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You play the role of Manny Calavera, a down on his luck salesman working for the Department of Death in the Land of the Dead, a world based roughly around the Mexican tradition. The Department of Death, or DOD, is a government run travel agency located on the 8th level of the Underworld. To the recently dearly departed soul, the DOD sells travel arrangements to the 9th Underworld: the final resting place of all living things. The trip to the 9th Underworld, however, is a long and treacherous one... one that covers the span of four years to complete. That's where Manny comes in. As a DOD salesman, his job is to up-sell his clients onto bigger, safer and of course, more expensive means of travel... that is, if they meet the qualifications. The DOD runs background checks on all of its clients. Those who were saints during their past lives qualify for better travel packages than those who were naughty.
These means of travel, which range from sports car to steamliner, earn Manny some serious commission… commission that he needs in order to pay off his "dues" so that he too can journey to 9th Underworld. Business, however, has been slow lately. Manny used to be the top salesman for the DOD, always landing premium clients and selling them expensive travel arrangements… even a few of the coveted Number Nine Railway tickets, which cut the trip to the 9th Underworld from 4 years to 4 days. Those days are gone.
Now Manny struggles to make quota. He's been demoted and kicked out of his old office into a smaller, darker one. All his clients are deadbeats that barely qualify for a walking stick, much less the Number Nine Express. And to make matters worse, Domino Hurley, Manny's competition within the DOD, seems to be getting all the good leads and getting rich off of them. Fed up, Manny decides to take some action, and like any honest salesman would do, steals one of Domino's clients.
A quick background check reveals that Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, Manny's recently "acquired" client, was a virtual Mother Teresa during her life. Never did drugs, never broke the speed limit… Meche never even littered. Meche is a gold mine. She even qualifies for the Number Nine Express. Manny's bad luck streak is finally broken… almost.
Meche's confirmation number doesn't register on Manny's computer. Her boarding ticket on the Number Nine is not in the system. Misconstruing Manny's displeasure at the situation as displeasure towards her, Meche runs off in embarrassment. Realizing that a premium client had slipped through the DOD's fingers, Manny's boss fires him. Manny must now make his way on foot to find Meche and uncover the mystery behind the disappearing clients. Along the way he'll make friends, enemies and uncover a conspiracy large enough to attract Fox Mulder.
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