Raymon pulled himself up onto the rooftops for his night time run. He cut a solitary figure against the night sky, his shredded leather trench coat trailing behind him as he ran. The rooftops were crawling with cameras these days but he didn't care. He'd figured out a long time ago that all he had to do was switch his AR display to an external projection that covered his face in the strange geometric shapes and arcane symbols he spent his free time drawing and it would throw off the face tracking enough that he couldn't be automatically traced. The boys sitting the the NSA office would give up after that. Manually following a moving target through grainy camera feeds across many buildings and feeding coordinates to the police was beyond the scope of ambition possessed by the average bureaucrat. The first time Raymon went on a run he jacked the comm frequency of the neighborhood NSA office to see what they would say about the mysterious nocturnal specter dashing around the skyline. He heard the spooks say it was "a waste of time" to follow him. A hilarious conclusion if Raymon had ever heard one, but it played out in his favor.

Raymon had gotten 4x zoom optics implanted in his retinas and he was ready to take them for a spin. He made a beeline for the ritzy part of town, his usual haunt. The 501C block, referred to by the locals with the blunt moniker "rich town." A place where people drank martinis, drove fast cars and laughed. He ran with short quick strides, like a rat scurrying to its hole. When he reached 501C block he ducked down onto a fire escape to test his new retinas. He looked down at the street from 32 stories up. The world beneath him was a blocky blur. It almost looked like some of the video games his great-grandfather would play. The kind that were on display in the museum of primitive technology. He clicked into 2X zoom mode. The world grew a little sharper. He could make out the cars driving on the street below. A 2037 Honda LRZ with all the bells and whistles was parked below. At this zoom level he could see the sleek leather interior and even some of the switches and buttons on the dashboard panel. “Cool…” He whispered to himself. He was going to need a further target for the 4X zoom. He turned his gaze back towards the block he started in, 325B. In 325B the streets were still slick with last night's rain and cluttered with trash. Discarded cybernetic limbs and BrainJolt chips that hadn't been washed away formed a dam of refuse around the sewer drains. A 2017 Hyundai Sonata stacked 5 deep with gang bangers and their robot slaves blasted through the intersection. He could almost swear that at this level of detail he could even see the subwoofers rattling the frame of the car...

The thought excited him and he scampered up the fire escape back onto the roof. He'd stayed in one spot for too long. He made a mark of the brand new 2040 Lamborghini cruising along and kept pace with it. By the time the Lambo parked Raymon had sprinted across almost a dozen buildings. His lungs burned. They were next on his list of upgrades. Once he got those and the joints in his knees replaced with some nice pneumatic rotators he could make his night time runs without any physical pain. He walked to the edge of the rooftop with his frame doubled over. He sat with his legs dangling over the street and zoomed in to watch the inhabitants of the Lambo stumble out. Two girls and two guys. The guys were wearing perfectly fitted suits and sported close-cut hair. The girls were dressed in the blazing red form-fitting dresses of the day. All parties were stumbling around and laughing with drunken delight. Raymon was in prime territory for his favorite hobby. Observing a strange foreign species. People who still had hope. It was a strange sort of voyeurism. Not like a predator stalking its prey but it’s opposite. It was like an animal in a glass cage staring back at its captors. The party finally guffawed their way through the front door of the apartment building across the street and disappeared inside. Raymon scanned his eyes across all the windows; Slowly, Patiently. A few minutes later a light flicked on in a third floor apartment and the partygoers wafted in.

The apartment was spectacular. A grand piano sat in the center of the open room and one of the men began drunkenly hammering at the keys. One of the girls sat on the bench next to him laughing hysterically. The other man went to fetch a bottle of champagne off a fully stocked bar. The entire room was deluged in the golden glow of incandescent light bulbs. Not the cheap fluorescent shit you find everywhere else these days. This all seemed nice but it was secondary to Raymons true jealous desire. He didn’t want the nice things these people had. He wanted something deeper. Whatever they had that allowed them to amass such things. The secret of their success. They had to know something he didn’t, right? Sometimes he imitated the movements of people like this in an attempt to divine their secret. If you happened across the scene it would certainly be a sight to see. A dark lonely figure, his retinas glowing in the night sky, acting out a bizarre pantomime on the rooftops above. The man with the bottle finally managed to trace a zigzagging path towards the piano and placed 4 wine glasses on top of it. He was so drunk that when he spoke Raymon could see that he was slurring his words from across the street. While the drunken man sloppily poured champagne in the glasses Raymon looked around the room for the second girl. He found her standing at the window. Looking across the street. Staring. At him.

Raymon jumped to his feet so quickly he almost pitched himself off the edge of the roof. He quickly scampered behind a brick protrusion on the roof. He sat with his heart pounding and mind racing. How quick would the police get here? Should he run down the fire escape and try to blend in on the streets or get to another city block? After a few moments his curiosity got the better of him and he looked back in to the apartment. She was still standing at the window and looking at him. He held her gaze and she raised her hand and waved. Raymon simply stared in disbelief. She made a quick check of the other people in the apartment and, seeing they were still occupied, turned back and waved again. This time Raymon stuck his hand out timidly. She motioned her hand towards herself quickly twice, beckoning Raymon out from behind the bricks. He stepped out into the open and walked to the edge of the roof. He got a good look at her for the first time. She had short blonde hair and delicate features. When he clicked back into 4X zoom he could see the curiosity in her eyes that beckoned him out here. She gave one more check of the other occupants of the party who were still enamored with each other.

Alicia turned back to the figure across the street and gave a little smile. The strange man hadn’t moved an inch. He stood ramrod still with his arms at his side in a tattered overcoat.

“What are you looking at honey?” The piano man asked.

“Nothing.” she replied turning towards him.

“Why don’t you come drink your glass of champagne then?”

“You know I don’t drink.”

“Awww come on ba…”

“And you know I don’t like it when you drag me out while you get drunk with your friends.” At this the others got quiet and he stood up from the piano.

“Baby I didn’t know we were gonna be drinking. It just kinda happened.” he cocked his shoulders back in a shrug with the last word and almost lost his balance.

“Well next time make sure it just kinda happens away from me.”

The other woman still standing at the piano piped in. “We can go to our place if you want James.”

“Yeah that’s probably a good idea. She’s in one of her moods.”

Alicia didn’t feel a need to respond to the childish jab. James walked over to her and gave her a sharp peck on the cheek and then shuffled out of the room with his guests. Alicia could hear them talking and laughing loudly as they went down the hallway and fell into the neighboring apartment.

She turned back too look across the street. She could see a faint glow behind the brick protrusion. The glow became two burning orbs as the man stepped back out from his cover. She waved again and he waved back. There was more confidence in this new gesture. He made a motion like taking a swig from a bottle and then rocked back and forth with mock drunkenness. She giggled.