“I know I haven’t had a true hit song in at least thirty years, but I have done the best I know how. The funk still lives, and we still play live music. But then of course, I haven’t been myself in quite a while.”
The rumors were out there. There was a vault, with unreleased music. Tons of it, too. I could just wet my lips thinking about it, wondering, dreaming of what words and sounds would be found there. A vault, full of treasures.
I was a pretty good musician, song writer, composer. I guess I was. I just needed a shot, a break, someone to give me what I knew I deserved. If I could just get that, I was sure I could be as big a star as Prince, though he was the mega star of the days in 1986. It just seemed he could do no wrong with anything he released. I just needed an edge; I needed a spark of creativity instead of being afraid it would never come. I needed inspiration.
I picked up my guitar and played some chords earlier the day of my big plan, and the sounds coming out of it were just too generic for me. It sounded more like the Time on a bad day of rehearsal. I just couldn’t feel what was coming out of the amp. None of it elevated me, and on the contrary did quite the opposite. The music is inside me somewhere, I would tell myself, I am just having a block of some kind. Deep inside me there are masterpieces just waiting to explode. Then when people hear, they will cry my name, money will fall from the sky, and I will be the boss.
MTV was playing Madonna’s ‘Material Girl,’ as it had been for a couple of years. Music seemed to be taking a dive, but there was all sorts of depressing things going on this year. Just a couple of months earlier, the Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ had erupted into a ball of flames during the lift off. The nation was still reeling from that. Never mind my music for now; I was putting a plan in motion.
I was in my car pulling up to the back gate of Paisley Park studios, and I felt as though I had driven “around the world in a day” for sure. Miguel met me there. He worked inside, janitorial duties. I had met Miguel by chance a year earlier, at a Prince concert. We had kept in touch, and when he told me he was getting a job in the studio, I was shocked and delighted, but not as much as I had when I found out he had seen the vault, and knew how to get to it.
Imagine, access to the vault, if for only just one listen. What inspiration would I find there? I knew it would be pure genius, all of it. My block would be over, and I would be able to free my wings. I would hear the experimental tracks; I would get insight on the true artistic freedom that surpassed anything I was only allowed to listen to on the radio and from the record store shelves. It would be a peek under the hood, into the true depths. I would find my connection to his genius, and I would also be free.
Miguel had me park the car outside of the gate and we entered. We exchanged formalities, how do you and what have you been up to, and he pulled out a ball of keys., inside the back door we went. I guess disbelief was beginning to set in, with a little apprehension, “Are you sure you want to do this, Miguel? You could loose your job if we are found out.”
He said, “Hell yeah. The dude has been a major prick to me. I know he is a star and all, but he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.”
“We could both possibly go to jail.”
Miguel laughed, “Don’t sweat it man. Prince is out on some business of some kind, he has been real hush about it. Of course, he is totally weird anyway.”
After rounding a few corners, we stalled by a door, just an ordinary door, and Miguel took one last look around to make sure no one was looking. He slid a key in the door carefully, as if the sound would possibly echo down the halls and send security running, turned the knob, and we made entry. The room was pitch black. He flipped a switch on the wall and it was a room, just a plain room. Not at all what I had envisioned. The floor was tiled and the walls were a light peach color. The room was completely empty, except for a true vault sitting in the very center.
I began to ring my fingers, “Holy shit. There it is. That is it? THE vault, right? We aren’t going to find something useless in there like money or diamonds are we?”
Miguel laughed, “That’s it man. The vault.”
I caressed the top of it with the palm of my hand and asked, “We can get in it?”
“Took me some time, but I got the combination my friend.” Miguel pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “The numbers are, 777 9311.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Miguel shrugged, “He’s kind of nostalgic I suppose.”
I kneeled down in front of the safe, and my hand trembled. I blinked a couple of times to make sure I was actually here, doing this; it all seemed a bit too surreal. I touched the combination knob and turned it left to 7, and I could feel the sweet vibration of the tumblers rolling. The next feeling, however, was not so sweet. My arm went stiff as an electric charge traveled up arm, tensing my fingers on the combination roller to where I could not let go. My shoulder trembled in pain, and my eyes were full of fright, but I there was so much power going through my arm that I could not turn loose.
