“There’s a series of underwater caves we can escape to,” Bugz said through her voice-com. Feng nodded before Bugz continued. “Those tunnels lead to another lake far from here, so we should be able to buy some time to regroup.” She glanced at the chat screen in her heads-up display.

“KnightSuper: You’re doing great girl”

“Monkey97: Here’s some coin to help…”

“Persephoney: Where are you going?”

“TheRealClanWithout: You’re a fraud!!!”

Bugz silenced the chat and killed her livestream. It only served to distract now. The gifts she received had slowed considerably since Alpha took over Mishi-pizhiw’s nest. Clan:LESS had overtaken her as the game’s leading players shortly thereafter, and their resources continued to expand rapidly. A school of thought went viral online, arguing Bugz never deserved the stature she’d once enjoyed. Trolls reminded Bugz of this every time she opened a chat window. They’d harass her, taunt her, and otherwise remind her how terrible the online world could be for a young woman. Bugz tried to ignore this online chatter, but the number of followers she’d lost bothered her.

Mishi-pizhiw entered the jaws of a massive cave opening. The entrance looked like a giant underwater demon’s mouth agape, set to swallow them whole. Suddenly, they found themselves in total darkness. Bugz squirmed out from under the Thunderbird, climbed up Mishi-pizhiw’s back to his head, and gripped his horns. She steered him through the winding cave structures using the night-vision in her heads-up display. They banked sharply to their port side to avoid a massive stalactite, and continued toward a straightaway, passing a school of cavefish heading in the opposite direction.

That’s weird. They should be swimming away from us rather than toward us, Bugz thought. There shouldn’t be anything else down here. They should be afraid of us.

Bugz throttled Mishi-pizhiw’s horns forward and they dove into a tunnel that took them several hundred feet deeper before banking sharply to a horizontal plane. Instantly, Bugz’s night-vision blazed white-hot and blinded her. Purely by touch, she flipped off the night-vision and saw a bright light ahead of them. The narrow tunnel shaft offered no room in which to turn around.

“Feng, get up here!” she yelled. “How did they find us?!”

Mishi-pizhiw gritted his teeth and picked up speed rapidly, hoping to plow through whatever waited for them at tunnel’s end—one hundred feet, fifty feet, twenty-five.

Mishi-pizhiw shot out of the tunnel and found himself surrounded by a fleet of Clan:LESS submarines.

“There’s no way they could’ve known we were down here!” Bugz yelled. “There’s no way. Did you message them?!” She shoved Feng’s shoulder.

“No!” he yelled back. “I swear. They cut me off voice-com and the group chat.”

“Then how did they know?!”

“Don’t even start. After everything I’m going through for helping you. Everything I gave up.” Feng shook his head in anger.