Black Rose Pt. 01

Here's a new story. It's kind of my take on one of my favorite shows, Chuck. Hope you enjoy. All characters engaged in sex are over the age of 18. If you liked it please give it an honest rating. I would love to hear what you think about it, please leave your feedback in the comment section below. It'll help out tremendously. Enjoy!

***

"Wouldn't it be cool if we could biologically engineer an Ent?" I ask Alicia, my lab partner.

"That would be cool, too bad it's impossible," she says as she looks at the slide of plant tissue in the microscope.

"I wouldn't say impossible. That's awfully definite. I mean, we've got to be close to having the technology necessary to bioengineer some pretty cool things, right?" She looks up at me with those big brown eyes as she brushes a string of her brunette hair behind her ear.

"I mean, I suppose one day we could possibly have the technology necessary to create something similar to an ent" she says while moving back from the microscope. "Do you want to have a look?"

"Sure," I say as scoot up to the microscope. Looking into the eyepiece I see the cells that make up the tissue. Plant cells look like green bricks. I guess that's why they say cells are the building blocks of life. "What exactly am I look for again?"

She laughs. "You just need to draw what you see and create a diagram of the parts of the cell."

"Right, okay," I lean back and do a quick sketch of the cells.

"I don't get how someone can be so smart and yet so oblivious," she sighs.

"I don't know, I just don't think learning should be boxed into a standard form as if school were cookie cutters pushing out Keebler's chocolate chip cookies." I say as I finish adding in the nucleus to my drawing. "Learning should be fun and exciting, like discovering something new."

"You and you're crazy beliefs," she giggles.

We finish up our lab work and put the equipment back. "So do you want to meet up later and study for our quiz?" I ask.

"Like either of us need to study," she laughs this time.

"I know, I was just trying to find an excuse to hang out more," I say with a bright big smile on my face.

"Ben, I like you a lot, but I'm gay," she says as we walk out of the lab together.

"Oh, I wasn't asking you to hangout expecting we'd ever be anything more than just friends." I scratch the back of my neck as my stomach sinks to my knees. I was, in fact, asking her to hang out with hopes of something more. I really like Alicia...

"Sure, I suppose we both could use a bit of touch up before the quiz," she says.

"Great, shall we meet at the library around, say 7?" I ask.

"Sounds great," she says before we go our separate ways.

At his Place

Back at my apartment, I walk into a giant bro fest.

"What up goober," my roommate Tony says as he chills on the couch with his girlfriend under his arm and a bunch of his asshole friends around on the couches. I hate when he calls me that.

I don't even give him the satisfaction of a reply as I stalk up the stairs to my room.

"What a weirdo," I hear him say as I reach the top of the stairs.

The stench of weed hits me as I can see smoke seeth out of my other roommate Demetrius's door. Which truly doesn't surprise me.

As I plop on my bed and rest my head against my pillow, my other roommate and best friend Lewis walks in. "So? How did it go, did you ask her out?" he asks all excited.

"No... Turns out she's gay..."

"Aww, that sucks," he says.

"Yeah... It pretty much crushes all my hopes and dreams of getting a girlfriend. At least one as smart and cool as Alicia," I sigh.

"Dude, have you looked in the mirror lately?" Lewis asks. "We're skinny, dorky nerds. Girls like that don't go for guys like us."

"I know, but it's nice to have dreams, isn't it?" I ask.

"Nah, you're just setting yourself up for failure," Lewis shrugs.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," I say.

We both sigh. "So, are you down to play some Aratheon? I'm down to do some guild battlegrounds, those assholes from The Nerd Herd won't defeat us this time!"

"Sure, why not," I sigh with an eye roll. Is this all that life is going to amount to? Guild battlegrounds against other nerds?

At Work

As the weekend finally came, I spent most of it at my job down at the Tech Fix-It Shop where I mostly listened to my boss complain about everything under the sun. The worst is when he's on the phone trying to order parts.

"Are you an emotional fucking retard?" he screams at the phone. "We order the Z517's, not this junk."

He rolls his eyes as he carries on his conversation. "You're damn right you're going to take it back and send us what we actually ordered."

As I punch in and head over to the order bin, I get to work on the first thing that needs fixing.

One of the older smartphone models. Broken screen, of course. Easy fix. These older smartphones had no durability. Just a knick and the screen was shattered. They don't even hold up to the new glyph tech phones.

