Dying for a Living (A Jesse Sullivan Novel)

by Shrum, Kory M.

  But you know what she said?

  My daughter is dead.

  I even thought maybe she was just confused, grief-stricken and thought I was some jerk pranking her. So I laid it all out for her: NRD, my regeneration, and that I didn’t have to become an agent right away. I could just come home and finish school if I wanted. Brinkley made that clear even though he threatened to expose me as an arsonist and murderer if I didn’t work for him in at least some capacity in the near future. But my mother wasn’t confused.

  —don’t call here again, Jesse.

  The lights came on as the film’s credits rolled on the black screen. A few people clapped, so I did too, just to get Ally to quit elbowing me in the ribs. Dr. York resumed his position in front. My stomach flopped, knowing it’d be my time to talk soon. I shifted in my seat, suddenly unable to get comfortable.

  Dr. York broke the silence. “Before we turn it over to our guests, does anyone have any questions about the video?” Dr. York capitalized on this pause. “Allow me to introduce Ms. Jesse Sullivan and Captain Gloria Jackson.” Dr. York gestured for us to join him at the front of the room. Ally had to push me from my seat. I walked as smoothly as possible to Dr. York’s side, careful to not look like one of those shuffling weirdoes on that horrible video despite the fact I was still sore. I couldn’t do anything about my gauze wrapped neck though. I was sure that gave them ideas.

  “Ms. Sullivan is a resident here in Nashville and one of the three death-replacement agents serving the Davidson County area.” People clapped. I think Ally started it. “Captain Gloria Jackson also works in Nashville. She collaborates with several Federal Bureaus, as well as with the local authorities to solve cases.”

  I said the line Dr. York had taught me to say. I tried not to sound too robotic. “We are here to answer any questions you might have about replacement agents or death-management in general.”

  Almost every hand shot up. Just great. Gloria looked like she was still pulling herself together, so I took the initiative. “Uh, you.” I’d pointed at the person closest to me, a black woman with beautiful coiled braids piled on top of her head, but scary neon green nails, curling like freakish talons.

  “How do you decide who lives and dies?”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I get told who to save. The FBRD issues us handlers to ensure all our replacements are federally compliant. I show up for work like everyone else.”

  I picked another hand. “What about people in a burning building? Wouldn’t you save them?”

  “I don’t randomly walk past burning buildings,” I said. Ally made a face suggesting I’d missed the point so I tried to answer him again. “If I came across someone who just happened to be dying, yes I would save them, if that’s what you meant.”

  An Asian man with glasses on the end of his nose went next. “My wife is sick with cancer and I was told she cannot be saved. Why can’t you save her?”

  I tried to avoid the personalization of the question. If I didn’t this could get ugly real quick.

  “Unfortunately, replacement agents can’t heal people. If I were to sit with your wife until just before she died and then replace her, it’d keep her from going—wherever—but she’d still be stuck in a body that’ll kill her. She’ll die again almost as soon as she’s replaced.”

  He wet his lips. “I understand it would only buy more time, but—”

  “Which is why health replacements aren’t allowed,” I said. “It’s a waste of time.”

  That came out wrong. I knew it as soon as I said it. The air burned hot around my face.

  “I mean, because I lose a day or two also, you know, being dead. In that time, I could miss the opportunity to save someone else.” I wet my lips and chose the woman who’d cried during the video. I was counting her on to be nice. “Yes?”

  “I don’t understand how A.M.P.s work,” she said.

  Several hands went down, suggesting this was a hot topic, though not an easy one to explain.

  I gestured to Gloria whose first reaction was to force an awkward smile. “Once the government ruled out NRD as a contagious disease, or biological warfare, those with NRD were taken into protective custody. While in custody, military scientists conducted numerous tests, and death-replacement is one of the talents they discovered. Some researchers believe an electrical transference between the magnetic fields surrounding humans occurs. When their magnetic fields reverse, it prevents the clients from dying, but takes the life of the death replacement agent instead.”

