“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.