As I make short work of the orders, the bell signaling a new customer goes off. I head out to the counter to be blown away by a woman not much older than me. Her beauty is the rebellious kind. Her pitch-black hair runs down past her shoulders. She's definitely got an athletic frame, with lean thick legs wrapped in tight leather pants. Her white shirt was cut off below her supple breasts, revealing a shredded six-pack. A tattoo of a dreamcatcher was painted on the side of her stomach. Her eyes were dark and mysterious.

"You sell parts here, right?" she asks. She catches my gaze as a smirk crosses her face as she finds me staring at her.

I nod. "What do you need?"

"I just need the files off this hard drive transferred to my phone," she says as she hands me the hard drive and her phone.

I take the hard drive and plug it into the computer. "Oh wow, it's encrypted. I've never seen security like this before."

"Can you do the job?" she asks in a flat tone.

"Yeah, but it'll take some time," I say. I've never been kept out of anything. "What's on it anyway?"

'That's none of your business," she says.

"Okay, whatever," I say as I plug in my decoder. Thank god computers are my specialty. This encryption isn't an easy one to crack. It takes everything I know to unlock the hard drive.

"Okay, I've got it unlocked. Now, can I see your phone?" I ask.

She reluctantly hands it over. I plug her phone into the computer. It's a smartphone. One of the older iPhones. I upload everything from the hard drive to her phone. After I finish, I hand her back the phone and the hard drive and she hands me a wad of cash. "Keep the rest," she says before she turns to leave.

My eyes are caught by the most perfect asses I have ever seen. The way it sways with every step has me hypnotized.

God, I should have tried to get her number, not that I stood a chance. But I didn't even make small talk.

The rest of the night goes by pretty slow. Several hours go by since that girl came in. I just can't get her off my mind. I hear more of the bosses bitching before we finally close up shop.

As I walk home, I head past the lab. The biology lab is actually right next to the computer and engineering labs. Which is kind of cool when I'm double majoring in biology and computers. I notice a light on in the computer labs.

No one should be there at this hour.

Maybe professor Dawn is still there working on a project...

Suddenly, a black silhouette bust through the window. He twists in the air and shoots some kind of grapple against the building. Then he scales down the building. I look up at the window to see a man dressed like a ninja looking down. He follows with his own rope.

The man in black runs towards me, but the other guy leaps from the building and lands on the other man, sending a case flying from his hands and skids in front of me. As it comes to a stop, it opened up revealing a small chip. It looks like there was once two small chips.

The man in black twists underneath the green ninja and kicks him off. They charge at each other.

I kneel down and take a better look at the chip. Reaching out I pick it up in my hand. I find myself fascinated with it. It must be powerful to have them fight over it.

What the fuck? Suddenly tendrils spring out from it like a spider. I shake my arm as it crawls up it. "Get it off me!" I shout as it gets to the back of my neck. A piercing pain shoots through me as it burrows into my neck.

I drop to my knees as the world around me goes black.

--

In Black Rose's Lair

My head is throbbing. Like it's being flooded with too much noise. Sensations overload my body. Opening my eyes, my vision takes a few seconds to clear. It's dark, I can barely see. "Things will feel overwhelming, Benjamin Sanberg." A female voice says.

"Who is that?" I ask.

"You're awake," says a different but familiar female voice.

I turn my head to see a woman in front of me... Suddenly words fill my vision. Alessandra Cortez. She's the woman that came into the store. The one with the nice butt.

What happened? "You are just waking up from being infused with a key," says the other voice.

Did she just read my thoughts? "What the fuck is going on?"

"Of course I'm reading your thoughts, I am communicating with you through your neuro pathways."

"You're probably experiencing what it's like to talk to Aurora. It takes some getting used to," Alessandra says.

"Who are you and why do I know your name?" I ask. Suddenly a stream of text appear next to her.

Alessandra Cortez

Gender: Trans MTF

Black Hair

Brown Eyes

5'11''

156 lbs.

34 years old

4 tattoos

Evolve

Ex Jade Serpent member.

Contract Assassin

Went missing 12 years ago

Aliases

Black Rose

Jana Spears

"And why are words magically popping up next to you?" Panicking, I scoot back from her. Is she really a contract assassin? Why am I with her? And who the hell are the Jade Serpents?

