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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.

We passed the Gotham Art Museum, which I recognized as a set from Tim Burton’s Batman film from 1990, a movie for which Prince wrote the soundtrack—another of the few meager pieces of Prince-related knowledge I didn’t need to get from my HUD.

We rounded a corner, onto Washington Avenue, which took us along the border of Downtown and Erotic City. Just across it, glittering like the Golden Gate, there was a nightclub with a vulva-shaped entrance. The pulsing pink neon sign above it read A LOVE BIZARRE. Shoto took a few steps toward it, as if hypnotized, but Aech pulled him back, shaking her head.

“You’re a married man, Shoto, ” Aech said. “And we definitely don’t have time to go in there right now…. ”

“I didn’t want to anyway! ” Shoto replied, revealing that he was no longer muted.

Aech swiveled her head 180 degrees to ogle an NPC of Sheila E in a tight-blue dress that had just emerged from the club. She sauntered right up to the Erotic City border and beckoned us to cross it and join her on the other side.

 

Aech looked tempted for a second. Then she shook it off and continued running. We followed her down the street, weaving our way through the oncoming crowd of NPCs in colorful costumes. One of them caused me to do a double take—a young black woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to Aech when I’d first met her. When I pointed Aech’s NPC doppelgä nger out to her, she smiled and nodded.

“That’s Boni Boyer, ” she said. “She played keyboards for both Prince and Sheila E. And she was a total badass. She gave me hope. If a girl who looked like her could wind up performing with Prince, I figured there might still be a chance for me. ”

“And look at you now, ” I said.

“Running for my life inside a computer simulation that I willingly plugged my brain into? ” she said.

“No, fool! ” I said. “I meant that now you’ve become an inspiration too. ”

She grinned her giant grin at me. “I know what you meant, Z, ” she said. “Thanks. ”

She was silent for a moment. Then she stopped walking and turned to face me.

“What you were going through on Halcydonia…I get it now, ” she said. She motioned at our surroundings. “The Prince records and videotapes I inherited from my dad when he moved out, they were the only things he left behind. Besides me, I guess. ” She shrugged. “Growing up knowing he’d been such a huge Prince fan always made me wish he’d stuck around. I figured he probably would’ve been OK with my sexuality. Or at least more accepting of it than my mother. ”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. Neither did Shoto.

About a year after we won Halliday’s contest, I’d asked Aech if she ever thought about trying to get back in touch with her mother. Aech told me her mother, Marie, had already come looking for her, as soon as she learned that her estranged lesbian daughter had become one of the world’s wealthiest and most famous people. Apparently that prompted Marie to abruptly change her homophobic tune and before long she showed up on Aech’s doorstep.

Aech didn’t let her mother come inside. Instead, she reached out and pressed her thumb to Marie’s phone, and transferred her a million dollars.

 

Then, before Marie even had a chance to thank her, Aech threw her mother’s own words back at her.

“Your choices have made me ashamed of you, ” Aech told her. “Now, leave me be. I never want to see you again. ”

Then she slammed the door in her mother’s face, and told her security guards never to let her on the property again.

“You know what really sucks, Z? ” Aech asked me as we continued to walk down Washington Avenue.

“No, Aech, ” I replied. “What really sucks? ”

“Later in life, after he became a Jehovah’s Witness, Prince came out as anti-gay, ” she said. “He believed that God didn’t approve of homosexuality, so he couldn’t either. Can you believe that, Z? ” She shook her head. “For decades he was an icon and a role model to generations of sexually confused kids and adults. He spoke for us, through his lyrics: ‘I’m not a woman, I’m not a man. I am something that you’ll never understand. ’  ”

She started to get choked up and had to pause for a few seconds to collect herself.

“Then, one day, ” she went on, “Prince suddenly changes his mind, and says, ‘No, no. I was wrong all along. You really should hate yourself for being gay, because God says it’s a sin for you to be the person He made you to be…. ’  ”

She shook her head. “It’s stupid. Why should I care if some old rock star gets religion? ”

“It makes total sense, Aech, ” I said after a moment. “First your mom rejects you. And then Prince—who was like a surrogate for your dad—he rejected you too. ”

She nodded. Then she smiled. “Yeah, but you didn’t reject me. Even though I was catfishing you for all those years. ”

I smiled back at her. “Of course not, ” I replied. “I fucking love you. You’re my best friend. You’re part of my chosen family, which is the only kind that matters. Right? ”

She smiled and nodded again, and she was about to respond when she suddenly came to a halt on the sidewalk.

