Cheat (Karma Inc. Book 1) Read online

  “This is so bizarre. I thought I would get answers and now all I’m stuck with is more questions. You can't even tell me if God exists.” I shook my hand and looked down at my ragged fingernails again. I must have been chewing on them a lot, they were a mess. How did I even have fingernails? Wasn’t I supposed to be translucent with chains or something? Or really, wasn’t I supposed to be my perfect self, didn’t they say that in all those Heaven is real documentaries? As I stared down at my fingernails and thought about my perfect self, my fingernails thickened and straightened out. A perfect manicure.

  My head was about to explode.

  I decided to focus on something that I could quantify. This Limbo thing. I had to get my head on straight. “So, what would my sentence be in Limbo?” I slid my hands out of sight and looked up at the man. I didn’t want to stare at my perfect manicure and contemplate that madness.

  “Five million, three hundred eighty-six thousand, two hundred seventy days, oh and six hours.”

  “That’s like thirteen thousand years?” I gaped at him.

  “You did that math in your head?”

  “I’m good with numbers,” I said quickly. How much negative energy did I rack up? Was I really that bad of a person that I had to serve thirteen thousand years in Limbo to pay it back? “How do they even know?”

  “Well, you weren’t that good of a person, all that negative energy,” he chuckled. “They have a way of monitoring these types of things. Don’t ask me, though…”

  “Yeah, above your pay grade,” I scoffed.

  “Look, young lady, you have choices in life. Make a good decision, your positive energy grows, make a bad decision, negative. Looks like you made a few bad decisions in your life.” That chuckle again. I wanted to reach over and choke the air out of his throat. Obviously I was used to making bad decisions.

  “Thanks,” I huffed and crossed my arms, sitting back in the chair. That was a rather insulting statement. Kind of like bringing up a girl’s weight in casual conversation. It didn’t seem like a good idea for polite company. Every moment spent with this drab guy was making my head hurt and my homicidal tendencies more pronounced.

  “Granted, the average Limbo sentence is about ten thousand years, so you’re not that bad.”

  “Not feeling better.” I sat forward and glared at the guy, shifting in the uncomfortable chair.

  “I should warn you that in Limbo you would lose your physical form and be in “limbo” for that time. No sight, hearing, taste, touch, an endless non-sensory loop.” He held up his hands and did quotation marks when he said limbo. Like that would explain everything. Would kicking him in his drab knee earn me more negative energy? I restrained myself.

  “That sounds horrible,” I said.

  “Yeah, it does,” he agreed with a nod and more shuffling of the papers.

  “And my other option is a position, what, like yours? Doing something like this?” I motioned to the office and his messy desk. This seemed like Hell.

  “Yeah, you would work at Afterlife. You would specifically work for Karma Incorporated, that’s where they have you slated to report to if you choose to work for the company.”

  “Karma Incorporated?” I looked at him questioningly.

  “One of our divisions in Afterlife, it’s quite a posh position. I’ve been on the wait list for a while, the Cincinnati office,” he said with a quick nod. “The admin office for the entire company is a few floors up from processing.” Again the nod, like I knew what the hell he was talking about. So that meant my position was better than this drab office? Meaning my negative energy was better at death than Mr. Drab here, and he had supposedly worked his way up to these offices? He must have been a douche when he died. I could so see that. He wasn’t much better now, honestly.

  “Is it like a special position?” I asked. I liked special. Yeah, I was one of those. Everyone wanted to be a special snowflake.

  “I would say so, I would love to work there. You’ll be a Karma Incorporated operative. It’s like a special agent, but without the acronym, the badge, and well, you don’t risk your life or anything because you’re already…”

  “Dead,” I finished for him.

  Chapter 3

  Look at Me Now

  Present Day

  “You wanted to see me, Brandon?” I refused to call him boss like the rest of the undead Scooby gang he had under his employ.

  “Yeah, I did, sit down, Cassie.” He motioned to the sofa in the center of the room. I was still getting used to being called Cassie. I hadn’t been called that since grammar school. He insisted on it here, though. I couldn’t be Cassandra. Cassandra was dead. I was now Cassie.

  Brandon was like the cute older cousin I never had, well, maybe more of a friend. Because I could technically hook up with him. If I was inclined. Which I wasn't. He was man scruffy in the kind of way that was endearing when you first get to know him, but find aggravating if you get into a serious relationship with him. He was currently dressed in jeans and a tee that read, ‘I saw that – Karma’ and his light brown hair was sticking up this way and that. He wore glasses, even though he didn’t need them. He had confessed to me that they made him look professional. Obviously that was the only area he wanted to look professional because his brown flip flops did nothing for that particular case. I wanted to straighten his hair and make him change his pants; he had that effect on me. He brought out the protective mom gene that I thought was non-existent. I restrained myself though, he didn’t like fussing.

  I sat down instead, like he wanted me to. The sofa was a comfy overstuffed monstrosity that took up most of the room. Brandon usually worked from a recliner off to the side of his office slash living room, his feet propped up and his computer on his lap. I sat down at the end and tucked my legs under me; his tone had been sort of ominous so I tried not to fidget. I wondered if I could get fired from this job when I had barely even started.