  Everyone leaned forward now, and I felt like we should have flashlights and toasty marshmallows for this story. “In the light of this discovery, the government saw limitless possibilities in military development, but with so few cases of NRD, they sought to replicate the phenomenon. This is how A.M.P.s were made.”

  I turned to Gloria and tried to remember all the things she’d told me about her experience as a soldier turned A.M.P.—which wasn’t much—only enough to suggest how horrific the ordeal had been. Of course, if you’d asked me, anything with needles and medical testing was torture.

  Gloria hadn’t quite erased the pained expression on her face when Dr. York decided to step in and help with the medical aspect. “The most significant difference in a brain with NRD and a brain without is magnetite. They have a significant quantity of magnetite in their cerebral cortexes.”

  “What is magnetite?” a man asked.

  “It’s a ferrimagnetic mineral that some animals have in their bodies. It helps them sense magnetic fields. Birds have it in their beaks and they use it to fly between the north and south magnetic poles in the winter. It is basically a natural magnet.”

  The military got the bright idea to shove a huge wad of magnetite into their soldiers’ brains. Mostly it killed people or severely brain damaged them. Survivors became A.M.P.s. They can’t resurrect or anything because they don’t really have NRD, but the magnetic material helps them read magnetic fields and make predictions. This skill is further enhanced with a little trick called remote-viewing. This seems to be the only real outcome of the experiments, their ability to read patterns in the world and know what will happen based on where things are going.

  Dr. York gestured with his hands. “We believe A.M.P.s read the Earth’s magnetic field and the magnetic fields surrounding people, and that’s how they help the replacement agents target deaths. Death is a measurable disturbance in the magnetic field.”

  “But how do you read the fields?” a woman insisted, smacking the gum in her mouth like a cow with a wad of grass.

  Gloria explained but didn’t look up from her polished shoes. Oh, G. Why does she agree to do this if she hates it so? “In the nineties, the military conducted ESP research to see if they could develop psychic warfare. AMPs like myself were taught to use remote-viewing, a skill established during that research. I personally use drawing as a medium to transfer the images.”

  Dr. York said my name softly as if to steer the attention away from Gloria. “Can you explain to them how your NRD wakes you up?”

  “Sure.” I inhaled trying to shift the growing pain out of my muscles. I hated standing in one place. “Have any of you ever jerked awake when you were almost asleep? You know, like you’re dreaming that you miss a step, and then you jerk and wake up?”

  Several heads bobbed in unison with the soft murmurs.

  “That’s called a myoclonic jerk. Your body jerks because your brain, mistaking your slowed breathing for dying, sent an electro-impulse through your body to cause your muscles, including your heart, to contract. That jolt is meant to wake you up. With NRD it’s like that. Once we’ve died, our brain starts sending a bombardment of electro-impulses through the body to wake us up. It’s why we need our brains to resurrect. No brain equals no pulsing. Neurologists still aren’t sure why our brains do this, which is why it is called Necronitic Regenerative Disorder.”

  “How long do you stay dead?” The green-nailed woman asked.

  “It depends. The amount of
damage the body suffered during death determines how long we’ll stay dead before our systems—circulatory, respiratory and so on—respond to the pulses.”

  “Why does the Church hate you?” someone asked. Off-topic, much?

  I grinned. “I think they’re jealous Jesus isn’t the only one coming back from the dead these days.”

  This got some laughs. Too bad it didn’t last.

  A man in the back who reclined in his chair, arms resting on his lap spoke with an accent. He had the puffed up chest of a cop. “Last night, two kids were gunned down near 11th and Vine. Three days before that, a woman was raped and then stabbed to death over on Chester Ave. I find it hard to believe that replacement agents are doing the world such a service when incidents like this keep happening.”

  “There are only three of us,” I said. “And I can’t be everywhere at once. Not to mention that when I die, I lose a few days of my life. So even if I stayed dead every possible moment, I could only make about a hundred replacements a year and be completely fried out of my mind.”

