Dropping the iPod into his pocket, Mike bent down and started crawling into the small, dark cave. Ross followed by going in after his friend.

It wasn't long before the two of them saw the blinding white light shooting up from the hard grounds of the cave. Ross and Mike realized that the light had to be a gate between their time and the past, and they had to find some way to seal it. The only question that remained: how?

After the two teenagers climbed through the blinding white light, they once again found themselves in the small village. They saw the small, not-so-strong looking houses and the people who lived their daily lives peacefully within them. The garb definitely resembled eighteenth-century colonial times, with tight clothing that covered practically all of the skin, save the hands and face.

"All right, Mike, we got to be careful," Ross cautioned as they continued walking around.

"What for?"

"Maverick's probably pretty upset with us right now. I mean, we did break his rules about not interfering in the past…"

"Oh, Ross!" Mike said loudly and annoyed. He kicked a huge cloud of mahogany dust and dirt into the air as they continued walking through the small town. "Come on, we broke a stick! Big whoop! Why's Maverick so angry that we snapped a stick in half?!"

"Mike, that definitely doesn't look like it was a regular stick," Ross said. "It looked like something out of a warehouse or something. Didn't you notice that it looked like a perfect cylinder? It probably had some purpose with what someone in its time was going to do with it."

"Still…" Mike said uneasily, "It's just a stick for crying out loud! If it came from a warehouse like you said, it shouldn't be too hard to just find a replacement."

Ross ignored Mike's complaints and still continued walking. He acted like he knew where he was going, and indeed he did. Mike, on the other hand, seemed a little less confident.

"Hey Ross, where are you taking us, anyway?"

Ross never turned towards Mike while talking. "I thought we'd just drop in on Bien and see how he's doing. He's probably the only one out here who wouldn't squeal on us to Maverick."

"Oh…that's smart thinking, Ross!" Mike complemented. A small smile started expressing itself on Mike.

Both of them continued walking along the earthen road, occasionally getting odd looks by some of the townsfolk, but the two kids just shrugged it off. When they were trying to seal a gate between their time and another period, they couldn't care less what a bunch of people who were around long before they were even born thought of them.

They finally got to Bien's house after a few minutes of walking. The house was still the white-painted building that it was before, so not a lot could have happened since their last visit.

Ross and Mike quickly exchanged glances, and then Ross went over to the door and knocked on it. After knocking on the wooden portal three times, it opened and Bien was standing there. He started smiling when he saw his two friends.

"Ross! Mike! How've you guys been? I woke up the other morning and you guys were gone. What happened?" Bien asked with a large smile, exposing two rows of very clean and white teeth.

"Er…kind of a lot happened, actually," Ross said, pretending to be scratching the back of his neck. He had an uneasy look on his face.

"Why, what happened?"

Ross and Mike started explaining the whole thing. About how Maverick let them go inside the Temple of the Finis Tempi, about how they both got transported to their own respective pasts to witness some of the sadder or more dramatic parts of their lives, about how they went to Mike's past and broke a stick, about how Maverick got furious with them for doing so and how he sent Kline and Sandra after them, and how Ross and Mike ended up defeating Kline and Sandra, only to be attacked a few days later by a worker for Maverick in their own time. Bien seemed to be really confused about it all at first.

"Are you guys sure you didn't hit your head or something?" he asked, sounding concerned for them. "Maybe it was all a dream?"

"No, it was definitely real," Ross assured. "I swear!"

"Hmmmm," Bien said, putting two fingers on his chin. "Well, what are you two going to do now?"

"We don't know," Ross said. "Actually, yeah, we do know, but we don't know how to do it."

"What Ross thought we needed to do is to find a way to close up that gate between our time and this one," Mike said.

"So…you're from a different time, you've killed two of the government's highest body guards and now you're trying to find a way to close the gate between this time and your time, hundreds of years in the future?"

"That's the idea," Ross said. "I know it sounds farfetched, but you gotta believe us."

Bien seemed to really be struggling with the thoughts racing through his head, but after looking at the pleading looks on Ross and Mike's faces, he realized that maybe they weren't lying to him.

"All right," Bien said. "I'll believe you, even if it doesn't make complete sense to me."

