches. She tore a strip of bark from a birch tree and threw it onto the water, where it promptly grew into another birchbark canoe. She climbed aboard, and as she began paddling again through the shimmering midnight waters of her lake, she re-engaged with the fans in her chat window.
“SnipesForDaze: Wow, you were right. That did turn out like Little Bighorn.”
“Yeah, except Custer didn’t survive,” Bugz responded dryly. She disappeared into the virtual night.
CHAPTER 22
“And remember to keep a safe distance of at least six feet from each other.” The intercom blared pointlessly as Bugz scanned the crowded school hallway. With homeroom starting in a few minutes, students packed close together for one of the few times of the day before they all scattered to different parts of the school, or
even home if they were lucky enough to live close by.
“Bugz?”
She turned to find Feng running up the hallway toward her, a book bag slung over one shoulder. Before she could pretend not to see him, the Clan:LESS follower had caught up to her.
“Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner. I must be the only person at school who didn’t know Bugz was short for Bagonegiizhigok.” Feng raised his phone and saw her world-famous ’Versona staring back at him. He nodded his head in satisfaction.
“You must not be as smart as I thought you were,” Bugz said, attempting a joke as she started to sweat. She imagined Feng comparing and contrasting her perfect Floraverse figure with her real-world body, and everything she disliked about it. She smiled nervously as she fretted about what his clanmates would say if they found out how she really looked.
“I deserve that,” Feng said with a laugh. “I mean, it’s so obvious, right? Bugz—Bagonegiizhigok. Plus, you’re a celebrity. Your face even looks exactly the same.”
Bugz felt a small sharp pain to the heart. My face, but not my body, right? Feng carried on talking. She studied his face for a reaction. Nothing. She played up her pained expression a bit more. Still nothing. He blabbed away, looking at her ’Versona through his phone without making eye contact or noticing her body language. Bugz often tried to convey her feelings to people she knew with thoughts instead of words. Quite often, like at this moment, the practice left her disappointed.
“Honestly, I thought you were just pretending not to know who I was just to make a good impression,” Bugz said. She wondered if he was just trying to befriend her to gather intel for Clan:LESS. She eyed the main doors of the school down the hallway.
“I had no idea.” Feng shook his head with a grin. “When I first met you, I didn’t pull out my phone to check out your ’Versona. Thought it’d make me look too presumptuous.” The automatic translator on Feng’s phone hadn’t quite chosen the right word.
