by Wab Kinew
“Pretty cool. But I don’t see how you beat Clan:LESS with that.”
“And that’s why I always beat you guys. Every. Single. Time.” Their eyes met. Bugz suddenly felt nervous.
“You didn’t beat us, it’s not over. We’ll win in the end.”
“God. Typically neo-alt-right garbage. You can’t admit defeat. Even though you claim to care about uncovering the truth.” Bugz shook her head. “Weren’t you trying to conquer this place?”
Feng paused and looked at Bugz’s moccasins. “I guess you did win.”
Bugz smiled.
“It’s one thing to make flower crowns or whatever,” Feng said, trying to downplay Bugz’s mastery. “But how do you make things like the Thunderbird and the underwater panther?”
“Same idea. You can work with anything living in the ’Verse. You understand a cell or a microbe, that’s the first step to creating an animal.” Bugz put her hand on the earth and a star-nosed mole quickly appeared and ran up and onto her back. She let it run across her shoulders, and suddenly there were two moles running down her other arm. Soon there were four, eight, and sixteen moles scurrying on the ground. After doubling a few more times they gathered to form a massive mole, the size of a rhino, composed of thousands of little moles writhing and crawling on top of one another. “And creating an animal is the first step to creating something supernatural.” The mole-king, still growing, burrowed into the dirt quickly. After a moment, it shot up into the air and flew far into the sky. As it disappeared from view, it exploded into dozens of stars, each of which became fixed and shone brilliantly against the sky.
Dusk approached. Feng shook his head as Bugz admired the mole constellation. “But it takes everyone so long to level up into the Spirit World,” Feng said. “And even after that, it took me more than a year just to learn how to create a horse. It blows my mind you learned to do all this.”
Bugz shrugged. As much as she was opening up to Feng, she still didn’t entirely trust him. So she changed the subject. “Let’s go for a ride.” Bugz waded into the water. “And you have to swear not to tell your clan about any of this, okay?” She walked into the shallows up to her waist and dove forward. She surfaced a few feet away and rolled into a backstroke as she called Feng to join her. He offered his best slow-motion movie-style run into the water. He’s trying to look good for me, Bugz thought. That’s cute.
“Mishi-pizhiw!” she shouted.
“Is he coming?”
“He’s already here.” Bugz looked beneath the surface at the dark body below them. Before he could look down, Feng felt the lake bottom rising beneath his feet. “Hang on!” she shouted.
Suddenly the massive beast emerged and leapt out of the water. Bugz and Feng were tossed from the shallows into the air like children launched from their parents’ shoulders. Mishi-pizhiw screamed at the sun and dove back into the lake.
Surfacing a hundred yards away, Mishi-pizhiw breathed fire into the sky several times to amuse them. Bugz and Feng laughed and clapped their hands at his dancing dragon show.
Bugz looked to the sky and caught a glimpse of the Thunderbird flying overhead. She waved. The bird swept down screaming. It picked Bugz and Feng up and tossed them onto its back, and flung a few thunderbolts at Mishi-pizhiw for good measure.
“That’s how we made the lake,” Bugz said. “It was carved out of the landscape during a serious fire-breathing, lightning-crashing scrap they had a few years ago.” Bugz wiped water from her eyes. “All the craters filled up with groundwater. And voilà. Lake of the Torches.”
The Thunderbird took them flying low over the hills and treetops. Bugz and Feng squinted in the face of the tremendous air current streaming over the bird’s back.
“Show me something cool.”
“Like what?” Bugz asked.
“I don’t know, more flowers.”
Bugz closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she turned to examine their flight path. A giant wave of flowers was closing in on them. It looked like a tsunami whose crest was about to envelop the Thunderbird. The bird looked back over its wings nervously. Soon the wave of flowers crashed up against it, but rather than dragging it to the earth, the flower tide pushed the Thunderbird forward, higher and faster. The bird squawked and flapped its wings in surprise. Bugz and Feng roared with laughter, deep belly laughs that came half from the bird’s reaction and half from the feeling in the pits of their stomachs, like the feeling you’d get on a rollercoaster. The bird squawked until it steadied itself and learned to ride the wave. Eventually, it shook its head as though clearing its thoughts.