  The cop looked like he couldn’t care less about my mental stability. He grabbed the edge of his table. “You make up 2% of the world population. That figures out to like 120 million people. Together, you could save millions, maybe a billion people a year.”

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Why?” he said. His face was as red as mine now. “Because you don’t feel like being a stiff for a few days?”

  My voice got louder. “No, because your math is shitty.”

  His mouth opened to say something else ridiculous but I cut him off.

  “I don’t have 2% of the population backing me, giving me this valiant life purpose. It’s not like some glorious police force where we trade battle scar stories. I’ve had conversations with maybe six replacement agents in my whole seven years of death-replacing. You’re basing your numbers on the world population, but that’s inaccurate. In most Middle Eastern and African countries, your head is cut off as soon as they find out you’ve got NRD.”

  Before he could open his mouth again, I barreled on.

  “Japan and China are the only other countries that have a death-replacement system comparable to ours. So you need to cut your numbers down to just those populations. Then cut your number smaller because most NRD-positives don’t know they have NRD and of the ones that do, even fewer of them become agents. You want to know why?”

  I’d define rhetorical question for him later.

  “Jesse,” Dr. York raised his hands toward me as if to calm a crazed animal. Okay, maybe I was foaming at the mouth a little, but I wasn’t about to pull my punches now.

  “Do you even know what sacrifice is?” I asked him. “You’re a white American guy. I bet no one has ever treated you like you’re different.”

  “I’ve been shot protecting someone.”

  “Whoopty fucking doo, how noble of you. I got shot because someone thought I was a freak and that was while I was trying to save his life.”

  I stormed out of the room. Good thing too because something in the air around me had become static. Like really static. I felt like if I didn’t leave, I was going to blow something up. I was still in the hall pacing back and forth, trying to slow my breathing when Ally appeared. Gabriel appeared too.

  “Not now,” I yelled at him.

  Ally stopped mid-stride.

  “No, not you,” I said. And then realized what’d I’d just done.

  “Are you okay?” Ally asked. “What was that?”

  “An asshole stepping out of line,” I replied. Gabriel’s tie was red. What did red mean again?

  “No, I mean, when you got mad the room sort of crackled—” she shook her head. “You want to go back and jump him? I bet with Gloria, we can take him.”

  I gave her a warning look. “Don’t tempt me.”

  Again I caught myself looking at her. I wanted to pull her into my arms. I wanted to bury my face in her neck, let her kiss my cheeks and tell me everything was going to be okay. I felt myself leaning toward her, knowing she’d accept me if I tried, but the damn door burst open.

  Dr. York came trotting out. “Jesse, I’m sorry, but—”

  “Don’t lecture me,” I told him. “That guy was being a jerk. Sensitivity training my ass.”

  “I can ask him to leave, give the others a chance to ask more questions,” he said. He looked willing to do anything I asked. He also looked terrified to get very close to me. Why? Had I really been that scary in there? I was just putting the jerk in his place.

  I looked through the little window to see that Gloria was taking questions again. “She’s got this,” I said, pointing at her.

  Ally’s purse vibrated and played silly little tunes. She rummaged for my phone while Dr. York continued to beg. I thought about it but couldn’t bring myself to go back in. Call it pride, but I just couldn’t. Ally finally managed to get the phone out. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was familiar. I didn’t care who it was. I’d take any call if it ended this horrible seminar duty.

  “You better go check on her,” I said, gesturing to Gloria. “She gets a little weird around people.” Before he could object, I took the call. “Hello?”

  “Jesse?” A small sheepish voice asked.

  “This is she,” I replied, wondering what the hell a kid was doing calling me.

  “Um,” he said, stuttering. “Um, I—”

  “Oh, Jesus, kid,” I said, still hot with irritation. “Start with your name.”

