Aech led us down the brightly lit tunnel of neon that was Seventh Street. After several blocks she made a left onto Hennepin Avenue. We followed that for a few blocks, then she continued to zigzag her way east, leading us down a labyrinth of numbered streets and dark alleyways, filled with broken bottles, busted fire escapes, and enough randomly generated burning barrels to make Donkey Kong envious.
Aech was very specific about each turn she took, like she was entering the combination to a safe. She led us right onto South Fifth Street, left onto Second Avenue South, right onto South Fourth Street, left onto Third Avenue South, and then right onto South Third Street.
As we weaved through this maze, I glanced down a side street and finally spotted something I recognized—probably because it wasn’t directly related to Prince. Hanging out in an alley were characters and settings from Break Street and Ghetto Blaster, two (very) old-school hip-hop videogames I’d played as a kid, using the Commodore 64 emulator on my old laptop. Someone had converted them into photorealistic mini-quests, and then anchored them here in the back alleys of the Afterworld. When I asked Aech what they were doing here, she smiled and shrugged.
“Nobody knows,” she said. “They’re a weird little Easter egg, left by one of this planet’s original designers.”
“Do you think Kira could’ve been the one responsible?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Who knows?”
Aech made a sharp right, leading us down another alley. But this particular alley seemed slightly darker and more ominous than the others, and Aech must’ve thought so too. Because I saw her take out a thermal detonator and arm it.
Aech held up her hand to bring us to a halt. Then she pointed out a pack of feral NPC gangbangers who were stepping out of the shadows up ahead of us. They were all wearing large gold crucifixes around their necks. The NPC name tags hovering above their heads on my HUD informed me that there were ten of them, and that their gang was known as the Disciples. Each one was toting a machine gun, and without saying a word, they opened fire on us. Shoto and I took cover behind burning barrels, but Aech remained out in the open, letting their bullets ricochet off her shield. Then she casually tossed her thermal detonator into their midst. There was a brilliant flash of light, and all ten of the Disciples were incinerated in a single blast.
Then Aech kept right on walking, fanning her hands in front of her face to clear the Disciple dust that now filled the air.
When we emerged from the other end of the alley, Aech quickened her pace, and Shoto and I did the same to keep up with her as she continued to bob, sidestep, and weave through the crowd and the surreal landscape around us, which appeared to be a living mash-up of all of Prince’s different album covers and music videos. The streets were lined with music venues of all types and sizes.
Like an overly knowledgeable tour guide, Aech explained how each of the venues we saw here on the Afterworld was a replica of a real club or concert hall or stadium where Prince had once performed, and that you could walk into any one of them, sit down in an audience of period-appropriate NPCs, and watch a re-creation of the gig or gigs that Prince had once performed there—detailed, immersive simulations, extrapolated from old photographs and archived video and audio recordings.
According to Aech, the best ones to check out were Prince playing in the middle of a rainstorm in Miami at Super Bowl XLI, and his midnight show on New Year’s Eve in 1998—when everyone finally got to party like it was 1999.
We also passed a replica of Mann’s Chinese Theatre, where, Aech explained, the Purple Rain movie premiere on July 24, 1984, was always happening, over and over, on a continuous loop. We saw Pee-wee Herman pull up in a miniature hot-rod, just a few cars ahead of Purple Rain Prince himself, arriving in a purple limo, dressed in a glittering purple tuxedo, solemnly holding a single purple rose with both hands as his bodyguard—a giant gray-bearded gentleman with a bleach-blond mullet and a striped zebra vest—cleared the great one’s path onto the red carpet.
Just a few doors down from Mann’s, we passed a replica of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where Aech told us it was always March 25, 1985, and the Fifty-Seventh Academy Awards were always being held, just in case any visitors wanted to watch Prince walk up onstage (with Wendy on one arm and Lisa on the other) to receive his Oscar statuette from Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.
Farther down the street, we passed a nightclub with a neon sign that said SUGAR WALLS. An NPC of Sheena Easton was strutting up and down the street out front, and when we spotted her, it triggered another needle drop, this time for the Prince song “U Got the Look.” Aech and I both paused to stare at her as she swaggered by, grooving and lip-syncing to her 1987 hit single.
“You know,” Shoto said, “it’s pretty obvious that Prince was plagiarizing those old Jordache Jeans commercials when he wrote this song.”
He laughed and began to mix up the song and the jeans jingle, using a set of holographic turntables that he produced from his inventory. “You’ve got the look!” he sang. “You’ve got the look. The Jordache look!”
Aech didn’t respond. She just quietly backed away from him several steps, pulling me with her. A split second later, a big, fat purple bolt of electricity descended from the sky and struck Shoto directly on the top of his head, knocking him flat on the pavement. The bolt also apparently caused enough hit points of damage to nearly kill his avatar—I saw his health bar indicator start flashing red for a few seconds, until he could cast a few healing spells on himself.
Aech walked over and helped him up off the ground.
“I warned you, didn’t I?” she said. “I told you not to blaspheme against the Purple One here? But did you listen to me?”
Shoto shook his head but didn’t say anything. A few seconds later, I realized that he couldn’t speak. The gods of the Afterworld had apparently muted his avatar as punishment for his blasphemy, in addition to the lightning bolt. I felt bad for him. When you were wearing an ONI headset, getting hit by lightning was no joke—it was almost as bad as getting tasered.
“Remember how much grief you gave me when you found out I don’t like watching scary movies?” Aech said, pointing an accusing finger at us. “Well, guess what. Now the shoe is on the other foot! So listen up, ass-heads, and listen good. Do not crack jokes at the Artist’s expense. In fact, just stop speaking altogether, and don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do. Just keep your trap shut and stick to my heels. Got it, Larry?” She glared at Shoto until he nodded. Then she turned to me. “What about you, Curly?”
“Yes, Moe,” I said, stepping out of her way. “We heard you. Lead on, O Wise One….”
Aech gave me an impolite shove, then she turned and led on. We rounded another corner, onto Hennepin Avenue, and immediately passed a small one-room schoolhouse. It caught my eye because it looked incredibly out of place in the middle of a crowded downtown Minneapolis street. Through one of the schoolhouse’s open windows, I could see and hear Prince dancing with a whole classroom full of Muppets while singing about having starfish and coffee for breakfast. One of the kid Muppets singing along with Prince bore a distinct resemblance to him.
I considered asking Aech if one of the Seven Princes we would have to face was “Muppet Prince,” but then I thought better of it. She still didn’t appear to be in the mood for jokes. Her face was stoic with concentration as she led us through the Afterworld’s surreal urban landscape, and her eyes were constantly scanning the area around us, looking for anything that would slow us down.