“Awww,” Bugz said, petting the Thunderbird’s head. “Did I scare you? I’m sorry.” As she tried to reassure the bird, it looked away, like a child angry with its mother. “Aww, don’t be mad…because that was nothing compared to this!”
A train of animals on the ground ran along below Bugz, Feng, and the Thunderbird. This pack of creatures could only watch in awe as the wave of flowers suddenly spiraled high into the sky. The seemingly endless trail traced a giant loop-de-loop before tightening rapidly into a smaller corkscrew shape. The Thunderbird jumped off the wave and banked sharply to the right, abandoning Bugz and Feng who landed on the flower tsunami and continued riding it by themselves.
“Guess she’s had enough,” Feng said, looking behind them.
“I guess so.” Bugz smiled. She glanced down at the slim waist of her ’Versona. Shame crept back into her heart, into her mind. She examined the beauty all around her, the flora propelling her toward the heavens, the fauna running devotedly behind her on the ground, the boy she liked riding shotgun. In her mind, she knew she should be filled with joy. Yet something held her back. It weighed on her and prevented her from breaking into a full-on, teeth-baring, eye-squinting smile. Instead, she looked to Feng, and back to her waist. What the heck is wrong with me?
“This is awesome!” Feng yelled, smiling as the cork-screwing flower-wave hurtled back over Lake of the Torches. His laugh shook Bugz from her pity party. A smile found its way across her face.
“What?” Bugz shouted back.
“This is great!”
Bugz felt the virtual sun on her cheeks. She closed her eyes and shouted, “Onizhishin Anishinaabe Aking!”
“Onizhishin Anishinaabe Aking—my translator can’t handle that!”
“It means ‘Anishinaabe Country is beautiful!’ ”
“This isn’t Anishinaabe Country! It’s the Floraverse.”
“This is how Anishinaabe Country used to be!” Bugz shouted back over a wide grin. As she yelled, something unlocked within her. “This is where I’m really me!”
Bugz meant it with every ounce of her being. In the real world, her culture was called backward and left for dead. In the real world, she was always too self-conscious to let herself fully relax. In the real world, she was a shy girl who ran away from problems. In the Floraverse, she’d recreated her culture as infinite and futuristic. In the ’Verse, she’d reimagined herself as confident and beautiful. In the ’Verse, she was fearless.
As they soared high above the majestic rocks and waters, Bugz fell in love with this feeling. Her heart swelled further as she started to feel like she’d maybe found a partner at long last. Not just a bot in the Floraverse…but a real live partner in Feng, another person who could see her for who she was and all she’d done. Bugz pushed her concerns about his membership in Clan:LESS to the side and smiled a smile she’d bottled up inside herself for years, perhaps since she was first formed in the womb. The smile felt good and brought warmth right down through her body and into her soul.
Bugz cried out again, “Onizhishin Anishinaabe Aking!”
The tracking device on the back of Feng’s collar flashed, completely unnoticed by either of them.
Back at the Clan:LESS headquarters, Alpha, Gym, and a crew of
soldiers watched the entire scene on a pop-up display.
CHAPTER 29
Bugz stared through her phone at the empty dinner table, toggling back and forth between the Spirit World, where her bot generated new animals to trade, and other random apps, waiting for something to catch her attention. She closed her eyes and saw nothing but darkness, save for a glowing rectangle in the center of her field of view where her phone had been. She reopened her eyes as Liumei and Feng walked in from the kitchen carrying several dishes loaded with food. Through the filter of the Floraverse, she again admired how much Feng’s ’Versona looked like he did in real life. He’s comfortable with how he looks, she thought. Why not? He’s cute. Her eyes softened and her face relaxed into a faint smile.
“Thanks for joining us, Bugz…” Liumei paused, appearing unsure what to say next. “Is it alright if I call you that? Or do you prefer I say your full name…Bagon-ay—”
“Bagonegiizhigok,” Bugz said to Liumei from behind her phone. She peeked over the top of her screen and examined Liumei’s face…delicate features, for the most part. She’s pretty, Bugz thought. “But it’s alright if you call me Bugz. It’s what everyone else calls me.”