Miguel started, and he asked, “What’s going on?”
A female voice, obviously simulated or recorded, said, “Unauthorized print signature. Violation detected.” Her voice was calm and confident, simply stating the facts. In my peripheral vision I could see Miguel backing to the door. The unseen female voice said, “Operation code thirty one procession activated, extraction coordinates calculating.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I shrieked. Miguel could not answer, he had opened the door and looked back over his shoulder at me, “Good luck man.”
I yelled, “You can’t leave me here!”
He replied, “I don’t know you man,” and he dodged through the door shutting it behind him.
The hairs on my body began to lift as the loud droning hum began, and I watched my arms begin to turn snowy in a cloud of static. There was a blinding glare and a deafening pop as my head felt as though it would explode. The next instant, all that I know, is that I was in a small dark room kneeling on a shiny glowing surface, my hand still gripping the tumblers of the safe.
A door in the far wall slid open, much like the doors I had grown up watching on the Star Trek series, sounding much similar also, and a lean silhouette stood in the bright light passing through the doorway. The figure spoke, and the voice was unmistakable, “Who in the hell are you and why are you touching my vault?”
I must say I was very disoriented, and sick at my stomach also. I suppose the teleportation, and I supposed at that moment that is what had happened to me, I had been teleported to a new location with the vault, had given me an upset stomach. But it was Prince, so I was a bit thrilled, and could not contain my happy smile. I tried to say his name, and perhaps a greeting of some kind, but all that came out was a flood of vomit.
Prince said, after I had stopped heaving, “You’re cleaning that up.”
He was angry to say the least, and let me know how incredibly stupid I had to be, sometimes with the most cryptic of phrases, such as, “A dart with no point just don’t fly,” and, “Some pools are fools and the rest has to be skipped.” I am sure these all applied to me, though I had no idea what they meant. He had led me to a smaller room with a seat in it, and I was still trying to understand where I was and what was going on. He sat in a chair across from me and asked, “Who are you? Why are you here?”
I shrugged, “I was hoping you could tell me, sir.”
“Don’t hand me that shit. I can see by the light even when the clouds are passing.”
I did not know what to say to that one. I felt it was better I just try to explain myself, “I have a confession to make. I’m a fan, a big fan…”
“Got lots of fans, but they don’t end of like this.”
I nodded in agreement, “Okay, I know. Anyway, I’m a musician too…”
Prince dropped his head, as if he had heard this one before, and he said, “Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you’re a nobody musician who was trying to get a peep at my vault, trying to steal a few songs. Always a damn rogue out there.”
I sat back some, “No, no, not at all. I wasn’t going to steal anything.”
“Oh no?”
“No, for real. I’m not a thief. I just wanted to take a listen. Like I said, I’m a musician too. I just wanted some inspiration.”
“What, your own life too damn dry to find some inspiration without trying to break into my private business?”
Knowing I was already in trouble, and probably with nothing much else left to loose, and feeling a heat on the back of my neck as I was continuously insulted, I began to realize what Miguel had meant by the prick remark, “Look,” I barked, “I made a mistake. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it. But I am not a thief, and I wasn’t going to sell or cover any of your material.”
Prince smiled, “Well, well, well. Little bit of urge and we off to the tracks, huh?”
I shook my head, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Means I hit a nerve, right?”
“Yeah, I think you did.”
Prince nodded, “Okay. Okay. Well, let me lay this down on you. You could not have picked a worse time to try and break in my vault, I am in to some real heavy shit at the moment. I don’t have time for any more of this. What is happening now, is that you are going back to the teleportation room, cleaning up that puke, and then I am sending you back to Earth.”
It took a moment for that to absorb, “Earth? Back? Back to Earth? Where the… where are we?”
“It’s a bit complicated, and I don’t have time. You are not on Earth. Now, if…”
My heart was beating a bit heavily in my chest, “Wait, where am I? For real. Am I radiated? Am I safe.”
