Wade Wilson waited and waited. At first he sat obediently on the bench. Then he lay down. In the end, curiosity got the better of him and he stood at the edge of the corridor, peering into the pitch-black space beyond.
He knew Obadiah. Wade knew most rich people who were anybody, and he also knew that the old bastard had died half a year ago. The more he thought about it, the more miserable he felt. That old bastard was dead. So what about him? He was probably dead too, wasn't he?
Ever since Obadiah Stane stepped through that door, he had never come back out.
Wade could not feel anything resembling a heartbeat anymore, but he still silently kept count. When he reached fifteen minutes, the woman's voice came from behind the door again. "Wade Wilson."
He hurriedly pushed open the door. Inside, a woman with straight bangs, a white shirt, and a police vest sat behind a desk, writing something on a document.
"Please, sit." The woman pointed to the chair in front of the desk. She finished writing the document in her hands, closed the folder, and only then looked at Wade Wilson.
"So? The trip here went smoothly enough, I hope? Worried about whether you're going to Heaven or Hell? Let me tell you the truth—you hit the jackpot..."
Before she could finish, Wade leaned forward eagerly, looking as though he were about to snatch something up. "I'm in!"
The woman seemed to have had her rhythm thrown off, but she continued reciting her prepared lines anyway. "You possess skills that we need, so..."
Wade stated his position again. "I'm in! You don't need to say anything else. I can start work right now!"
This time the woman with straight bangs was amused. She lightly tapped her pen against the desk. "Very good. You're energetic. Keep up that enthusiasm for work and you'll earn commendations from your superiors."
Wade barely restrained himself from asking who those superiors were. In his mind, they had to be something unimaginable.
The smile quickly disappeared from the woman's face, replaced once more by a strictly businesslike expression.
She took a document from a drawer and handed it to Wade, speaking as though she were completing a formal procedure. "Welcome to the R.I.P.D., the Rest in Peace Department. We work for Death. The one we serve isn't any of those figures you remember. She is everywhere and all-powerful. Heh. If you discover anyone inside the department secretly causing trouble, or any corruption, you can report it to the Eternity Department next door..."
The woman said a great many things Wade did not understand at all. He did, however, grasp the central point: she wanted him to join the R.I.P.D. and then go fight people.
As a famous mercenary, he still preferred solving problems with firearms.
So he had to ask one more question. "Uh, do we get service weapons? You're not going to make us fight with swords and knives, are you?"
The woman raised one finger. "Good question!"
The drawer beside her seemed to contain infinite space. She kept pulling guns out of it. "You know, there are always people in your world who... hmm, how should I put this? They have a little ability, so they love going on adventures in places where resentment and magical power accumulate. Fine, they bring guns with them. But those people never clean up after themselves. Once the fighting is over, they just toss their guns aside."
The woman took out an MK23 pistol, an M4A1 rifle, an M1 shotgun, and finally even struggled to drag an M134 Gatling gun out of the drawer.
"Humans abandoned these guns in a place called Silent Hill. What a waste. We worked very hard to recover them, so go ahead and use them. Oh, right, you can collect ammunition from Logistics—rounds specially made to kill spirits. Off you go, and remember to close the door behind you."
The woman pointed toward the door behind her. Wade Wilson gathered up the huge pile of guns, refusing to leave even the Gatling gun behind, and trudged heavily out of the office.
When he appeared again, he was in a hall that looked very much like a police station. Obadiah Stane was staring at him with open disgust.
The old man's lower back no longer hurt. He had changed out of his designer suit and leather shoes and now looked like an old cowboy, wearing a casual jacket, a vest, and a plaid shirt. A gold-colored revolver hung at his waist.
Even more miraculously, Obadiah Stane's hair had grown back. He was still somewhat unaccustomed to having hair again, so he wore a beige cowboy hat.
"Wow! I thought you'd wear suits for the rest of your life!" Wade looked around. Seeing that all the "people" in the hall were busy, he simply claimed the nearest desk, swept its original contents into a cardboard box, then dumped his enormous pile of weapons onto the desktop.
Obadiah snorted through his nose and jabbed a thumb at himself. "Do you know how many assassination attempts I survived when I was young? I've killed countless money-grubbing bastards like you! Remember this: don't hold me back!"
No one nearby paid them any attention. Everyone was busy with their own work. Besides, during their earlier "onboarding," both men had received some information. They knew perfectly well that from today onward, the two of them were partners.
Both were R.I.P.D. agents, specifically responsible for problems in the material plane—or, in other words, back on Earth.
"What did Tony Stark say about me? Did he blame everything on me?" Obadiah asked.
Wade Wilson had no interest in any of that. He thought back for a moment. "I don't think so? Seems like they said you died of illness?"
Obadiah was deeply depressed. His feelings toward Tony Stark were complicated now. Rather than saying he hated Tony Stark, it would be more accurate to say he hated that Camaro that just happened to drive by!
The woman who had processed their recruitment appeared again. "Very good, rookies. I can see you're both looking like new men. You have one mission now: go to New York! A massive battle is taking place there. Every minute and every second, vengeful spirits, dead souls, and who knows what kind of dark monsters are being born. I don't care about the living, but anything that's dead and still refuses to leave must be brought back to me!"
The two men were sent back to New York with equally dumbfounded expressions.
They were not incorporeal. They still had bodies, so they could not walk through walls or sink through the ground. The R.I.P.D., however, had placed disguises over them.
They each took out their work IDs. The photo on Wade Wilson's ID showed an elderly Chinese man, while Obadiah Stane's showed a blonde, blue-eyed woman.
To outsiders, that was exactly what they looked like: an old Chinese man and a blonde woman. Unless someone was stronger than the R.I.P.D.'s concealment, even Tony Stark or 006 would not be able to see through their identities.
New York was still in the middle of a massive battle. Obadiah looked around. Even though he had always looked down on Wade Wilson, he knew when to be practical and started talking to his new partner. "What happened to New York? It wasn't this chaotic when I was alive."
Wade pulled his newly hairy companion behind a dumpster and cautiously surveyed the street. The fighting between bioengineered humanoids and vampires had already spread into the streets. Late-night New York was completely engulfed by gunfire and battle cries.