“Are you sure? You seemed to sit up a little bit straighter when you said your full name to me just now.” Liumei’s attention to detail was sharp. Well, I guess so. She’s a doctor. Liumei continued, “To be honest, I’m still getting used to saying ‘bugs,’ but I’ll get over it.” Feng chuckled.
“Yeah, trust me, kids made a big deal out of it in elementary school,” Bugz said. “They’d always ask if I had bugs, if I wanted Nix, or they’d say my first name must be ‘sheehaz.’ ”
“She-haz?” Feng asked.
“Yeah, they were asking if her full name was ‘She-has-bugz,’ ” Liumei said, plating the food. She gave her nephew a sideways look, as though skeptical of his intelligence for a second. “Listen, Bugz, part of my name translates to ‘willow.’ So I went by ‘Willow’ when I first got here until someone asked if it was ’cause I was skinny.” Liumei shook her head.
Bugz couldn’t help but smile at this. She decided she liked Liumei just a bit more for this confession of their shared experience. “My name means ‘hole-in-the-sky’ or ‘hole-in-the-day.’ ”
“That’s very poetic,” Liumei said.
“Thanks.” Bugz didn’t know where to look. She glanced at her phone. “It was the name of a big chief back in the day. Our great-great-great-great-grandpa. He’s the reason our family is called Holiday. When he registered with the government, they couldn’t get his name right, so they switched ‘Hole-in-the-day’ to ‘Holiday.’ My parents wanted to honor him so they gave me the feminine version of his name.”
“Impressive. So what does the Bug part mean?” Liumei asked.
“Nothing.” Bugz knew she should say more. “It doesn’t mean anything on its own, but it’s part of the word that describes something having a piercing or a hole in it. And then giizhig means ‘sky’ or ‘day’ or ‘cedar’ in our language. Cedar is sacred to us and has a connection to the sky.” Bugz’s eyes darted around the table. “And the sky represents the day.”
Liumei nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t know how much Feng told you about why we invited you over, but it’s the Dragon Boat Festival, which is usually a pretty big deal. And we kinda wanted to share some of our culture with some folks here because everyone’s been so nice.” Liumei looked to Feng, who only stared at his lap, before she continued. “Anyways, seemed like a good enough reason to invite you to dinner.” Liumei glanced back and forth between the two teenagers again. “Feng, do you want to say anything before we eat?”
“Sure.” Feng looked to his lap nervously. After a brief pause he spoke up again. “I was thinking about the adventure we went on in the ’Verse yesterday and it reminded me of part of a poem Qu Yuan wrote that I studied in school. He’s a poet with a connection to this festival.” He cleared his throat. “Ascending where celestial heaven blazed, on native earth for the last time we gazed.” As he finished, his face flushed, and he looked back to his lap. Bugz could tell this gesture meant a lot to Feng. Before she could speak, Liumei thanked him, and they dug into their meals.
“Fish balls, pork dumplings, zongzi…,” Liumei said, pointing at the different dishes for Bugz’s benefit. “This is fried chicken.” Liumei winked.
Bugz smiled and nodded. “And I know what this is,” Bugz said, holding a piece of sweet and sour pork on a fork. “They have this at the mall.” Feng and Liumei chuckled and a nervous silence settled over the room. Somehow the presence of a witness to their relationship made Bugz and Feng anxious. Bugz felt as though Liumei knew everything she and Feng had said to each other.
“Feng said you’ve been teaching him a lot about Anishinaabe culture,” Liumei said between bites. “And you’ve done a lot of this in the Floraverse. That’s pretty cool.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, Bugz invited me to a sweat at her house tonight. Is it cool if I go?” Feng asked.
“Like a Sweat Lodge? Sure,” Liumei replied.
Bugz looked around the table. “Do you want to come?”
“Wow, maybe. If you’re just asking to be polite, it’s totally fine. I’ve got some paperwork to do.” Liumei smiled. It seemed to Bugz the smile was a bit forced. She figured Liumei felt a little sheepish about playing third wheel. Bugz looked to Feng for some guidance but he only scrunched up his forehead.