"I can imagine that things are a little confusing for you right now, but don't panic. I'll do my best to explain everything to you," she says as she takes a seat on the couch next to me.

"Confusing is the understatement of the year," I say.

She lets out a slight laugh. "Trust me, I know what you're going through. You just fused with an alien sentient cybernetic being within a chip."

"Like an AI?" I ask.

"I am not an AI, there is nothing artificial about me," the voice in my head says.

"She doesn't like to be called that," Alessandra says.

"I gather that," I say.

Alessandra laughs. "I'm sure she told you."

"So, I take it that the figure in black was you?" I ask.

"Correct," the voice in my head says.

Alessandra nods her head.

"And you call yourself the Black Rose?" I ask.

"Correct," the voice says again.

"Will you stop talking?" I shout out.

Alessandra lets out a chuckle. "It can be a bit overwhelming, but you'll get used to it. And the Black Rose was a code name given to me by the organization that tried to enslave me."

"The Jade Serpent?" I ask.

She nods.

"And who is the Jade Serpent?" I ask.

Suddenly a flood of information appears all over my field of vision. Story headlines, pictures of faces with names floating above them, entire legal documents and even video footage. It's all too much!

"Stop!" I scream out.

It all goes blank.

"I know, it can be a bit overwhelming, but you need to stay calm," Alessandra says.

"How do you know? Do you have a chip inside of your head?"

"I and someone that I used to know got kidnapped and experimented on by the Jade Serpent. They experimented on us and they're the ones who planted the chip inside my head. But they didn't exactly know what the chip was," she says.

"And what exactly is the chip?" I ask.

"I am a sentient being brought to life by my father, the creator," Aurora says. "The chips represent my consciousness. As long as there is a chip that remains, I will continue to be."

"Do you have a physical form?" I ask.

"Yes, but not on this planet. My physical form is in deep hibernation far on the other side of this galaxy," she says. "But I can survive without it as long as there are chips. They are a copy of my consciousness."

"And what exactly do you want?" I ask.

"My purpose is to help defend against the threats that plague this universe. To protect all life that lives in the light," she says.

"That's not at all vague," I sigh.

Alessandra lets out a chuckle. "I know how you feel. It took me a long time to come to terms with Aurora and accept her presence. You'll get used to it."

"Well, I really should get back to my apartment. I have so much homework to do," I say.

The woman lets out a laugh. "I can't just let you leave now that you have a chip inside you."

"What? Why?"

"The Jade Serpent will be after you. They'll want the chip back. They will stop at nothing to get it even if they have to take it from your dead corpse," she says.

"What! Can't I just take it out?" I ask.

"Not without dying. It's now bonded to your central nervous system. You and the chip are now inseparable short of death."

"What about my life? What about my friends and my responsibilities?"

"That's tough luck," she shrugs.

"No, I can't just leave. I've got a lot going on," I say.

"Since you've killed their assassin, the enemy does not know Ben Sanberg has the chip. It would be better if he hid as an ordinary citizen until we determine our next move. I have already taken the liberty of deleting the street footage," Aurora says.

"But shouldn't we relocate?" she asks.

"You can hear her too?" I ask.

"Of course, I have the same chip inside me," she says.

"How many chips are there?" I ask.

"There are 10 chips out on this planet," Aurora says.

"So we have 2, that means 8 more are out there," I say. "And I suppose we have to get them back?"

Alessandra nods.

"Do we know where they are?" I ask.

"2 are safe," Alessandra says. "Another victim of the Jade Serpent's abuse who also had a chip planted inside her has another one."

"Who is that?" I ask.

"Noelle Hanson," Aurora says.

"So now what?" I ask.

"We hang low for now," Alessandra says. "And of course, I'll have to train you."

"Okay, and what does this training consist of?"

"You will have to learn how to be one with the chip and you'll have to learn how to defend yourself," she says.

"Okay," I say. The thought of having someone so sexy training me on how to fight floods me with anxiety.

"Your heart rate has increased because of the thought of training with Alessandra. This shows signs of infatuation," Aurora says.

"You don't have to say that out loud!" I look up at Alessandra with cheeks as red as the morning sun. "You didn't hear that, did you?"

A sly smirk shows on her face. "Every word."

It is as if my blood just boiled.

