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You're pirating our cities."

Chengdu looked stunned. Then for a fraction of a second he looked like he had won the Chinese lottery, which is probably fairly modest by our standards, but still pretty good for them. Finally he regained his composure. "That is correct. We are making illegal copies of your cities. We are greatly sorry."

"Chengdu, Chengdu. My friend." I patted him on the shoulder. "Chengdu. You can't keep doing this."

"I know."

"We put a lot of work into creating those cities. You're stealing that work. Piracy was a lot of fun back when it was just Metallica getting hurt. But city planners are honest, hard working people."

"I understand and am sorry."

"And god man, at least pirate one of the good ones. What is this anyway?" I asked, squinting at the landscape. Barren. Featureless. Squat, dumpy-looking buildings, and no street life to speak of. "Omaha? Are you pirating Omaha?"

That lamp pole in the foreground is a major part of the Omaha skyline, visible from everywhere in the city.

Chengdu nodded excitedly. "We are pirating Omaha. We want to make many copies for our citizens to enjoy cheaply."

"And depriving the people of Omaha of valuable licensing revenue." I chewed on my thumb thoughtfully. "Although I guess you probably wouldn't be using Omaha if you couldn't get it for free. So it's not like a lost sale."

Behind us, one of Chengdu's soldiers held up a radio to his ear, while someone excitedly shouted orders in Chinese through it. He then jogged over to us, and said something to Chengdu. "We have to get out of here," Chengdu said, relaying the message to me.

"Oh, obviously. Omaha blows," I said. "You haven't even got buildings up yet. Although that might actually make it a bit better ..."

My ruminations on ways to improve Omaha were cut short when a streak of gray flashed across the sky, impacting the grid of streets in front of me, followed a split second later by an enormous fireball and thundering explosion. Chengdu lunged at me, knocking me to the ground as a spray of dust and dirt landed around us.

My ears ringing, I groaned and pushed the Chinese officer off of me, slowly stumbling to my feet. A massive crater scarred the landscape in front of me. "Holy fuck! Someone just blew up Fauxmiha!"

Chengdu took to his feet and stood beside me, staring wordlessly at the crater. "I don't know what to tell you," he said.

"You think this was the City of Omaha that did this?" I asked. "Because they're angry about the piracy?"

For 10 seconds Chengdu looked me in the eyes. "I do now."

I nodded. "Content creators are taking this piracy stuff really seriously now. I heard last month that EMI broke some kid's legs over a Coldplay torrent." I shook my head. Then, after dusting myself off a bit, I made a show of looking at my watch. "Well, I guess I'm done here."

"You're going now?" Chengdu asked. "Now? After what you just saw, you have no more questions?"

"Chengdu, my man, this story's a slam dunk," I said, pantomiming making a three-point shot. "Greedy city planners destroy small time urban-pirates? The rubes will eat that up. Pulitzer-city, especially if my editor remembers to remove all of my uses of the word 'rubes.' Thanks for your help buddy." I patted him on the shoulder, then turned and left him with the smoking ruins of his Fauxmiha.

As I stood on the curb of the Gobi Desert waiting for another cab to drive by, I considered what I'd learned. One, China is much easier to get to and navigate then most people think. Anyone who dares write about this magnificent country without bothering to visit isn't worth spit. Two, I found the Chinese military to be unflappably polite and helpful, something which also isn't talked about much in the lamestream media. For shame. Three, never cross the City of Omaha, as it, and especially its paramilitary arm, the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, are some serious pipe-swinging motherfuckers who will wreck your entire day.

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For more top-notch investigative reporting from Bucholz, check out Online Dating Strategies and Using Occupy Wall Street to Pick Up Chicks.