  “My name is Danny Phelps,” he choked on the words. “Daniel, actually. Do you remember me?”

  “Yeah, Danny, of course,” I said, gently this time. And it was the truth because not even I could forget my little brother.

  Chapter 11

  “Your mother is dead?” Lane asked and sat down on the steps beside me.

  “Word travels fast,” I replied. I’d been sitting on my porch steps ever since the seminar, watching Winston play in the grass beneath the Japanese maple tree.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked and bumped his knees against mine.

  “Daniel said my mother died in a car wreck yesterday and that the funeral is the day after tomorrow. End of story.”

  “How did he know how to get ahold of you?”

  “Apparently my mother had my number,” I said. “Not that she’d ever used it.”

  Why bother tracking me through the years—city to city—if she never intended to call.

  “Are you going to go?” He nudged the pug with his foot until he offered up his soft belly.

  “I’m not allowed to leave town, remember?” I said. “Garrison will hang me.”

  “I’m sure you can petition for special circumstances,” he said. “Your mother did just die.”

  “Showing up with a police escort might send the wrong message.”

  And that wasn’t all of course. How much did Daniel know? How much did any of the family or her friends know? My mom might have told everyone about what happened. The last I needed was some grief-stricken friend or family member yelling “Did you kill Eddie? Did you really kill the poor bastard?” loud enough for Garrison to hear.

  No. I couldn’t risk that if I intended to stay out of prison. Then again, I did want to go to my mother’s. I wanted to see that Danny was okay. How could I possibly explain to a tween that he’s an orphan because his father was a sick rapist? And I wanted to know what she’d been doing in the last seven years that had kept her too busy to call. Knitting? Mahjong? And I could ask Danny. If I could somehow make it up there to Danny without Garrison knowing—and of course, whoever wanted me dead.

  A brilliant image of my mother sprang to my mind. She was in our backyard, dress sparkling in the sunlight as she looked out over the pond close to our house. The barn was still up—the barn my father built and his last remaining relic and the one I’d sacrifice in order to take out Eddie. I didn’t remember why we were standing there, how old I was, or even what we were doing,
but I did remember her face awash in sunlight.

  Tears stung the corners of my eyes and spilled over once I squeezed them shut.

  “Are you okay?” His warm hand clasped my shoulder.

  I don’t know why I didn’t want to share the memory with him, but I felt myself curl around it like a closed fist.

  “My pain pill is just wearing off,” I lied. I brushed the gauze for show.

  When I remained quiet, still contemplating the amazing sensation of seeing my mother alight in watery sunshine, Lane spoke again. “Do you want me to leave?”

  My chest clenched and the memory faded. “Isn’t that what we decided?” I asked.

  “I could make dinner,” he said.

  “I don’t need you to. I’m perfectly capable of whipping up something snazzy,” I replied, a little angry. I didn’t understand the change in his stance and it was irritating.

  He grinned. “Not gingersnaps, I hope?”

  Ok, so maybe I’d remodeled the kitchen because I set a batch of cookies on fire. So I have a short attention span. Sue me. “Sweet potato soufflé, thank you very much.”

  “Do you even know what that is?” he asked.

  I considered lying. I’d gotten quite a bit of practice today after all. “Sweet potatoes …souffléd.”

  “Do you even know what a sweet potato looks like? Could you describe it to me?”

  “Hey I can cook!”

  His smile tucked itself mischievously into a corner of his mouth. “Let me make dinner.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  He wet his lips. “If you turn me down, you’ll be alone.”

  “I should get used to being alone,” I said. “Isn’t that what you were saying?”

  He didn’t take my bait. “But you just got bad news on top of bad news.”

  “Why do you care? I could die tomorrow and you’d probably think I had it coming,” I said. Then I felt a twinge in my gut as if I were inviting fate to step in and annihilate me. I glanced nervously at the sky and added, “Though I hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “I do care,” he said. “That’s the point. I’m not just here for sex.”