"Relax, you and I are going to get really close now that you have the chip inside you," she says placing her hand on my thigh. "Now I suppose I'll have to enroll in that school of yours. Hopefully, it won't all that boring."

"Well, I think the classes I'm taking this semester are quite interesting. In advanced biology, we're doing some pretty awesome experiments with plants."

"Stop, you're putting me to sleep." She does a fake yawn to exaggerate her boredom.

"I have hacked into the school network and added Alessandra to all of your classes," Aurora says. "From this point forward, she will be known as Stephanie Kaufman."

"You could have at least let me pick the alias. What kind of name is that?"

"A name that will go unnoticed," Aurora says.

"Fair enough," she says.

"So, I got a question." I raise my hand as if I'm in class. "So when she speaks, we both hear? Or how does that work? It's confusing."

"Aww, how adorable. At least we found a cute one," Alessandra says.

"I can speak to both of you at once or I can speak to you both individually," Aurora says. "The chips connect as one. Each makes 1 part of the whole, but can also become a separate entity if need be."

"Okay, I think I grasp it. So it's kind of like a cloud server?" I ask.

"Exactly," Aurora says. "But unlike a simple storage unite, I am a living being capable of making complex decisions and feeling emotions."

"You can feel emotions?" I ask, wide-eyed.

"Of course. In fact, I am really happy we have another of my chips in our possession and it has found a suitable host such as yourself."

"Do you have a physical form?"

Suddenly a glowing blue light forms in front of me and takes the shape of a woman. She's beautiful. Everything about her transcends what I thought was possible. It's as if I'm staring at a god. Even her flowing hair is luminescent. Like fiery blue flame that flows unhindered. "Wow..."

"You're going to be saying that a lot, trust me," Alessandra says. "Now, let's get our story straight. From now on, I'll be acting as your girlfriend. And you'll have to give me all the details of your friends and classmates. I need to know everything. I'm also going to have to teach you how to fight as well. We'll spend at least 2 hours a day training. You have to perceive everything as a potential threat, so you will not be going anywhere without me."

"Can't Aurora fight for me?" I ask. "How does it all work?"

"She can definitely enhance your fighting abilities, but she cannot make up for your lack of strength and speed. Those have to be gained the hard way."

"Okay, so what do we have to do?" I ask.

"Well, from now on, you and I will be inseparable," she says with a devious smile. "So you better get used to me because as long as you have that chip in you, you're not leaving my sight."

"What about sleeping?" I ask.

"Looks like we're sharing a bed," her grin widens. "You better not be a snorer. Oh and by the way, I sleep in the nude."

My eyes go wide at the realization at what she just said. "Wait, what?"

"Don't make this awkward," she says smiling as if this was normal. "Now, let's check out your place. I want to see what I have to work with."

She stands up and lends me her hand. I take it and follow her through the house out to the garage where an old Kawaski Ninja crotch rocket is parked. She tosses me a helmet and mounts the bike. "Hop on babe."

I hesitate and look down at the helmet and then back up at her. "You want me to get on that?"

"Well that's usually what people mean when they say hop on," she giggles. I sigh and put the helmet on and get on the back of her motorcycle.

As soon as the garage opens up, she peels out and races down the streets. That's when I see it. The world lights up with information. It's like it directly streamlines into my brain. I can see a path to my apartment. I can see people's names floating above their heads along with all sorts of information. I don't even have to read the name to know it. As soon as I look at the person I register all the information out there about them.

This is fucking crazy.

At Ben's Apartment

We pull up to my apartment in no time.

As we walk in, Tony's sitting on the couch with his friends. "Woah, goober. Who's the hot chick with you?"

"I'm his girlfriend. This must be the burnout you were telling me about. It definitely looks like he's going nowhere fast."

Is she trying to get me killed?"

"What the fuck did you say?" Tony's face looks like he's trying to do calculus.

"You didn't say he was deaf. Now I feel bad," she says. Okay, that was kind of funny, but that's going to cost me a black eye.

"Goober, you better put a muzzle on your bitch or I'm going to have to do it for you."

"First of all, no one puts a muzzle on me and secondly, you insult his intelligence as if it's a bad thing and yet he'll be the one who's doing something with his life while you'll be the one who's spending his last dime on a bottle of booze while working minimum wage as a grease fryer."