  If I got fired, would I go down a few floors, as the processing guy had hinted at? Demoted was the term he had used. I tried to think if I had done something that warranted going to Hell. Nothing came to mind. I had kept my doucherbaggery to a minimum. I had actually tried my darnedest to do a good job. But, did the people in Hell realize they were douchebags? They probably all thought their behavior was justified, or right. Most douchebags were clueless as to their status in the human population. That’s how they lived with their doucherbaggery. I couldn’t be a douchebag. I was self-aware. I was a self-aware little snowflake. And I could keep myself in check. Or so I told myself every day.

  I was still only in my bikini, which was a shit move, if I thought about it. Who shows up for a meeting with their boss in a bikini? I didn’t even think to change since I was comfortable in almost anything. I could sit here naked and not feel uncomfortable. I tried not to give a lot of thought to that, thoughts sometimes led to changes, and I didn’t want my bikini to suddenly disappear. It was bad enough getting fired while wearing a bikini, if I were to suddenly be nude that would take things to a whole other level.

  “I think it’s about time you got your own case.” Brandon’s voice shattered my inner crazy. “You’re ready to be a full-time Karma Incorporated operative.”

  Chapter 4

  The Bitches of Afterlife

  Two Months Earlier… again.

  “You’ll be like a member of the SEAL Team Six of Afterlife,” the drab little man said. It was obvious he was trying to push me to this decision. I didn’t think I had much of a choice, no matter how hard he sold it to me. What was my other choice? Oblivion for fifteen thousand years? It wasn’t that hard of a decision to make.

  “SEAL team? Like going in and killing bad guys? Do Karma operatives take out bad guys, like kill them? If they do, they’ve been slacking on their jobs, ‘cause I know a lot of assholes that should have been taken out a long time ago.”

  “Bad analogy,” he frowned and tapped a finger on his desk.

  “How about we stop with the analogies and just
shoot straight? I think I can follow along,” I said in a perky tone to soften my criticism.

  “Right, okay. So, you get the negative energy thing?” I nodded to keep him moving along. “Well, yes, the living build up negative energy, through their actions, thoughts, and even things they fail to do. At some point in a person’s life, they might come on the radar of Karma. I don’t know how, so don’t ask me.” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth to ask that exact question. “They just do. And that is when a Karma operative is sent in. They have to offset the negative energy by delivering a punishment.”

  “I would dish out bad karma?”

  “Basically,” he shrugged.

  “That sounds kind of cool, actually.” I sat back in the chair, forgetting my earlier panic.

  “There’s a lot involved, and Karma is one of the closest divisions to the living world, so you would be manifested as a living person. You can feel pain, be injured, that sort of thing. And they require you to do certain things that you might not like. A lot of hands-on things.” He said it with raised eyebrows, which had me wondering what kind of hands-on things were involved. “They usually choose candidates who don’t have a lot of empathy and tend toward the judgmental spectrum.”

  “So the bitches of Afterlife,” I laughed. He winced.

  “Everyone has their place.”

  “Do they teach you that in processing school?”

  “See, you’re made for the job,” he said glibly. He didn’t smile with his joke.

  “I guess I am. Where do I sign up?”

  “So, you'll do it?" He asked.

  I nodded yes.

  “I just need you to sign a few documents, contracts, that sort of thing.” He stood up and went to a filing cabinet. He struggled with something and I tried to peer around him to see what he was doing, but he turned around and quenched my curiosity as he revealed a monstrous stack of paperwork.

  “A few documents,” I grimaced.

  “Well, it is the rest of your known existence, we have to be thorough.” I expected another one of his chuckles, but he stood there, dead pan, staring down at me.

  “I have a special pen for you.” He pulled out a fancy looking ballpoint and pushed the first stack toward me. I gulped as I read the first line:

  I, Cassandra Mercier, do hereby pledge my soul, and Afterlife existence to Afterlife Corporation for no more, or no less, unless parties involved come to a further agreement (see index 89150984, section Z9) for the total sum of Five million, three hundred eighty-six thousand, two hundred seventy days…

  Afterlife Corporation

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “Just sign, Cassandra, it’s either this, or Limbo, and we both know you don’t want that.”

  “Yeah, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

  “So, sign. You’re either in or out, Cassandra.”

  I signed.

  Chapter 5

  Ready to Roll?

  Back to present day…

  Brandon took me by surprise. My own case? He did not just suggest that. I wasn’t ready. There was no way I could be ready.

  “You don’t want me shadowing Tiffany anymore?” I asked stupidly because I didn’t want to repeat his statement like some daft chick.

  “I don’t think you need to, she said you basically have things down, and your reports are showing intuitive judgment calls. You can’t learn that type of thing with on the job training. I think you’re ready. The Powers That Be agree, they sent in your first case ten minutes ago.”

