The Black Rose

The sun peeked its angry head through the rickety natural blinds of my apartment as I tirelessly typed away on my final report for Italian. While I may not have kept up with Mrs. Greenwald’s acting or cooking regimen, I made a vow to learn all the languages she had yet to master, which included Mandarin, Italian, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, and the list went on. I think it might be faster to list the languages she didn’t care to learn rather than the ones she did. While I had mastered Italian and Mandarin in University courses, I took to learning German and Portuguese in my free time. By my ripe old age of ninety, I believed I could cross off most of the list.

I glanced at the time on my computer, I had two more hours before Advances in Computer Vision, and one more assignment to complete, which would be the end of all homework for my undergraduate degrees. I had three finals at the end of the week, which would also require all-nighters, and then I would officially be a contributing member of society.

For the next five days, my mind performed at hyper-speed, jacked up on caffeine, sugar, and processed foods, all the essential food groups for late-night cramming and finals week. By Friday, my mind bobbed between fogginess and clarity, but I had done it. I had finished my undergraduate degrees, and unless I stumbled on the graduation stage and rammed my head into a railing, I would graduate a double major with the highest honors, top of my class.

Ding.

Richard: Hey Dani! I know you have been busy this week with finals, but I will be arriving in a few days for your graduation celebration. I know I have been absent, but I am proud of you. Never forget that.

My brain churned, too tired to think of a snarky reply.

Me: Sounds good. Finals are done. Now just have to walk across the stage. See you soon.

The day I entered college was coincidentally the day my father practically erased me from his life. We rarely spoke, and when we did, he was always on a “business trip”.

Over the past four years while at university, I had physically seen my father four times: Christmas. It was the one holiday he made a point to either take me to dinner or to a bar, where we would swap tepid small talk and he would promise to come and see me more but it never happened. While I used to relish the alone time and freedom in high school, part of me had hoped distance would bring us closer together. Oh, well.

Just as my father might as well have died a premature death, my mother too seemed to move on. She met a new man and remarried a year ago. Her husband Darrell was a southern delicacy, into Nascar racing, WWE, football, beer by the keg load, guns, and food. He checked all the boxes. My mother was the breadwinner in that relationship. After my father left her, she went back to school and became a nurse. Their past-times consisted of my mother working nights at the hospital and Darrell “fixing up” his piece of shit race car that he swore would “make any other car eat dirt once it was ready”. To my delight, Darrell, and she would be making an appearance at my graduation as well.

Ding.

Mo: Hey Dani! Hell week is officially over! What did you think of that ACV test? Brutal right? You too zonked to do game tonight?

I sighed. Mo had a way of asking five million questions in one text, causing my already frazzled brain even more so. Game night did sound appealing, but if I didn’t sleep, my brain might literally explode.

Me: That test was brutal, but I think I pulled a rabbit out of a hat with that one. Let’s do game night tomorrow. I need to rest. My place at six?

Mo: Right on, Wizardess. I’ll let Cassy know. P.S. I found a loophole for our project. Will share tomorrow.

My brow furrowed. I had almost forgotten about our secret mission to hack into the government’s student loan site. While I was fortunate enough to be an only child with well-off divorced parents and an academic scholarship, Cassy and Mo weren’t so lucky. Mo was a Missouri transplant, his parents worked three jobs to help save up for his education and to have a setup in an apartment community like this. Mo also worked at Best Buy as a part of the Geek Squad part-time to help his parents out.

Cassy was a Tennessee transplant. Her parents were also divorced, her mother a waitress, and her father a drunk. Cassy received a scholarship the same as me and had worked her ass off for the Computer Science department at Georgia Tech to keep her loans to a minimum. Me, I brainwashed my parents into this setup, and lucky to have not had to work, so I could focus on my studies, of course, which brings me back to my main point of this rant.

After one night of binge drinking, Mo, Cassy, and I foolishly set out to hack into the government site and change their debt and loans to zero. We succeeded in hacking in, but we couldn’t figure out how to remain untraceable. As much as I liked to hack and mess with the system, I didn’t want to get caught. Now that they would officially graduate, it would be easier.

Having reached my apartment door, I opened it slowly. While I couldn’t remember much from that night a week ago, I knew that something went down. I held the mace can steady in my hand as I quietly tiptoed through the tiny flat, checking behind every door and hiding place. The coast was clear. I exhaled.