Ross let out a huge breath or relief. "Thank you so much, Bien. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind letting Mike and I stay with you for a little while until we figure out what to do?"

"Of course," Bien said with his normal and pleasant grin. "What are friends for?"

Ross was so thankful that Bien was showing them that much hospitality, but he thought he got his point across to express his gratitude. That solved their problem of where they were going to stay while they searched for a way to seal the gate between the two time periods, but that still left the bigger problem: how were they going to seal the gate, and how were they going to do it without Maverick seeing them?

The rest of the night wore on. Ross and Mike were perfectly comfortable in Bien's home. Even though the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen were the same room (meaning it was only a one room house) they didn't find much to complain about in it. The wooden floors looked very dirty, and the white paint on the walls was starting to yellow and peel. The inside of the house didn't look too pretty, but no one had a problem with it. (Although Ross and Mike were a bit disturbed by the two rapiers that were hanging from the wall)

Ross and Mike really didn't have much to do, but Bien kept himself busy as he started hurrying through the kitchen. He was making a lot of noise, like clanking pans together, and trying to fire up the stove.

"Bien, what are you doing?" Mike asked.

"I'm preparing us some dinner," Bien said politely, yet quickly. He didn't look back at Mike while answering his questions.

"You cook?"

"Yes. I cook very well, if I do say so myself."

"Oh," Mike said, not knowing how to respond. In order to not say anything rude, he replied with the completely neutral answer, "cool".

Bien continued slaving away in the kitchen and trying to get a meal together. Ross and Mike didn't have much choice other than to sit around and wait for something to happen. Both of them tried coming up with games that they could play to pass the time, but they didn't have much luck. Neither one of them had cards with them, so their options were very limited.

Mike was lying sprawled across Bien's bed with his hands clasped across his abdomen and stared up at the ceiling. Ross was sitting at the foot on the bed with one leg going out while the other was bent and the kneecap was eye level with him. He wasn't doing much other than occasionally picking at his fingernails or looking around the house.

Both kids, however, were carefully keeping an eye on what Bien was putting into the pot that he was going to cook their meal in. He was putting a strange assortment of ingredients in; they were wondering if he was really the "very good cook" that Bien considered himself.

They noticed Bien taking what appeared to be a three-pound chicken and adding several things to the pot with it, including water, sugar, chilly, a handful of garlic cloves, some vegetable oil, some strange looking condiment that looked like grass, some odd-looking sauces and some salt. Ross and Mike had no idea what he was trying to make. Both of them were dead silent as Bien continued plugging away at preparing their supper. Finally, Ross spoke up.

Trying to be as polite as possible, he asked, "So, what's for dinner tonight?"

"Oh, you're going to love it," Bien said. Even though he wasn't looking at Ross or Mike, it was easy to tell by the tone of voice that he was smiling when he answered it. "I call it 'Chicken in Lemon Grass and Chilly'. It's a recipe that's been passed down in my family for generations. It's really good; you're going to love it."

Ross and Mike looked at each other with a somewhat nervous look. Neither of them had heard of the recipe, and after seeing some of the ingredients Bien was throwing in, they weren't positive they were going to like it.

Minutes later when the meal was ready, Bien put the dish on the table, ready to be eaten. There was a lot of steam radiating from the chicken, meaning it was still hot. It didn't look like anything either kids had ever eaten before.

Ross and Mike nervously went over to the table and sat down. Bien was already sitting down and smiling at them while licking his lips. He must have thought he did an especially good job preparing this meal.

After Ross and Mike sat down, Bien turned towards both of them. "So, think we should say Grace?" he asked.

Ross and Mike were silent before Ross finally spoke up but never took his eyes off the food in front of him. "I'll do it," he volunteered.

Ross said a quick prayer, and after he finished, Bien started digging in. He was obviously very hungry, because he was eating a lot of his "Chicken in Lemon Grass and Chilly".

After a long while, Ross finally reached out and grabbed himself a piece. He ate it and tried swallowing it quickly, but he turned out to like the recipe a lot.

"Hey, this is good," Ross said with a large smile on his face. "Man, Mike, you've gotta try this!"

Mike nervously put his hand out and pulled himself off a piece of the chicken and ate it, and he thought it was delicious as well.

"Man, how come they don't have this in restaurants in our time?" Mike asked.