“Quick! ” she said, pointing toward some sort of clothing thrift store on the street corner directly in front of us. “We need to stop in there! Hurry! ”

The sign above the entrance said MR. MCGEE’S FIVE-AND-DIME. I ran over and tried to open the front door, but it wouldn’t budge.

 

“No, not that way! ” Aech shouted. “Around back! ”

Shoto and I followed her around back, and this triggered another needle drop—“Raspberry Beret. ” When we got to the rear of the store, Aech was holding open a back door, with a sign on the inside that said Out.

“You can only get in through the Out door, ” she explained, waving us inside.

I let out a weary sigh. Then I checked my ONI usage countdown. I now had just one hour and forty-four minutes remaining.

“Is all of this absolutely necessary, Aech? ” I asked.

“Yes! ” Aech replied, pushing me through the door. “Now, keep moving! ”

 

 


Aech finished walking me through the elaborate process of purchasing the Raspberry Beret. (First I had to ask the owner, Mr. McGee, for a job. Then Aech instructed me to stand behind the counter and do “something close to nothing” until Mr. McGee told me several times that he didn’t like my kind, because I was “a bit too leisurely. ” It felt like it took forever. )

Once we had left the store, Aech forced me to put the Raspberry Beret on my avatar’s head.

“Dude, if I find out that you’re messing with me right now, there will be hell to pay, ” I said.

“This is valuable, hard-won knowledge that I’ve been sharing with your ungrateful ass! ” she replied, tilting my beret at a rakish slant and then nodding with satisfaction.

A few blocks down Washington Avenue, we spotted a beautiful 1958 Chevrolet Corvette up ahead of us, gleaming beneath the bright streetlights. For some reason, the car was parked sideways, with its front end jutting out into traffic and its rear wheels backed up against the curb, instead of parallel to it like every other car on the street. It was a red-and-white convertible, the top was down, and a set of keys was hanging from the ignition.

“You drive, Z, ” Aech said. “The Little Red Corvette won’t start for you unless you’re wearing the Raspberry Beret. ”

I jumped behind the wheel. Aech took shotgun, forcing Shoto to hop into the back. The Corvette’s engine roared to life, and I pulled away from the curb and out into traffic. Nearly all of the other vehicles on the road were either a sports car or a limousine.

 

“Take that freeway on-ramp, ” Aech said, pointing up ahead. “Onto I-394 West. Follow it all the way out of town. Drive as fast as you can. ”

I did as she instructed and took the on-ramp, then I put the hammer down, pushing the engine up over a hundred miles an hour. As we rocketed west, Aech switched on the car’s radio, and it began to play “Little Red Corvette. ” When the song ended, it started over again—apparently it was the only song the radio would pick up. After a few repetitions, we all started singing along with the chorus—until Aech suddenly snapped off the radio in disgust.

“Hold up a second, ” she said, turning around in her seat to address Shoto. “Did my ears just deceive me, or were you just singing ‘Living correct’? ”

Shoto nodded.

“Yeah, so? ” he said. “Those are the lyrics, aren’t they? ”

“No, ” she replied. “No, those are not the lyrics, Shoto. The title of the song is ‘Little Red Corvette. ’ It always has been. ”

Shoto furrowed his brow.

“Seriously? ” he said. Then he shrugged. “Wow. That really changes the whole meaning of the song for me. ”

“Shoto? ” Aech asked. “Buddy? Did you happen to notice that we are sitting in a little red Corvette right now? And that no other song will play on its radio? ”

“Listen to it again, ” Shoto said. “  ‘Living correct’ works too. I’m telling you! ”

Aech looked up at the sky expectantly.

“I can’t believe that shit didn’t warrant a lightning bolt, but OK, ” she muttered.

Aech continued to give me driving directions until we reached the Seven Corners area, located near the neon-lit intersection of three streets—Washington, Cedar, and Nineteenth Avenues, all of which were paved with red bricks instead of asphalt.

