Disclaimer: I do not own G.I Joe.
Rafael Shimpling glanced down at his watch and swore. He gathered up his coat and hat and rushed for the door.
"Professor? Professor! Where are you going?" his secretary asked in alarm.
"Don't want to be late. They got fresh unagi in today. I have to hurry if I want to get there before they run out."
"Professor, you have an appointment in a few minutes. With the military, remember?"
He stopped and scratched his head. "I do, don't I? Well, cancel it and tell them to come back tomorrow."
"Professor! You can't do that," she squeaked.
"Sure I can," he said as he reached for the door.
"But you said to make sure you didn't cancel this appointment no matter what."
"But, unagi!"
"Maybe you should take them with you?" she suggested.
"Hmmm, maybe. When did you say they were coming, again?" he asked, removing his hand from the knob.
The phone rang and the secretary picked it up. "Hello... Yes... No, don't send them through, the Professor was just on his way out. Just keep them there and he will meet them... Hmm? Yeah, that's fine... Ok... Bye."
"So they are at the front desk waiting?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes, Professor."
"Good, I will be back late from lunch, it being unagi day and all."
The secretary sighed. "And here I thought it would be because there was a lot to discuss. What would happen to you if there were suddenly no unagi, Professor?
"I'd move to Japan."
"Of course you would," she said as he rushed out the door.
He walked quickly, nearly running to get to the Kogane no Sakana. He passed the front desk and was about to push open the door when the student at the front desk called after him.
"What?" he squinted at the student.
"Uhm, these people are here to see you."
"Oh, right, forgot. Well, come along then and hurry, I've someplace to be!" he snapped to the soldiers sitting in the waiting area. He continued out of the building, not slowing his pace.
The four soldiers caught up to him, appearing to have no problem keeping up with him at all. Well, he guessed it was to be expected, given that they were most likely fairly active people. He thought the brunette woman was in charge, but maybe it was the short, over-muscled, beret-wearing man. He was convinced it was not the even more over-muscled and fellow height abundant 'brotha,' as his students would say, that followed behind the other two. Nor was it the quilt padded short boy who was looking around at everything.
The woman spoke up, "Professor Shimpling? Where are we going?"
"To lunch, I don't know what possessed me to schedule a meeting at this time, on this day."
The soldiers glanced at each other. "Surely it could have waited an hour?"
"An hour?" he laughed. "You want to know about Father Time. That whole subject is both strange and time-consuming," The soldiers groaned. "What? Oh, haha, I made a pun. Whatever," he waved a hand in the air. "It will probably take more than an hour. Besides, today is unagi day. You can wait if you want."
"I suppose we could stop and eat, it has been a while since breakfast," she said. "By the way, I'm Lady Jaye; this is Flint, Roadblock, and Lift-Ticket."
"Professor Rafael Shimpling," he nodded. "According to my students I'm the professor of weird, cool shit, whatever that means."
"Where are we going for lunch?"
"It's right here," he said, stopping in front of the restaurant. "It's Japanese; translates to Golden Fish. Ladies first," he said, holding the door open.
"So it's a sushi restaurant?" whispered the beret-man, what had she called him again, Striker? Stone? Flint? Yes, Flint was talking to the man she had called Roadblock. Roadblock certainly looked like one, making Rafael feel even more like the beanpole that he was.
The waitress greeted him enthusiastically and got the five of them seated quickly. She asked him if wanted his usual, to which he of course nodded yes too. She told the others she would come back after a few minutes to get their order and then bounced off to serve her other customers.
"Do they serve anything besides raw fish here?" asked Lift-Ticket.
Rafael rolled his eyes. "One, sushi is not raw fish. It may have raw fish, but it doesn't mean raw fish and doesn't always have raw fish. Sashimi is raw fish. Two, if you dislike seafood, they also serve beef or pork. I would recommend the ramen, although it does have some elements of seafood such as the nori sheets and narutomaki. You can remove those. There are also beef or pork rice bowls and other dishes."
"What are you getting, Professor Shimpling?" asked Roadblock.
"Unagi, vegetable tempura, gyoza, maguro, unagi don."
"English?"
He sighed, "Eel sushi, pot stickers, light tuna sushi, eel rice bowl. I trust I don't have to explain vegetable tempura?"
They looked the menu over a few more minutes, before the waitress returned and took their orders.
"Do you have specific questions for me or are you just looking for any information you can get your hands on?" Rafael asked after she left.
"Well, a little of both actually. We are trying to pinpoint Father Time," answered Lady Jaye.
He snorted, "Good luck with that, girlie."
She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, there is some information on the internet that points to Father Time being related to the Grim Reaper and several others."
"Indeed there is. One of the theories is that there is actually a whole system of these powers out there. Father Time is but one of them. When we are done, I'll give you a copy of my book. It goes into detail about all of the different theories. I can't help you figure out who Father Time is. No one knows that. But I can give you a run down on the current theories."
"Theories?" asked Flint.
"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? If the images of Father Time influenced the way we think of the Grim Reaper, are they the same or are they two separate characters? Is there a legendary council similar to what 'The Santa Clause' movies depict? Or is there a guardianship like 'Rise of the Guardians'? There have been many accounts of people seeing these beings. There is a whole forum online dedicated to the topic, even. Some hypothesize they are really aliens. Another popular theory is the earth's excess energy forms these beings out of popular belief. I explore all of that in my book."