“No, you aren’t radiated. But you are not safe either. We have to get you back to Earth, and I have some work to do.”
I wasn’t too sure if I could stand, my legs were trembling. Earth, yes, I think I would like to go back to Earth. It was unfathomable that I was anywhere but. The idea was all but unacceptable, but I had seen and felt myself teleported away from the small well lit room into a very different place. Could it be true? Could I be on a different planet, or… the Star Trek style door… was I in space, on a ship?
“We’re in space, aren’t we? On a ship?”
Prince nodded as he led me back down the corridor, “That much is right. But you got to go. I don’t care where, but you have got to get the f…”
Suddenly, the calm female voice I had heard earlier in the small room back on Earth filled the corridor, “Target has been identified. Commencing sub warp speed parameters in ten seconds.”
“Damn,” Prince said.
“Damn? Damn what?”
“Can’t send you back to Earth now. We are about to go into sub light, and you could wind up on Mars or in the center of the sun. Not that I should really care.” Prince rubbed his temples with his left hand and frowned intently at me, “I really did not need this right now.”
“I’m not too happy about this either,” I said.
Prince said, “You will have to follow me, and I will have to give you the crash course in what is going on. I hope you know how to follow instructions.”
A bit intimidated I gazed around the ship, “Like what?”
“Like sit down and don’t do shit.”
I felt I could handle that.
Along the walk, Prince lectured me, “From the deep reaches of space, Earth was invaded my a mechanical robot advanced beyond anything you could imagine. It is both intelligent and deadly. I know you remember the Space Shuttle explosion a couple of months ago… well, I am pretty certain this damn thing was directly responsible. Any way, this robot has hacked into the Earth’s digital main frame, which is much larger than you may think. Someday soon, there will be a network of computers on the Earth connecting virtually everyone, and right now it exist, the backbone is there. This robot accessed this network, and copied every bit of digital information on Earth. All of it, every secret we have. Now it is traveling back to it’s home planet.”
A bit heavy, but I understood what he was saying in this crash course of the unbelievable, and I asked, “And you are tracking it down to stop it?”
“Yes,” he said. “There is no crew aboard this ship, only me, and him,” and a door slid open. Inside there was view of space streaking by us through the cockpit view ports, which were huge. There were consoles which blinked and flickered all around, but what was amazing was it, or he.
Levitating upright was a metal man made with a purple skin so shiny it there was almost reflection. It looked like a man, much taller, perhaps ten feet or so, ripped with an anatomy of an athlete. The skin was striped horizontally in detail like the rules of a sheet of note paper, across every imitation muscle. The face had an uncanny resemblance to Prince. Crowned atop its head was a flame of golden hair, and gripped in its right hand was a golden guitar trimmed down to the edges like an axe.
All that I could manage was, “Shit.”
With a smile on his face, Prince said, “Indeed. And that alien has no idea what kind of jam he has broke up by the side.”
Yeah, I had no idea what that meant either.
“So,” I said, “that’s a robot you are sending out to fight it?”
Prince shook his head, “No. Can’t leave a fight like this up to some kind of program. It’s an android, and I will be entering it.”
I nodded, “So, it’s like a suit.”
Prince shook his head again, “No. Well, kind of. I will be piloting it, from the inside, with my soul.”
Was he being cryptic again?
“It’s remote?”
“My soul. You do know what a soul is? I will stand on that pad, over there,” and there was a pad above which the android levitated, and a second empty pad to the left of it. “Once I am there, the transfer unit will transport my soul into the android.”
I chuckled, “You can’t teleport a soul.”
“Oh yeah? I teleported yours, here. I just happened to bring the body along with it.”
I had to laugh at that, and then I said, “What you mean is you have a way to transplant your cerebral impulses into the android, right?”
“Don’t tell me what the hell I meant. I created this machine, I know full well what it does. There is a soul, and mine will travel into that droid. The imprint of everything I am will stay in my body, like my memories and my ability to play instrument, but just an imprint, sort of like reports and instructions. But the real me, the soul, will be in the android. And when I am finish kicking that alien’s ass, I will be coming back to return to my body.”
