BAD WINE CRAPPY CHOCOLATE

CHAPTER TWO-6

"No one will bother them here. Hoochie, Nathaniel, and I are the only ones with access to this room."
Bardy saw the concern in Brandon's eyes. He attempted to put him at ease.
"I trust Hoochie and Nathaniel. You don't have to worry about your stuff. Besides, a man in my position never knows about the future. I might not be here tomorrow. Someone else has to know where they are."
Brandon nodded, and the two started to walk out of the room. Then the time traveler suddenly turned and went back. He took a piece of paper from his sack.
"The Mises only work in places where there's a wormhole," Brandon told Max. "This is a map that shows where those places are. It was with the Mises when I found them."
"Of course."
They returned to the wine. Bardy continued to examine the device Brandon had used to escape the pursuers from the pub.
"This one is all burned up. What happened?"
"You can only use them once. A Mis generates so much heat that they burn themselves out. But it's not in as bad a shape as the one that Foster's men tried to use. There's a screen in the back of the Mis that allows the heat to escape."
"I think this one needed a bigger screen," Max observed.
"Good point. Anyway, I sprinkled some of this through the screen on their Mis."

Brandon handed his friend the saltshaker from the pub. He looked at it curiously before sprinkling some on his hand and tasting it.
"It's just salt," Bardy said.
"But it can play havoc with a Mis. The salt corrodes its cooling system."
"This thing had a cooling system?" Bardy asked as he held up the used Mis.
"Yes it did. And it worked well enough to get us here. But if the system that keeps the lithium ion
battery from overheating had malfunctioned, a thermal runaway would have been created. That's when an increase in temperature results in a further increase in temperature, leading to a destructive result."
"In other words, it goes boom."
"It goes boom. I'm sure those men are dead."
A somber expression appeared on Brandon's face. He hesitated for several moments before
continuing.
"This isn't me. I never thought I'd take another person's life."
"A person's circumstances make them what they are, my friend," Max told him. "You're just looking out for your sister."
Max put the saltshaker on the table and then noticed that Hoochie was standing in the doorway. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yeah. I want to show you and Nathaniel something I put in the private storage room. Go find
him and come back here."
"I don't know where Nathaniel is, boss. You can show me and I'll tell him about it later." "Find him," Max responded in demanding tone.
"Will do, boss."
"You said he was trustworthy," Brandon said after Hoochie left. "But you don't trust him to tell
Nathaniel about what I left in that room?"
"That's because there's a rivalry between the two of them. Hoochie wants to know more than
Nathaniel does, which he can achieve by not letting him know about your stuff. They both want to be my

right hand man. But the truth is, I need both of them. So until one of them convinces me otherwise, I have two right hands. I guess I'm like the people who have two left feet when they try to dance."
"I'll bet it's just as awkward. And it could also be dangerous. If one of them starts to resent the situation enough, they might do something to hurt you, just so they can blame it on their rival."
"I'm a pretty good judge of character. I think if either one of them ever decides to make a move, they'll be up front about it. Whether it's against each other or me. Someone in my position is always vulnerable. Even someone who has been your friend for years can do you in someday. But as long as it's out in the open, I can understand it."
"That's a tough way to live."
"Your bag is safe, believe me. It'll be here when you get back."
Max took another sip of wine and looked at his guest thoughtfully.
"We wound up in two completely different places," he observed. "I have my business, and you
like to tinker with your toys. So where did you get those things?" "That's a story you'll want to hear."
They talked well into the night. Brandon rode off at dawn.