Getting Real

“They have more of it than they know what to do with,” his aide said. “Why else would you have to go see them in person? Why else would you have to speak English when you do? The whole world uses Mandarin these days. The whole world—except for them. They need to get Real.”

He touched a button. The boat sprang away from the pier. It would cross the forty-odd kilometers—twenty-six miles, an ancient song called the distance, and the Americans still clung to their cumbersome old measurements—in little more than half an hour.

Seabirds squawked in the sky, though they soon fell behind the boat. Unless you were a birder, which Hu wasn’t, the gulls and cormorants and pelicans on this side of the Pacific looked pretty much like the ones far to the west.

An honor guard awaited the minister and his aide when they got to the harbor at San Pedro. The men looked tough and capable. Their uniforms and weapons ... As charitably as he could, Hu thought, China has better.

A white man in a suit much like his came forward and held out his hand. “How do you do, sir?” he said in English. “I’m Brett Hill, the protocol chief.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Minister Hu said. He shook hands—one more old-fashioned ritual you had to endure with Americans. “But I understood I was to meet with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of the DEA?”

“Oh, yes, sir!” Hill had a broad, eager, friendly smile of the sort the minister instinctively distrusted. “They’re waiting for you not far from here. We have a car to take you to the hotel.”

He gestured. The large, muscular car was an American model. Hu Zhiaoxing sighed to himself. If the officials weren’t far away, the machine would probably get him there without breaking down. Wang Zemin’s expression was eloquent. He didn’t say anything. Neither did Hu. He just nodded. The things I do for my country, he thought.

Smiling still, the protocol chief led them to the Saturn. The honor guard presented arms when the Chinese walked past. One man’s hand twisted for a moment as he gripped the stock of his minichain. Only a Realie would have used that gesture. Hu’s face betrayed nothing. Neither did Wang’s. The aide didn’t mind showing what he thought of the American government. Getting an ordinary soldier in trouble was a different story.

The car idled roughly. Its shocks left something to be desired. Brett Hill plainly thought it was state of the art. Minister Hu didn’t waste time educating him. Life was too short. Hill also plainly took potholes for granted. A raised eyebrow from Hu passed a message to his aide. He’s only an American. He doesn’t know any better. Wang gave back an almost imperceptible nod of his own.

They’d cleaned up the Marriott—it was indeed near the harbor—so it almost came up to Chinese standards. That only made the neighborhood around the place seem more blighted by comparison.

In the conference room where the American dignitaries waited, Hu declined ice water. He accepted tea. Drug residues in a small cup wouldn’t be too bad, and boiling ought to kill the germs. Wang Zemin drank nothing at all.

Secretary of State Jackson was short and plump and black. Secretary of Defense Berkowitz was short and thin and white. Secretary of the DEA Kojima was short and potbellied (but not really plump) and, by his looks, no more than a quarter Asian. Both Hu and Wang were five or six centimeters taller than any of them—and taller than Brett Hill, too, for that matter. Better nutrition when we were growing up, Hu thought.

But that had nothing to do with the price of rice. “As you requested, gentlemen, I am here,” he said. “What can I do for you today?”

“You’ve got to stop selling your poison in our towns!” Kojima burst out.

“It isn’t poison,” Hu said. “Besides, very often we don’t sell it. We give it away. How can anyone possibly object to that?”

“Pushers have been saying ‘The first one’s free’ as long as there’ve been drugs.” Contempt dripped from the DEA chief’s voice. “‘Wanna ... get Real?’“ He contrived to make the question sound obscene.

Patiently, Hu Zhiaoxing said, “You seem to be laboring under a mistaken impression. Getting Real has nothing to do with drugs. It’s a matter of metastimulation of specific brain regions.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” the Secretary of Defense whispered to the Secretary of State. Hu knew he wasn’t supposed to hear that, but he did. China had technical leads in more areas than the Americans realized, and those leads were wider than the Americans thought.

“How do you produce this, uh, metastimulation?” Jackson asked.

“We have ways,” Hu answered. “I could not tell you myself. I am not an artisan shaping that particular form of knowledge.”

“It’s got to stop,” Kojima said. “Do you have any idea how much productivity we’re losing because people would rather get Real than work or do anything else?”