I was quiet for a few moments, and then I asked, “So, you, Prince of all people, has come out the farthest reaches of the universe to single handedly stop an alien force from attaching the Earth?”
Prince laughed, and then said sternly, “That robot has a copy of all digital information on Earth, which means my music also, and I will be damned if I am going to let anyone, Earthling or alien, listen to my music without paying for it. I don’t pass my stuff out for free. Can’t stand the thought of a whole universe just jamming on my vibes for free.”
A bit stunned, I said, “…. yeah.”
The calm female computer voice said, “Target in range.”
We both froze from our conversation and peered out the command portal, and there it was, humanoid in shape with four arms, and reminiscent of a Transformer from the Saturday morning cartoons. Apparently, it had detected us, and it slowed to a stop, and turned towards us. My attention was so focused on the robot that at first, I did not notice the galaxy sized cosmic storm just behind it. We were in space far beyond our own Milky Way.
Prince said, “Show time.”
In a single graceful flight of movement, he standing on the vacant pad with his arms stretched out. He began to levitate. I blinked a couple of times in repetition as I looked upon one very large and one very small Prince, it was like something from the pages of a comic book come true. There was a droning hum raising in pitch, and I had to shout, “What do I do?”
“Not a damn thing. Take a seat and watch.”
I wanted to ask a few basic questions, like what if your android body is destroyed, will your soul float back into your body? What happens in worse case scenario? How would I get home? The questions were bouncing around in my mind, which was still having a most difficult time accepting where I was and what the hell was going on. All I could do, despite every desire to say something, was follow the command. I watched.
A greenish aurora enshrouded Prince’s body and his clothes dissolved. I didn’t need to see that. A thick bolt of yellow energy stitched the space between his body and the android’s, and that was it, task complete. His body hung there, suspended, and the eyes of the android sparked to life with an incredible glow. Slowly the android Prince lowered to the pad with a clunk I could feel through my own feet. The android spoke in an amplified Prince voice, “I have to keep it from entering that cosmic storm. Our ship is so large is would never survive entering.” With that same grace, the android left the command post, and soon I saw it flying past the cockpit from overhead in space to engage with the alien robot.
Watching the nude biological shell of Prince floating above the pad, I considered some of the fantastic applications this machine could contribute to mankind, such as prolonging the human life span, and of course the many medical advances; and here we were, in space, using it to defend the copy right law. Should I laugh or cry? Not to mention, I had never had the desire to see Prince in the nude, especially with all of his parts floating about. I thought about a noodle floating in a bowl of soup.
My attention was brought back to the here and now when the first round of battle opened. The alien droid rolled a rapid succession of fire, blinding in speed, at the Prince-droid, who turned his golden guitar up like a shield and deflected each and every blast. Prince-droid was driven back a distance, but the alien changed up strategy by transforming the end of one arm into a huge cannon. As I guessed, it fired a thicker blast of power at the Prince-droid, who cleverly batted the blast back like a baseball. The alien droid dodged the return, and in that instant of diversion, the Prince-droid was on top of it wrestling it to submission.
The match became quite frantic, and I had, for the most part, a difficult time separating who was who. Something happened in this exchange fisticuffs which drove the Prince-droid back, and I could see a horrible tear in the metal skin as the left arm seemed to dangle about inappropriately. It had been torn loose just above the shiny bicep. Prince-droid charged forward, leaving the arm behind, barreling into the alien, straight for the view port I was observing through.
Surely they would deviate trajectory. I stepped back, my hear racing. I could imagine the thick glass shields exploding into space, and myself being sucked into the dark void with nude Prince by my side. They did not deviate. They did strike the view shield. It did crack, but that was all. It was at this time that I wondered if the teleportation device was voice activated. Could I step on it and say, “Back to Earth.” Was there a distance limitation, like FM radio? Prince only said we could not teleport while traveling at sub light, he didn’t say anything about distance. Of course, I did not ask.