Placing my computer bag against the bed, I fell into the full mattress as if it was my tomb. My eyes barely closed, I drifted into a deep slumber, unmoving, or waking until the next morning when the sun muscled its way through every orifice, speeding towards my eyelids, and knocking incessantly on them until I finally answered.

Groggy, I lifted myself off the bed. I had slept in my clothes, didn’t brush my teeth or shower. My mouth felt stale, my head dizzy and aching from caffeine withdrawals.

I stumbled over to the bathroom and ran the water hot. Stripping off my clothes, I washed the weeks’ worth of sleeplessness and anxiety off my body. Feeling instantly rejuvenated, I dressed in a pair of black corduroy overalls and one of my many vintage t-shirts. I moseyed to the kitchen and took inventory of food options. Besides a row of expired condiments in the fridge and two unopened Red Bull’s, I had zero options. How had I survived four years alone?

Wasting no time, I pulled on my winter coat, grabbed my computer bag, and stepped out into the overcast, bleary morning. I needed caffeine and a proper breakfast. Lucky for me, I lived less than a five-minute walk from a Waffle House. The prime destination for overly salted and greased breakfast.

The icy air enveloped my pale cheeks and nose, and I could feel my blood rising to fend off the assault. The sidewalks were a ghost town as I’m sure ninety-nine percent of the student body got hammered last night to celebrate the end of the semester. Waffle House was deserted. I bet this place was packed at three am. Waffle House was somehow designated the go-to place for after the bars closed. The fattening food was a secret remedy for soaking up copious amounts of alcohol.

I took a seat at the back booth, far from the door and wandering eyes. I instantly booted up my computer as the dead-eyed waitress came over.

“You want any coffee or juice?” she asked matter-of-factly pouring water in my plastic cafeteria glass.

“Coffee please, no cream or sugar, and I’ll take the two-egg breakfast with grits and toast,” I responded with the same tone. She nodded, satisfied that she wouldn’t have to return an extra time.

I grabbed the red cup and gulped the water down within seconds. I couldn’t remember the last time I drank a glass of water; which Cassy was notorious for bringing to my attention. The bleary waitress came over and placed the piping hot coffee by my side and refilled my water. I forced myself to drink another glass before I touched the coffee. Having replenished some of my water, I turned my attention to my computer.

It felt weird not having an assignment to attend to or a book to read. I was a free woman. What would I do now? I had stupidly ignored or failed to reply to the Facebook and Myspace internships and lost both. My “stealing from overly-rich assholes” plan sounded more and more appealing by the minute. I clicked Facebook and logged in.

Scrolling, I didn’t have much to see. Most of my notifications were from Mo, Cassy, or my parents. Hitting the last notification, it was a quiz that Mo had tagged me in.Could I be a real-life assassin? He had taken it and was apparently a Templar, whatever that meant.

I hesitated momentarily, my mind attempting to access a buried file, but my airtight firewall blocked it. I clicked the quiz, allowing my mind little time to regroup and expose the top-secret file. Some files needed to remain buried.

I started reading the questions or statements, and on most, I found I strongly agreed or disagreed. While this quiz was slightly biased with leading questions and missed the markers for a true killer, the end result said, “I was a Ninja, someone who could kill but without the deepest respect or provocation”. I huffed. I knew that before even taking this stupid quiz.

“Two egg breakfast with grits and toast,” the waitress announced, laying the plate sharply down on the table before me. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked with eyes that pleaded for me to say no.

“More coffee, please and that’ll be all.”

The woman nodded and sauntered off to grab the pot.

I gazed at the steaming plate and moved it front and center. Dousing it with even more sodium chloride, I dug in. The eggs were surprisingly fluffy, the grits oozing with butter, I didn’t put my fork down until the plate was clean. I felt sick with food and liquids. My stomach surely shrunk this past week from insufficient food.

Paying for the bill, I walked the short distance to the nearby grocery store and stocked up on supplies for game night, I even shelled out for a bottle of whiskey instead of beer. It wasn’t everyday one graduated from college.