Despite the name, I only counted four corners. There was a different music club located on each one, each with its own giant stylized neon sign bearing the venue’s name. On one corner was a club called Clinton’s House. Directly across the street was a venue with an ice-blue neon sign that said MELODY COOL, located in a gray stone building with stained-glass windows that made it look more like a church than a dance club. Across the street from it, on yet another corner, was a club called Glam Slam, which had a giant neon Mars symbol encircling its front entrance.

 

When we reached another little club with a big neon sign—this one called the Baby Doe Bar—Aech told me to pull over. I parked the car and we all jumped out.

“OK, here’s the deal, ” Aech said. “Avatars can come down here and audition for any of the local bands playing in one of these clubs. If we pass and they let us join their band, they’ll fight beside us later on when we have to enter the arena. Got it? ”

Shoto pointed to a flyer stapled to a nearby utility pole, announcing open auditions for a band called Dez Dickerson and the Modernaires. The picture on the flyer featured the band’s lead singer (Dez, I presumed) wearing a Japanese flag bandanna.

“How about these guys? ” Shoto asked. “They look totally wicked. ”

Aech rolled her eyes.

“Oh, that’s a fantastic idea, Shoto, ” she replied. “Who better equipped to do sonic battle against the greatest musician in history than Dez Dickerson and the Modernaires! That would really have Prince quaking in his six-inch heels! ” Aech pointed down the street. “Better yet, why don’t we just stroll down that way a few blocks and audition for Apollonia 6! ”

“OK! ” Shoto replied cheerfully. “If they have six members and the three of us join forces with them, there will be nine of us total! We’ll have the Seven Princes outnumbered! ”

I pulled up an Apollonia 6 album cover in a browser window and turned it toward Shoto. It showed three young women in lingerie, surrounded by mist, posing in front of a bunch of obelisks. One of them had a large teddy bear wrapped around her fishnet stocking–covered leg.

“I think Apollonia 6 only has three members, ” I said. “Unless you count the teddy bear. ”

We both turned to Aech for confirmation, but she was already walking away from us, shaking her head at our ignorance. Shoto and I ran after her….

Then we ran into her. Aech had come to a sudden halt just ahead of us, after only taking a few steps. And once we recovered from our collision with her, we saw why. Nolan Sorrento’s black-armored avatar was standing directly in front of us, blocking our path.

 

The guy who murdered my aunt and a bunch of my neighbors in an attempt to kill me. Back on the street. Free as a bird.

“Boo! ” he shouted, making all three of us flinch. This, in turn, made him cackle with delight. He looked extremely happy to see us, and I found that extremely unsettling.

“Wow! ” Sorrento said, once he regained his composure. “Look at you guys! The A-Team is back in action. Just like old times…. ”

He took a menacing step toward us, but we all held our ground.

“Don’t you kids ever get tired of picking through the wreckage of a past generation’s nostalgia? ” He stretched his arms out wide. “I mean, look around. The entire OASIS is like one giant graveyard, haunted by the undead pop-culture icons of a bygone era. A crazy old man’s shrine to a bunch of pointless crap. ”

“Why are you here, Sorrento? ” I asked. “We’re kinda busy at the moment. ”

“Anorak sent me to check in on you, ” he replied. “You’re burning an awful lot of time on this planet. And your friend Art3mis appears to have abandoned you. ” He smiled. “I suspected that might happen. After all, if the three of you fail, you die, and that would leave her in control of your company…. ”

I did my best to act as though he’d really gotten under my skin. If he and Anorak believed that Samantha had bailed on us, they wouldn’t be concerned with what she was really up to.

“Anyway, ” Sorrento said. “Anorak is preoccupied at the moment, so he sent me to remind you that every move you make is being watched. Time is running out. And your deadline is nonnegotiable. ” He smiled and then added, “So keep your eyes on the prize or meet your demise. ”

And with that, Sorrento teleported away, and his avatar vanished.

We all stared at the spot where he’d just been for a moment. Then, without a word, we kept on moving.

As Aech led us toward the next intersection, we passed a copy of the Moulin Rouge, which was right next to a place called Ambulance Bar. Up ahead of us, mixed in with all of the music venues, I also spotted a video arcade called the Coin Castle. From what little I could see through its front windows, it was packed with nothing but purple pinball machines and videogame cabinets. I was hoping Aech was headed for it, but she ran right past the Coin Castle’s front entrance, and continued running until we reached a large nightclub located on the next corner. It had a neon sign over its entrance that spelled out the word PANDEMONIUM in fiery orange letters. There was a large clock mounted up above, with THE TIME printed directly above it in all-capital letters. This struck me as odd, like printing THE DATE above a calendar.

