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Real was a powerful hallucinogenic distributed throughout the United States by the Chinese via "avatars". U.S. officials repeatedly demanded that China stop distribution of this drug to no avail. As Third Minister Hu Zhiaoxing explained at a peace conference in Los Angeles in 2117, Real was not a drug but a metastimulation of specific brain regions and China was merely supplying a product to consumers. If the U.S. offered its citizens better, there would not be any demand for Real.

Real came in the form of a small, colorful square of cardboard-like material. Contact with the skin produced hallucinations that were more real than real life.

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