Bien smiled at his two friends. "I'm glad you guys like it. I told you I was a good cook, didn't I?"

Ross and Mike were too busy pigging out to answer Bien's question.

After the trio had gobbled up their dinner, Ross and Mike offered Bien a hand in cleaning up. Bien gladly accepted the offer and the three of them made the room look just as clean as it did before.

After that, however, Ross and Mike were bored again.

"Hey Bien, what do you do for fun around here?" Mike asked after all the work was done.

"Well, normally I'd go outside and find something to do out there, whether it is more chores, finding someone to talk to or just taking a walk outside and enjoying the night air," Bien said.

"We shouldn't go out there," Ross spoke up immediately. "With Maverick and all his body guards out there, we're going to get in huge trouble if we get caught. In fact, I think we'll even be lucky if we survive an encounter with him or some of his guards."

The entire room fell dead silent. Mike was the first one to speak up. In order to pass the time, he tried making friendly conversation with Bien.

"So, Mr. Bien…"

"Please, call me Bien."

"All right Bien…what do you do for a living?"

Bien looked a little perplexed by this question. "Well, I'd like to consider myself a Historian. I take great interest in the past and learning a lot from it."

"History?" Mike asked, a little surprised to hear this of all things. "What kind of history?"

"Well, I'm an archaeologist," Bien answered. "…if that answers your question. I'm fascinated with how people's lives went in the past and how so much has changed. How could you honestly find an artifact or some item from the past and not be interested in it?"

"I could give you three good reasons," Mike said under his breath.

Ross slammed his elbow into Mike's side as an assertive way to tell him to not act like a smart aleck when it came to Bien's interests.

"That's cool that you're into history and archaeology," Ross tried to say politely. "Sorry about Mike. History isn't exactly his best subject in school."

"That's all right," Bien said, still retaining the pleasant smile on his face. "I know history isn't everyone's favorite thing in the world, but seriously, what's not to like or be fascinated by about it?"

Ross didn't know how to answer that question, nor did he have time. Just as he was about to say something, Mike suddenly yelled something out.

"What's this?"

Ross and Bien turned to Mike. Mike was digging into his pocket and pulled out a small, rectangular device with two earphones hooking up to a small hole on the bottom. Near the top of the rectangle appeared to be some sort of screen. It was the iPod Mike had put into his pocket before they jumped through the gate.

"What is that?" Ross asked.

"I don't know," Mike said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life."

Mike figured out how to turn it on, and he saw a bizarre list of names of things he had never heard of, and another strange list right next to it.

"Weird…" Mike said, looking at the iPod. "How'd this thing end up in my pocket? I've got no memory of seeing it once."

"Yeah, same here," Ross said.

"What are these things? Are these names? U2…Metallica…Sting…what the heck are all these?"

Bien suddenly looked like he was remembering something very important. He began gripping at his hair and tugging at it, like he was scrambling to remember something important.

"Those names sound so familiar!" he exclaimed. "I've definitely heard those names somewhere, but I can't remember…"

"It's all right," Ross said, trying to ease Bien. "Don't worry about it; I'm sure it's not anything important."

Bien nodded, but still looked like the thought was troubling him. Just as he was about to say something, there was a knock on the door. Bien got up and looked out through one of the side windows to see who it was.

"Uh-oh," Bien said nervously. "It's some of Maverick's guards. Ross, Mike. Hide!"

Ross and Mike scampered under Bien's bed and tried to squeeze themselves in. When they were both as far in as they could get, Bien opened up the door to greet the guards.

"Can I help you?" Bien asked the guards, trying to not sound suspicious.

"Have you seen two boys?" one of the three guards asked. "They're both pretty skinny; one has black hair and the other has a longer, darker shade of blonde. Maverick is looking for them."

"No, I haven't seen them," Bien said, hoping his poker face was doing the trick.

"You sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then. Thank you for your time," the guard said. Saying this, he led the other two guards away and to other houses, looking for the kids.

Bien looked under the bed and gave Ross and Mike a signal that told them it was okay to come out. Both kids scrambled out of the bed and were happy to not be packed so tightly together anymore.

"Wow," Ross said, realizing how close he and Mike were to getting caught by the guards. "That was a close one."