“That’s okay. I was just being polite.” Bugz didn’t know why she withdrew her offer or why she now felt rejected. She felt a cramp in her belly.
They kept the stilted conversation going long enough to see them through the meal before clearing the table and each retreating behind their phones. Bugz and Feng jumped into the Floraverse, occasionally exchanging glances and the odd comment, while Liumei scanned medical notes.
A knock at the door summoned the dinner party out of its trance. Bugz rushed to see who it was. “It’s my dad. He’s here to pick us up.” Bugz turned the doorknob as Liumei straightened out the shoes near the landing.
“Hey, Buggy!” Frank said, pulling his daughter in for a hug. “You guys ready to go sweat?”
“Hi, Frank,” Liumei said.
“Hi, Dr. Turukun.”
“Please, it’s Liumei.”
“Alright. Hi, Liumei. How were they? Didn’t eat too much, did they?”
Bugz gave her father an annoyed look.
“No, it was great. They even talked to me a bit before they disappeared behind their phones.”
“You were looking at your phone too.” Bugz felt defensive.
“C’mon, Buggy.” Bugz’s dad nudged her. “Yeah, I know how kids can be. We had phones back in the day too. I’m guessing we’re around the same age?” Bugz watched him smile when he saw Liumei nod her head in affirmation. “But it’s nothing like it is now. Even in the heyday of Instagram and Snapchat, we didn’t look at our phones as much as these guys do. Zombies.”
“Well, what happens in the Floraverse is important to me,” Bugz said.
“But is the digital world as important as the real world?” Liumei asked.
“The online world is more important to me than the real world.” Bugz sounded serious.
“That’s a shame, though. You’re missing out,” Frank said from the other side of a generational divide.
“Feng and I were just talking about the social media days and how it screwed everyone’s brains up for a decade,” Liumei offered.
“That and the social distancing. None of these kids grew up playing with others the same way we did,” Frank added.
“No. We did all that. The difference is you lost yourselves in your phones,” Bugz said almost plaintively. “We found ourselves online.”
“We weren’t so different, Buggy,” Frank cut in. “I had a great Instagram b
ack in the day. I was practically an influencer.”
Bugz cringed visibly.
“Should we go?” Feng asked, ending the exchange.
“Yeah, we better get to it. Waawaate already has those rocks red-hot,” Frank said. “You want to come too?” he asked Liumei. “Be a good chance for you to meet some other folks in the community.”
Bugz noticed that whatever anxiety Liumei displayed earlier had evaporated. Liumei cocked her head. “Sure…what should I bring?”
“Well, bring a can of fruit as an offering, maybe. Bugz can help you with the rest,” Frank suggested.
“Leftovers alright?”
“Sure. Buggy, you want to show her what to wear? I’ll take this guy out to the truck,” Frank said, nodding to Feng. “Don’t take too long,” he added with a smile. “I’ll do my best to take it easy on him.”
Bugz sighed and followed Liumei to her bedroom.
“So, what do you recommend?” Liumei said, leading Bugz to a closet bursting with clothes, most of it sportswear or professional-looking office attire.
“Grab a towel, and some kind of long dress. Maybe cotton?”
“I’m not really much of a dress-wearer,” Liumei said, appearing self-conscious. She pulled out a cotton dress. It wasn’t quite the right length, but it would do. “This okay?”
“Sure,” Bugz said. She didn’t know why, but she felt jealous of Liumei now that her dad had shown enough interest to invite her to the sweat. Bugz surprised herself at how annoyed she was. She suppressed this feeling and simply said, “Um, Liumei?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Have you got a tampon?”
CHAPTER 30
Bugz peered over the top of the star blanket she had wrapped herself in up to her eyes and studied the group of Anishinaabe people outside the low-slung canvas dome. They greeted each other with smiles and stood around restlessly, eagerly anticipating the moment they could enter the Sweat Lodge. The bent willow saplings framing the dome were said to hold up a mirror image of the night sky on the inside of the tarps. Bugz sighed as her father crawled into the sweat, that tiny recreation of the universe. She heard his muffled voice call the others to enter the lodge.