"But just theories, no proof?"
He shook his head. "No, no solid evidence. Stories, well, more stories than you can shake a stick at. That is part of what I do. I find these stories and verify them as much as possible. Some are shear quackery. People just trying to get others to buy into a scam or trying to get their fifteen minutes of fame. Many of those stories change often. Most of the ones I consider are the ones that don't change. The stories told so much that the person telling them is tired of repeating them. Some have even been passed down through several generations."
"You said there are accounts of people seeing beings. So is there more than just Father Time?" asked Roadblock.
"Well, the theory on that particular thought runs along the lines of there being a 'legendary council'. There are many experiences of running into a Grim Reaper type character. It is probably the most popular one, what with people's fascination with death. The theory runs that there is an Old Man Winter-" he paused as the waitress arrived with their food. He clapped his hands together once and said itadakimasu before picking up his chopsticks and starting in on his food.
The Joes also picked up their chopsticks and started in. Roadblock picked up a piece of eel and popped it into his mouth. Flint watched him with trepidation. "Don't eels have toxic blood?" he asked, looking at both Roadblock and the professor's dishes.
"Yes," answered Roadblock, preparing to pop another piece in.
The professor paused slightly in eating. "Eels have toxic blood to stop predators from eating them. It actually contains a muscle-seizing toxin that in extreme cases will stop the heart completely. For that reason, eel is never served raw. This is actually smoked eel," he elaborated.
Lady Jaye and Flint attempted to converse further with the professor while eating, but they only received short and increasingly snappish answers. They both decided to let the man eat before continuing the conversation. Lift-Ticket was eating and looking out the window, while Roadblock was eating nearly as single-mindedly as the professor was.
He finished, and leaned back in the booth, a smile on his face. He waited until the soldiers finished eating before clearing his throat. "Anyway, as I was saying, the major players thought to exist are Mother Nature, Old Man Winter or Santa Claus - that's still being argued - the Grim Reaper, Cupid, and the Sandman. Whether they are they part of a council or just working on their own is also still hotly debated."
"But if all anyone you have are eye-witness accounts, how can you substantiate any of it? What's to say these people aren't just hallucinating?" asked Flint.
"How many people, people who have never met each other, are from different backgrounds, and never even given these things a second thought before their experience, tell of the same details? Take Cupid for instance. There are maybe ten people who I believe to have had a genuine run-in with this character. They all describe a being with very large white wings, completely naked, except for the quiver of arrows on his back and the bow in his hand. They also describe, and I find this odd, but they describe him as a person of color, although, none of them will say what race exactly. I would have assumed Cupid to be of a European nature."
"How many years of research have you put into this, Professor?" asked Lady Jaye.
"Hmm, I would say at least fifteen, almost twenty."
"And, did you have an 'experience' that got you into this?"
"Not exactly."
"Help me understand, Professor, why exactly would anyone choose to make this into a career? Why spend so many years chasing phantoms?"
"I used to bug my grandmammy for stories of one of our ancestors, who was said to possess the power of one of the four winds. I always wanted to find out if it had any truth to it, so I would go to the library and research anything related I could think of and it just kind of snowballed from there."
"So what can you tell us about Father Time?" Flint asked, leaning forward.
"Well, he's either hard to figure out or easy, depending on your view. If you think of Father Time and the Grim Reaper as the same character, it is very easy. When you try to separate the two, it becomes very difficult. I have come across maybe two different experiences that were specific to Father Time. The first one was an older woman who said an old man rescued her by stopping and reversing time, preventing a building from collapsing. She described him as looking almost exactly like the sculpture in the Rotunda Clock at the Library of Congress, only dressed in a simple robe that strongly reminded her of a monk. She actually thought that's what he was until she experienced the time reversal."
"That almost combines two different images of him," Lady Jaye commented.
Professor Shimpling nodded. "The second is still debatable. I had a man, I'd say in his late sixties, come in and say he once bullied a kid in school. His story is that the kid didn't do anything back to him, but ever since then, he has nightmares of an old man and a scythe. He says he's still a kid in the dream and the old man is holding an hourglass. He taps on it with the scythe and then points at the kid, while turning into a skeleton. In my mind, this firmly cements that the two characters, Grim Reaper and Father Time are actually just one, but I have forum people and several students who debate otherwise."
"If the two are one, than we might have been looking in the wrong place. Maybe we need to go back to the library and look more into death instead of time," said Lady Jaye, tapping her finger on the table.
"It certainly puts a different spin on things. Well, let's go back and I'll get my secretary to give you that book."
"Right, then we can spend the rest of the afternoon looking in this new direction," Flint ordered as Roadblock and Lift-Ticket groaned.
Author's Note: Unagi is eel - according to a friend who loves it. Kogane no Sakana is Golden Fish as far as I could figure using Google translator. Itadakimasu is the traditional phrase said before eating. Feel free to correct any of them if they are wrong. The others terms I tried to explain after they were mentioned, so I don't have a huge note here. You might have been able to guess, I like knowing about Japanese food. It's so pretty, it makes even a seafood-hating person like me want to try it. Theories mentioned in this chapter come from the internet or thin air (so much for not having a long note).