 

Aech led us up to the club’s front entrance. It was guarded by the same bearded six-foot-tall bleach-blond muscle-bound zebra-vested gentleman we’d seen earlier, guarding Purple Rain Prince at Mann’s Chinese Theatre. He stepped in front of the door to block our way, then folded his giant arms across his tree trunk of a chest.

“Wassup, Big Chick? ” Aech asked, addressing the NPC like an old friend.

Big Chick slid his sunglasses down the length of his nose and gave Aech the evil eye.

“What’s the password? ” he asked in a surprisingly kind voice.

Aech cupped her right ear, turned it toward him, and said, “What? ”

Big Chick nodded, gave us all a friendly grin, and then stepped out of our way. Shoto and I exchanged a perplexed glance and followed Aech inside.

I felt like we were walking into the hippest night spot on the ninth level of Dante’s Inferno. All the lighting was reddish in hue, and there were flames everywhere you looked—lit candles on every table, torches mounted on the walls and balcony railings, and dozens of burning fireplaces, upstairs and down. But the club didn’t even feel warm. And it was filled with happy, chattering NPCs—beautiful people in colorful attire, who were all busy drinking, smoking, dancing, and trying to seduce one another.

“Gentlemen, please remember—you can’t stop the revolution if you don’t have the time, ” Aech said, pointing across the club toward the empty stage, which was located inside a ring of fire, and said, “Dogs travel in packs of seven! ”

The stage was currently empty, except for a large drum kit. The bass drum had a familiar symbol on it—a large number 7, positioned off-center inside a large circle, with a much smaller circle set into its orbit, like an electron diagram….

 

I took out the Fourth Shard and had another look at it. The symbol on the bass drum matched the eighth and final symbol etched into its surface—the one that came after the V.


“Aech! ” I said. “The symbols match! ”

She nodded.

“It’s the logo of a band called the Original 7ven, ” she told me. “But they changed their name to that, later in their career, for the same reason Prince changed his—contract bullshit. They’re still much better known by their original name—”

The crowd around us suddenly erupted into applause, drowning out her voice. We looked over and saw seven men running up onto the stage single-file. All seven of them were dressed in stylish suits. Four of them were carrying instruments. One of them was carrying a large mirror.

They seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place them right away. Then the club DJ—who also looked very familiar—jumped on the PA to introduce them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, ” he said. “Please welcome…the original seven members of the greatest band in the world…Morris Day and the Time! ”

That was when I realized how I knew them—from their cameo at the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And the DJ who had just introduced them was an NPC of Jason Mewes, probably cut and pasted here from Askewniverse in Sector Sixteen.

The lead singer, Morris Day, waited a moment for the crowd to quiet down, then he grabbed the microphone.

“Welcome to Pandemonium, y’all! ” he said. “Tonight’s the night. We’re holding auditions, people! To fill out our roster with some new dancers for an upcoming tour. So anyone out there who thinks they got what it takes, this is your one and only chance to dance! ”

“All right, ” Aech said. “Get ready! And try not to blow this, OK? ”

“Try not to blow what? ” I asked. “Are you gonna tell us what we need to do? Aech? ”

 

Aech shook her head and began dancing backward, away from me. Then a huge grin spread across her face as the Time launched into “The Bird, ” their hit dance single from 1984.

“Y’all ready? ” Morris asked from the stage. “OK! Anyone who wants to audition, I’m counting off ten seconds to get to the dance floor! Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven—”

Aech continued to dance backward, out onto the dance floor, motioning for us to follow her. A second later, Morris Day let out an earsplitting “Whawk! ” and the song kicked into high gear.

That was when I began to see falling directional arrows on my HUD that matched the arrows lighting up on the dance floor directly beneath my feet, like a giant game of Dance Dance Revolution. Shoto saw them, too, and we both let out a jubilant roar.

“DDR! ” we shouted, as we both began to dance in sync to the arrows.

Aech joined us, and the three of us danced side by side, hitting our marks on the floor in perfect sync.

We managed to keep it up until the very end of the song.

When it was over, Morris called us up onstage and announced that we had passed the audition with flying colors.