I thought it might be crazy, but I called out, “Ship?”
The female voice calmly replied, “You have an inquiry?”
This was great. I laughed nervously and asked, “Can I teleport to Earth from here?”
She responded, “Calculating now. Yes. Teleportation is to Earth is possible from here.”
Outside the portal the tide seemed to be turning, the Prince-droid was somehow now in the rear of the alien droid. Prince-droid raised his golden guitar and brought the edge down in the spine of the alien droid. It shuttered for a moment, as you might expect an automobile engine would if it were badly out of timing, and it stopped moving all together. With his feet planted on the alien robot’s buttocks, Prince-droid ripped his golden axe out of the dead metal hull.
Prince’s voice spoke through the ship’s intercom, “Told you no one got my stuff for free.”
I was very happy, though I felt I would have been just as satisfied to have teleported myself back to Earth as I had previously decided to do. I bet Hawaii was nice this time of year. The Prince-droid was drifting back to the ship, victoriously. It had not been a long trip to the out reaches of space doing the sub light thing, and I supposed it would be a relatively fast trip back home. Of course, I wondered what Prince would do with me now. Would I be arrested for attempting to break in his vault? And still, through all of this, I would not get to listen. I was sure that was still out of the question, and I didn’t want to meet the business end of that golden axe in any sense.
I was the first to see the glowing orb exit the cosmic storm. Prince-droid was still floating back to the ship when his sensors must have picked up on it. He turned to watch with me as it floated by the dead hull of the alien droid. A band of energy stretched out from the orb and joined the alien droid. Prince-droid said, “Damn, that’s not good.”
I spoke out, not sure if the Prince-droid could hear me, “What’s happening?”
“The orb thing is downloading the information from the alien robot. Shit. This ain’t over.”
Prince-droid began to thrust towards the orb when I shouted out, “Wait, wait!” He paused and looked back towards me, I asked, “What do I do? Can I go home? I just want to go home.”
Prince-droid said, “Don’t move. This shouldn’t take long.” The orb had finished it’s download and began to streak back towards the cosmic cloud. “Oh hell no you don’t.” He spoke to me again, “Stay put. I will be back.”
Prince-droid sped into the cosmic storm, following the orb. I screamed out my displeasure a few times more, but I never received another answer. I screamed out, “Damn! The hell with you! The hell with you! I’m not waiting out here for you to return or not.” I called to the ship, “Ship, prepare the teleportation room. Destination Earth, Hawaii.”
She replied, “Preparing teleportation pad now. Destination Earth, Hawaii.”
I began to leave the insane cockpit, but I stopped in front of the nude, empty shell of Prince, “I hope you make it back, but I can’t wait. You will just have to understand. I wasn’t supposed to be here and see all of this crazy shit anyway.” I began to calm down now, watching him float serenely. “Besides, if I needed any inspiration, I have it now. You can keep your vault.”
The vault. It was still here, on the ship. It was just a walk away, in another room, and I knew the combination, which was almost corny, 777 9311. What could happen now? It had been teleported already, so I didn’t have that to fear. Would I get shocked again? Maybe, maybe not. I could place myself in a position so that, if I did, I could jerk away. I could still get a listen, perhaps there would be time. If Prince returned, I could simply run to the teleportation device and shoot back to Earth before he could do anything about it.
I would take one listen to only a few, just for the sake of my trouble. I would be the only one to take a peek inside his mysterious mind… inside… his… head. And he floated before me. His entire nude form, from his feet to his… head. There, before me, it was, unguarded. The true vault. The real source of inspiration still, how did he say it, imprinted? Could I do it? Could I transfer my soul or my consciousness, whatever you want to call it, into his body and look around inside his head? Could I take a stamp of that knowledge and talent back with me? Would that be possible? This machine, could it do that?
“Ship, can I transfer my mind into this other body?”
There was a pause, and she said, “No.”
Oh well, I gave it a shot.
“But you CAN transfer your soul into the other body,” she said calmly.
