Getting Real

“My government does not think so. Neither do I. I warned you to quit sooner, but you would not listen.” Hu gestured to Wang Zemin, who handed him two copies of the agreement. He turned back to the Americans. “Here is the text, in English and Chinese. In case of doubt, the Chinese version is authoritative.” He signed both copies, then held them out to Jackson. Glumly, the Secretary of State added his signature and kept one copy for his government.

“You’re gloating now, because you think getting Real is only putting the screws to us,” Kojima said in a low, furious voice. “But just you wait. It’ll bite you in the ass, too. You’ll see.”

Hu Zhiaoxing yawned in his face. “I assure you, we have more enjoyable amusements than that. Good day, gentlemen.” His tone said he hoped he never saw them again. And he did.

* * * *

Spotlights blazed down on Pablo. There seemed to be a thousand, in a hundred coruscating colors. He looked out toward the seats, but the glare of the spots kept him from seeing a goddamn thing.

He didn’t care. The shrill squeals told him the crowd was hot and ready. He picked up his axe and started to play. God, how they roared! But he was a god himself, god of thunder and lightning, god of thrusting hips and flying fingers, god of lust and sex, god of cell lights and sinsemilla, god of everything that mattered if you were a guy and you hadn’t seen thirty yet.

He was good. He was the best. Would they have laid out a million bucks apiece for a ticket if he were anything less? Not fuckin’ likely! He made it wail. He made it scream. He made the girls scream, too. He made ‘em scream without even touching ‘em. How hot was that? There they were, creaming their panties by the thousands in the seats, by the millions in front of their TVs, by the hundreds of millions tomorrow when the vids hit the Net.

If anything was better than sex, this was it. Not just fame, but the rush of fame. Knowing you made the girls wanna squirm, wanna do the old up-and-down, the old in-and-out ... Knowing you made ‘em wanna do it with you...

And if nothing was better than sex, there was always after the show. He couldn’t give everything he had to all the girls he wanted. John Henry the Steel-Driving Man couldn’t give it to all the girls Pablo the Guitar God wanted. But he could sure as hell pick and choose from all the girls who wanted to give him everything they had. And he could go pretty goddamn good even if he couldn’t nail ‘em all.

Blonde, brunette, redhead? Big tits, round ass, long legs? English or Spanish? White, brown, black, Asian? Here, there, or the other place? Sweet or sassy? He’d have plenty of choices. That was part of the perks of being Pablo the Guitar God.

He finished his first number. More screams rained down on him, along with frenzied applause. “Thank you! Thank you very much!” he said, and the amps made his words fill the arena. He waved—and got more cheers. He grinned—and the big screens behind him showed his shining front teeth even to the poor fools way up top in Row ZZ. “Boy, this feels good!”

It felt better than good, as a matter of fact. It felt Real....

* * * *

Not without regret, Pablo opened his eyes. No, nobody’d hauled him off to jail while he was under this time. Nobody would have, any which way. Not any more. He’d got Real in his own apartment. Here he was, lying on his own bed.

But he could have got Real on a street corner, and they wouldn’t have busted him. It was all of a sudden legal. With lots of things, that would have taken half the fun—more than half—away. Not with getting Real. It was too good for anything to mess up, just like sex....

A slow, reminiscent smile spread across his face. “Pablo the Guitar God,” he murmured, and then, “Yeah, baby!” He remembered all the stuff he’d done after the show, and the babes he’d done it with. When you got Real, you remembered everything afterwards. That was part of what made it so totally awesome.

He’d never gone down this particular road before. His Real brain usually spun different kinds of fantasies. Not that he was complaining. Oh, man, no! He wondered why you sometimes went one way, sometimes another. Was somebody, something steering you? Or did you do it all yourself, there inside the universe between your ears?

“Jeez, who cares?” he muttered.

When he got Real, he was a deadly swordsman. Did that turn him into a fencer in the mundane world? He shrugged. He’d never had the faintest interest in finding out. If you turned into a killer whale when you got Real, it didn’t mean you could stay underwater for twenty minutes at a stretch unless you had scuba gear. More than one dumbshit had drowned proving stuff like that.

Guitar god, though ... He sorta knew how to play, but only sorta. He got out of bed and assumed the position for air guitar. He tried it out. Was he faster and better than he’d ever been before? Had getting Real turned a key some kind of way? He wasn’t sure, but he thought so. And if it had...