“Say, ‘I pledge allegiance to the Time’! ” Morris shouted. “Can y’all say that? ”

We each raised our right hand and pledged allegiance. Then Aech leaned over and whispered something in Morris’s ear. It sounded like “the kid. ” Whatever it was, his expression changed and he stormed offstage, motioning for the rest of the band to follow him—including the three of us.

“It worked! ” Aech said. “They’ve agreed to come battle with us. Let’s go! ”

 

We got back in the Little Red Corvette and sped south on Alphabet Street. Morris Day and the Time followed behind us in their tour bus, which had their logo for the Original 7ven painted across the side.

Once we were a few miles outside the city limits, the landscape around us abruptly changed, and the road led us into a desert that appeared to stretch to the horizon in all directions.

Every seven seconds, long tines of purple lightning descended from the sky to strike the desert sand, burning and melting it into strange pillared formations of purple fulgurite that dotted the barren landscape like sentinels.

 

Eventually a small lone pyramid emerged in the distance ahead of us, just off the highway, like some sort of strange roadside attraction.

When we reached it, Aech told me to me pull over, and motioned for the tour bus behind us to do the same thing. She told us all to wait while she ran inside to get something, and I watched from inside the Corvette as she ran across the barren sand, over to one corner of the pyramid, which appeared to have no entrance. I used my HUD to zoom in with maximum magnification and saw that she was running her fingertips across the surface of one of the large stones that made up the pyramid’s base. Then she leaned forward and blew a layer of sand and dust away from one tiny section of it, revealing several rows of hieroglyphs. She began to press them in a specific sequence, like buttons. I heard a loud grinding sound as a massive stone at the base of the pyramid slid aside, revealing a secret entrance. Aech ran through it.

A minute later, she emerged again, now wearing a huge smile on her face. As she jumped back in the car beside me, I saw that she was clutching three gold chains, each with a gold pendant shaped like a different element of the Love Symbol. The first pendant was a golden circle, which Aech gave to me. The second was a golden horn, which she gave to Shoto. The last was a golden androgyne symbol, which Aech placed around her own neck.

“All right, ” she said, letting out a heavy sigh. “Now we’ve got the Three Chains of Gold too. I think we’re as ready as we’re ever going to be. ” She pointed to the road ahead. “Let’s go face the music, fellas. ”

I pulled the Corvette back out onto the road, the tour bus behind me, and gunned the engine again, hurtling us forward toward the dark, luminous, purple horizon ahead.

A moment later, the desert was behind us and we were in a strange, otherworldly purple landscape, with purple mountain ranges in the distance, and a dark-purple sky over our heads that was filled with dark-purple thunderstorm clouds with bright-purple tines of lightning crackling across and between them. We put the top up on our Little Red Corvette convertible just in time—right before big fat droplets of purple rain began to fall, creating a strange syncopated rhythm as they drummed against the car’s roof and hood and on the asphalt road ahead as we continued to speed down it.

 

A glittering at the end of the road caught my eye, and as we got closer, I could just make out that it was a structure of some sort, looming like a grand fortress or temple. As we drew near, I saw that it had seven spires vaulting toward the purple sky, each topped with a dome shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss. Six of the spires were wrapped in bands of blue neon, while the much larger seventh spire in the center was topped with a golden chhatri.

At its perimeter, our road dead-ended in a Love Symbol–shaped parking lot, with a mirrored surface of volcanic black glass. As we gazed up in wonder at the giant structure, the tour bus pulled up and parked behind us, and Morris Day and the rest of the Original 7ven emerged. None of them spoke. They all just stood there waiting and looking extremely cool. Jerome walked over to Morris and pretended to dust off each of his shoulders.

The other members of the Time all wore grim expressions. They looked ready for a war.

Aech led us over to the temple’s jewel-encrusted gates, which appeared to be made of gold. They were standing wide-open, daring us to enter. Beyond the gates there was a large open courtyard that stretched all the way to the base of the temple steps. Surrounding both the courtyard and the adjacent temple was a seemingly endless field of purple flowers that stretched to the horizon behind them.

Peering through the open gates, I caught a glimpse of several dark catlike shapes slinking around the courtyard’s perimeter—lions or panthers, maybe. Whatever they were, they all suddenly halted in midstride and turned to stare at us with their glowing purple eyes.



  

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