Without a moment of hesitation I jumped onto the other pad. Being levitated is a strange and fuzzy sensation. My clothes dissolved as the irritating hum drummed through the room, it was even louder here above the pad. I hoped there was no freaky nude imaging of our two bodies intertwining as my soul was injected into his body. Again, the glowing netting appeared, from his body to mine. I saw a flash, and I was traveling through a narrow tunnel with no air…
I was on my hands and knees, trembling. I raised my shaking hand in front of me, not sure whose hand it was. Over my shoulder I looked back, and saw my own nude form floating, peacefully. I caught my present reflection in one of the ship’s monitors, and I was staring back at myself as Prince. I spoke in his voice, “Well, I will be damned.”
Clothes, I needed clothes, I could not stand this nudity thing any longer. “Ship, where are my threads?”
Threads, really? Did I mean to say that?
The ship gave me guidance to Prince’s quarters. Inside was a magnificent guitar propped in the corner, and a closet with clothes I would never volunteer to ever purchase. Should I actually wear these heels or go bare foot? I put the heels on, might as well go for the full experience.
I grabbed the guitar and began to play a solo from a Prince song I remembered. Amazing. I played it better than I ever have, as a matter of fact, I played it perfectly. The muscle memory was there, as well the memories of songs and music I had never heard before. I was in the vault, the ultimate vault.
My party was interrupted by a faint siren, and the computer voice said, “Intruder detected.” Was she speaking of me? Had she grown wise to the fact I was not supposed to be inside this body?
“What intruder ship?”
She said, “Alien Robot is aboard. Alien Robot is making way to the bridge.”
I immediately ran, gracefully I might add, to the bridge. The damaged and sputtering alien robot was on the bridge. I had no idea how it had gotten aboard, but at this point it did not matter. I watched in horror as it approached my floating nude body, I felt a cry of anger and fright rise in back of my throat. I suppressed this cry, and stayed hidden. The alien robot grabbed my nude body from its holy suspension, and I gave it a curious inspection before throwing it savagely to the ground. I heard bone crunch and blood sprayed across the floor.
Tears began to stream from my eyes. My body, which I had always felt needed improvement, was gone. I should have valued it more while I was in it, and never betrayed it with this abominable action I had taken. I could have been safely in it, right now, in Hawaii no less.
A small appendage extruded from what could be called the robot’s knuckle and was jammed into the console of the bridge. The ship said, “Illegal attempt at data transfer detected. Encryption protocols failing.”
Then she said something extremely troubling, “Self destruction count down began.”
Self destruct? This had become a science fiction nightmare. The countdown began at ten, in a very calm and somewhat sexy female voice. I ran from the bridge to the teleportation room. (FIVE)
“Ship, teleport now!” (FOUR)
“Teleporting to Earth, Hawaii.” (THREE) “Confirm?”
“Hell yes!” (TWO) “Don’t place me in” (ONE) “ a volcan…”
Teleportation complete.
I woke up on a beach, of which I still can’t pronounce, and set forth my life as Prince. I had no idea if he had survived the trip into the cosmic storm, or if he would be able to make the voyage back. I had no idea if he would even try once he discovered the ship had self destructed and presumed his biological body had been disintegrated. I tried to be Prince, for what it is worth. I had his skills, that was for sure. But there is something to be said for the soul, that intangible substance defining who we really are.
Wendy and Lisa could sense something was up with their old friend. He just didn’t seem the same. To me, they were getting a bit too wise, so I had to place distance between us; so I broke up ‘The Revolution.’
I haven’t had a hit song, not a real hit, in this thirty years. I did my best.
But just tonight, as I was on my computer surfing the net, a hauntingly familiar female voice said, “Communication sub space transmission connected.” I pulled my fingers from the keyboard as if they were poisonous, and Prince’s voice came over my speakers, “Is anyone there?”
It must have been mysterious for him to hear his own voice answer back, “Prince? Are you okay?”
“Yes”
“Where are you?”
“Just trying to find my way back home.”
Wow, I thought. That would make a cool song.
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--Is it fact or is it fiction? I hope you've gotten your story copyrighted. That was a good one!
