Oscar, envious of the people in the Upper Zone but still dependent on the Lower Zone for his livelihood, desperately tried to imitate the brilliance of those glittering domes by trampling on those below him.
With no compassion whatsoever for others who also suffered the same misfortune, through the little power he had, he revelled in his privilege and made a point of enjoying every step he took on someone below him...
Upon reaching the tenth floor, Lohan noticed that the air was getting slightly cleaner... Oscar must have had expensive private filters installed on the rooftop.
The sound of the music was now deafening.
Lohan used his Monocular Telescopic Vision to locate the roof’s parapet and, with one last effort, he hoisted himself over the edge, landing silently on the luxurious terrace.
The scene that greeted him was the height of ostentatious tackiness.
The terrace was covered with synthetic marble slabs that imitated gold, but were already stained by accumulated soot.
There were statues of ancient deities carved from polymer that imitated marble and designer furniture that could only have been stolen from an Upper East Side catalog from decades ago.
In the center of it all, a heated pool exhaled perfumed vapors that tried, and failed, to hide the smell of sweat and chemicals.
Music pulsed through holographic speakers that projected pink and blue lasers into the smoke-filled air.
Lohan stayed in the shadows of a large pot of artificial plants, looking around intently for his target.
Then he spotted Oscar.
The fat man was submerged in the pool water, his fat arms covered in gold chains resting on the edge.
He was visibly out of it, his eyes rolled back and a drooling smile on his face. Around him, three young girls were in similar states of intoxication.
They were laughing hysterically and incoherently, holding synthetic crystal glasses filled with a neon-blue liquid that Lohan recognized as Dream Mist, a heavy stimulant that simulated a feeling of euphoria but corroded the central nervous system over months and caused intense chemical dependence on the substance.
Seeing that, Lohan became curious about one thing. ’I wonder if I can process this kind of substance and extract something useful from it?’
The idea might seem crazy, but considering how much he had processed and gained useful rewards from, it didn’t seem out of the question.
Sure, given the intense and addictive nature of it, Lohan didn’t want to risk doing something like that without supervision or a Plan B, so he put that idea on hold.
In addition to the glasses of Dream Mist, there were pills scattered across the glass tables, mixed in with scraps of natural organic food, a luxury that would make anyone else from the Lower Zone weep with envy, wishing they could eat something like that, but which here would be discarded as nothing more than ordinary trash.Oscar exuded a chaotic and unstable aura, with faint traces of Mana.
Lohan was surprised to realize that he also played Elysium, but considering the money the man had and how popular the game was becoming, Lohan realized it would be strange if he didn’t play it, and with the likely Common Base he possessed and the sedentary lifestyle he led, his integration was practically Mana trash.
’At least digesting him might not be a complete waste...’ Lohan thought.
"Hehe... that brat... Hayes..." Suddenly Oscar’s voice came out slurred, competing with the bass of the music. "Tomorrow... tomorrow he’ll find out who’s boss around here... how dare he hit me?! To celebrate... I’m going to buy... I’m going to buy another round of Dream Mist for all of you, okay?!"
The girls screamed in approval, though one of them couldn’t even keep her head up, her eyes lost in the glow of the lasers.
Realizing how close the targets were, Lohan decided to wait a little while.
In no hurry at all, he simply stayed in the dark, observing the patterns of the group’s few movements, and waiting until there was no one left in the pool but Oscar.
Lohan stepped out of the shadows slowly, moving with ease through the space as if he were perfectly familiar with it.
Although he didn’t need protection from the air in that luxurious setting, he kept the mask on his face to hide his identity and ensure that no sensor would capture his human face.
He figured that, inside Oscar’s penthouse, there wouldn’t be any cameras due to the illicit nature of the substances the man liked to consume, but, as a precaution, Lohan kept his presence as dark as possible through Umbral Mimicry, with the only perceptible glow being the residual red in his eyes.
He felt the weight of the kinetic pistol at his waist, but his left hand was already weaving nearly invisible threads of Magical Weaving into his palm.
Lohan walked to the edge of the pool, the sound of his footsteps perfectly muffled by the thumping of the electronic music that made the synthetic marble vibrate.
The pressure of Lohan’s Level 12 aura began to expand involuntarily, causing the pool water to form small ripples that betrayed his approach to anyone with trained senses.
Before focusing on Oscar, Lohan acted cautiously to neutralize the three girls accompanying the landlord.
Although he suspected they weren’t good people for being there with Oscar, he didn’t want to risk causing permanent harm to possible innocents or mere addicts.
Moving like a shadow, he delivered precise strikes to their vital pressure points, knocking them out harmlessly before they could scream, perhaps using excessive force on them due to a lack of practice in this, but not caring much.
Wherever Lohan passed, the girls in bikini bottoms with their breasts exposed slid to the ground and onto the lounge chairs like rag dolls, leaving only Oscar awake in the water.
"Right, Oscar... I think you and I have some unfinished business to deal with..." Lohan said, his voice sounding deep and grave, vibrating with rage.
Although not one for many words, Lohan wanted the satisfaction of letting that fat pig know that his death today would be a consequence of his own actions.