By the time I reached home, it was only eleven am. Putting the food and alcohol away, I decided to clean my apartment, which in the end turned out to be rather fruitful. I found ten dollars in the couch, my missing pair of socks, and the odd smell in my room, which turned out to be a rotten orange peel. Mo and Cassy will think they wandered into someone else’s apartment.

Sitting on my gaming chair, I instantly felt like an adult, a college graduate. I had bought food at the grocery store and cleaned my apartment. Thanks to my mother’s keen decorating eye and Annie’s black and white photographs, my quaint one-bedroom unit appeared worthy of a budding adult. Boy, was I moving up in the world. Now time to play. I flicked on the game console and within moments, I slipped into the catatonic gaming state that would hold my mind hostage for hours on end.

Knock. Knock.

I glanced at the clock. Six pm. Damn, had that much time passed? I removed my headset and strolled to the door. Opening it, I was greeted with Mo and Cassy’s smiling faces.

“It’s fucking official!” Cassy squealed. “We’re alumni.”

I smiled, “Who would’ve imagined, us, adults.”

“I know, I can’t believe someone would entrust us with anything, well besides computers,” Mo grinned deviously.

“What happened to your apartment?” Cassy asked loudly with an air of worry.

“Yea, why does it smell weird?” Mo added.

“It’s called cleaning, you two know anything about that?” I jabbed.

They both rolled their eyes, “Only with the purposes of hard drives or viruses.”

I shook my head as we entered my spotless kitchen. “Well, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I got a bottle of whiskey for tonight.”

“Oh, what shelf?” Mo illuminated in his high pitch voice.

“Top this time, or college top, I should clarify.” I flashed the expensive bottle of Basil Hayden’s in their faces. “Richard paid for this one,” I grinned.

“Oh, it looks so fancy,” Cassy cheered the air with her glass.

“The liquor store guy wouldn’t shut up about this whiskey. It better taste good,” I hounded.

I opened the exotic whiskey bottle with delicate fingers, I didn’t want to waste a single drop. Pouring into three coffee mugs, we each grabbed one.

“To finishing college, bitches,” Mo beamed as we clinked our mugs and downed the whiskey.

“Wow, that’s smooth,” Cassy slurped. “Why does cheap whiskey taste like rubber tires?”

“Probably because it is rubber tires,” Mo chuckled.

I poured more, and we downed mug after mug until half the bottle was gone. I could feel the amber liquid coating my insides and dulling my mind’s senses. I grew giggly and cheerful. The only time I ever felt those emotions.

“So, what is this new piece for our project?” I asked as we moved our party to the tiny kitchen table.

“Well,” Mo began, “I think instead of erasing our names entirely, we simply autofill all that information with other people, people who may or may not have died already?” Mo trailed unsure how his idea would be received.

“That’s genius,” I blurted, with no hint of remorse.

“That could work,” Cassy added her eyes distant as her wheels turned.

“I even took it a step further and found two candidates. I was able to get their addresses and socials too,” Mo shrugged his shoulders unapologetically.

“Let’s try it,” I pressed excitedly, opening my computer and deftly pulling screen after screen up, retracing my steps and back doors until we were staring at the same view a would-be government official would see to edit a person’s student loan debt.

“Now what?” I asked Mo.

“Now, just do this,” he muttered taking command of the mouse. Mo moved the mouse with several brisk clicks, too fast for an untrained novice, but Cassy and I could appreciate his sorcery with a computer.

“Okay, just auto-fill this,” Mo placed the paper down on the table. I typed. Joseph McDonald, his address, phone number, background info, and social. What made this even better was that Joseph had a degree at Georgia Tech some thirty years ago. We then navigated to Cassy and auto-filled the other person, Sarah Schuman. Exiting out, we searched for Maurice Brown and Cassandra Duncan, but they didn’t show in the system. Their loans had been erased, or should I say shuffled to someone else.

“Did we just do this?” Cassy asked with an air of mixed exuberance and worry.

“We really did this,” Mo and I whispered simultaneously. We all exchanged glances and took the coffee mugs in the air.

“To outsmarting the government!” Mo jeered.

We took long gulps of our whiskey, sitting in eerie silence. I had no misgivings about hacking into the government’s site, or it occurring on my computer. If anyone was to get in trouble it would be me, and I couldn’t seem to fish out an air of anxiety or guilt. Instead, my wheels turned, what else could we possibly hack? What else could we possibly change?