  “Okay, if you think so, I mean, if They think so.” I had been shadowing Tiffany, one of the more experienced operatives, for the last two months. I was learning the ins and outs of being a Karma Incorporated operative. There wasn’t much to it. The majority of the job was based off judgment and experience, intuition as Brandon had called it. Those things would only come in time, or so Tiffany and Brandon had explained to me. Most of my training had been Tiffany giving me pointers on how to manifest things, what was allowed by The Powers That Be and what wasn’t. Manifesting was how we created things to get our job done, but only to do the job. I could make things happen, almost like magic, if I thought about it hard enough.

  The going rate for on-the-job training was over a year. I wasn’t ready for this. I hadn’t gotten the hang of manifesting. And it was the only way you could dish out karma. If I saw someone in need of a dose of karma, I thought of a good punishment and made it happen. I could do the small stuff, but complex and multi-stage events were still above my reach.

  I also wasn’t that familiar with all the rules. Tiffany would mention them when she thought of them. There were very few rules, or so she kept reassuring me, but breaking them could result in some heinous repercussions. What if I didn’t know about one and broke it by mistake?

  “I don’t know, Brandon. I don’t think I know everything. Do you really think so?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, I do think you’re ready. C’mon, go get dressed. Wear neighborhood bar attire and I’ll meet you in your room in an hour with the details of your case.”

  “Sure,” I replied and stood. I was apprehensive about this. I didn’t know what to think. I had really thought I was about to be fired. Then his words sunk in. An hour? Did he mean I was getting a case right now? Would I have to do it all on my own, right at this very moment? Would I be working it today? I didn’t know if I was ready for something like that. My stomach churned as I left his office. It was the first time since I had died that I felt unwell. I guess nerves were still in play even after death.

  I looked back at him one last time as I exited his office. He was typing away on his laptop. He looked up and winked.

  “You’ve got this, Cassie.”

  Maybe, but I wasn’t sharing his confidence. My own case. I was going to be on my own to dish out a bit of karma. This was no joke. I could do some serious damage to someone. This was life and death kind of stuff. Hit the karma too hard and the guy or gal would end up in a coma, or missing a limb. Hit it too light and they won’t learn their lesson, so my efforts would be wasted.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts, not willing to let self-doubt freak me out. Brandon had said I had intuition. Natural instincts for this job. I stopped and glanced around the courtyard outside Brandon’s office. It was lush and green. There was a small fountain in the corner that had a calming effect. I had this. I could do this. He was right, I was ready. Even Tiffany said I was doing a good job. That I knew what people deserved and was creative with my delivery. I headed to my apartment with confidence and a little more wiggle in my walk. Two months and I was out of training. I was that good.

  All the Karma, Incorporated operatives for this region lived out of an apartment complex that everyone jovially called, Casa Karma. Original, I know. It was a three story square complex, typical of something you would see in the suburbs hugging the interstate. The non-typical thing was that it was partly located in Afterlife, the physics of which I was still trying to wrap my head around.

  Brandon, the guy with all the answers, had described Afterlife as a dimension that hugged the living world, like a second layer. He told me that I couldn’t think of it as a flat plane, the dimensions had different depths and there were other dimensions beyond the two I lived within. They all intertwined. Like a cosmic knot. But Afterlife and the living world were the most intertwined. Parts of Afterlife crisscrossed with the living world and other parts were far removed. Brandon confirmed to me that Hell, or a place that resembles the Christian belief, does exist and is part of the Afterlife dimension. But it was located as far from the living world as possible.

  He couldn’t confirm the other place though, which was disappointing, but logic dictated that with one there had to be the other. And the place I currently lived within could only be likened to purgatory. It was all my speculation though and I was putting my own pseudo-Christian belief system on this, even though the belief in Karma is a Hindu belief if I remember my high school world religion clas
s correctly.

  When I had asked Brandon about the religious aspect, he had shaken his head with a shrug. The karma concept we enforce here is loosely based on the living concept of karma, which is more internalized. The concept of karma within the religious aspect was about finding your best self and working through your own negative energy. That self-aware thing that seems to be a hard concept for a lot of people.

  Our division is the closest to the living world since we interact with them on a regular basis. It is our job. Our apartment complex is the closest we get to the living world, since it rides both sides of the dimension. The majority of the building resides in Afterlife, but the front lobby area has multiple doors leading to certain places within the living world. It’s how we enter the living world and do our job.

  There are many parts of Afterlife. Many divisions and branches of a large multi-tiered entity. Brandon had told me there was redundancy on top of redundancy within its dimension. Whole divisions dedicated to the tiniest aspects of death. Our division even had teams of administration workers who made our lives easier. We would never see them, but Brandon assured me they existed. It blew my mind. But, if you had billions of souls that needed something to do, you had to find work for them. The only part of Afterlife I’ve seen is processing and this apartment complex. Brandon told me this was a good thing. The job as a karma operative leaves me firmly rooted in the living world and I should keep it that way.

  I thought about what the others had told me about Afterlife. Each one of my fellow Karma operatives had their own opinion, but the majority was of the same mind. We had it good in Karma.