The Behemoth stepped inside the ring of stones tentatively, as though he might be electrocuted. As he realized no shock was forthcoming, he walked more casually toward the center. He held up a gun he wanted to upgrade. He closed his eyes. He scrunched his forehead. He opened his eyes only to find the same unimproved gun in his hands.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“Think harder,” Alpha spoke through the voice-com.

“I am!”

“Try again!”

“I’m still trying!”

“Well, you’re obviously not trying hard enou—”

The Behemoth muted his voice-com.

He held the gun up in the dim light permitted by the depths above—an old revolver he’d picked up from a cowboy early on in his career in the Spirit World.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning from the battle above plunged through the water and struck the gun. The Behemoth’s body coursed with electricity and charged the stones making up the nest around him. He felt the gun growing in his hand. He watched in amazement as the revolver grew and grew until it took the size and shape of an old automatic weapon called a Gatling gun. The Behemoth threw the Gatling gun to the ground outside the nest and set to work repeating his feat. With a second revolver in his left hand, he took an energy cannon and fired it directly at the nest with his right. Soon this gun also multiplied in size and power. The Behemoth repeated this process as many times as he could over the next ten minutes, creating a pile of supercharged weapons, including some innovations which were entirely new to Clan:LESS.

“Hey! Get out of there. Our guys G2G. They’re getting smoked and they’re worried Bugz is gonna log back in NE minute.” Alpha’s incoming text messages flashed on the Behemoth’s screen. He turned his voice-com back on.

“Hey boss, got your messages. No problem. I got more than enough.” The Behemoth gathered his haul and swam furiously for the shores on the far side of the lake from where the battle raged.

As he surfaced, a Clan:LESS helicopter scooped him and his loot up in a net and flew quickly back to headquarters.

“I’m back with the clan,” the Behemoth radioed again. He examined the giant weapons he’d just fabricated. “I think we just changed the game.”

CHAPTER 36

“Osteosarcoma.”

Bugz, her mother, and her father all stared at Liumei. The sounds of hospital machinery beeping and whirring marked the time passing as they contemplated the news.

“Osteosarcoma?” Bugz’s mom asked.

“Osteosarcoma,” Liumei repeated. She wore a stethoscope and a lanyard around her neck. She looked to Waawaate, sleeping in the hospital bed beside her. “It’s a form of bone cancer we sometimes see in children.”