Carter laughs, "I'm fine with robbing the rich dirty bastards of the world, they usually have the good stuff anyways. As for where we settle and what we do afterwards ... I've never wanted to be a hero and I can't say that I do now either. Not that I'm opposed to helping you guys in whatever you do, clearly we need to stick together ... I'm just not the gung ho type."

Morgan smiled at Carter, "I've already done my bit for King and Country as they say. I've got no driving need to save the world either, though we could probably rule it if we set our minds to it." He laughs about this, but there is a hint of consideration in his expression. He suddenly stops laughing and becomes very serious, "For that matter, we could problaby stop it from ever getting to the mess that it's in now."

After a second he shakes off the mood and continues, "Sorry, really, I don't have any need to be a hero. Besides, we are novas and have the potential to live for hundreds or thousands of years, and we have a vessel that can travel through time and alternate realities. I guess the real question is which will we choose to do first."

Omar ponders his possibilities for a few minutes while fiddling with his cash. Soon a bright smile comes across his face, and he speaks up.

"Athletics always pays well. Since there are no other Nova, I should win handily at any Toughmen or Ultimate Fighting tournaments. You guys can bet on me and make tons of money."

Omar's smile gets even bigger. "Then, once I have made a name for myself, I can do product endorsements, and the Pay-per-View thing, while you guys can put the casinos into the poor-house."

He looks at the others..."Who wants to be my agent? Who wants to get rich?"

Steve says,

"First? First we buy food and minor amenities for several sets of nova appetites. That leaves us with about five thousand dollars of seed money. While I don’t mind stealing from criminals, they do have guns, and I don’t know where any are, and our seed money isn’t enough to last very long. Similarly, although in theory perhaps Lorean could find an asteroid made of gold or platinum or something, at the moment we lack the contacts to process it into money, not to mention how long it would take. The same problem comes up with a Tough man contest, we don’t know where any are, and while dropping 5 grand on Omar is a sure thing, it just wouldn’t win us enough right now.”

“I suggest we deal with money directly. The two things that come to mind are robbing a bank, which has one set of problems and risks. Or going to Vegas and use our powers to gambol it, which has a different set of problems and risks.”

“I suggest the latter, at least to start with. We go to Vegas, gambol, and gather information on our next move.”

Morgan, looks to Carter. "I've still got my passport. The rest of you are going to have to report your money to the IRS and they might be suspicious that they have no records of you. Or you will be screwing your doubles when the IRS goes after them for tax evasion. Carter, I understand you have certain skills... could you make fake passports for everyone else, or at least for those that will be 'earning' large sums of money?"

Carter thinks about it for a moment, "Without knowing exactly how this earth's ID's look I can't be certain if I could re-create them on my own. If you buys plan to hti vegas I would suggest that rather than win big you win enough and move on to the next place. There are plently of casinos in vegas and if you hit each for only a couple grand before moving on to the next place they will not get suspicious. It will take more time but be safer and attract less attention.

"In the meantime I can try to gather some new contacts and get us some forged IDs and locate some prospective marks for some self help" Carter smiles at the jest, it's clear he has no intention of bothering with anything remotely legal.

"As for my double ... either I find him and convince him to work with me or ... well ... screw the bastard, he's probably as much of a dick as I am!"

Omar turns towards Morgan "My double might still be in Baghdad. If that is the case, he would not be subject to US laws. If he is in the US, I could just pay the taxes. I do have a passport, albeit an Iraqi one."

"We don't know what other differences there are for this timeline. For all we know, the USSR could have won the Cold War, and the US does not exist."

"It might be good to do some scouting first, and find out how close to our timeline this place is."

Steve shrugs and says,

"If this timeline is a close match, my double is either dead or a sick old man. I was in pretty rough shape when I erupted."

Isabel has been extremely silent during the whole trip, although it isn't really uncharacteristic of her. Although she listened to the hologram with apparent interest, after the conversation with the ship started she silently slipped away from the group to sit at one of the farthest seats in the room. For a long time she simply stares into empty space, until she seems to realize something, and takes a small sketchpad and a pen out of a pocket somewhere in her eufiber jacket, and begins to draw. That faint scratching noise is probably the only thing drawing attention to the usually eye-catching girl, as she somehow desperately forms the image of her brother's face on the paper, as her mind tries to fathom the overwhelming reality.

There is no going back home.

There is no going back to Esteban.

And the crushing loneliness.

Marcus is still listening quietly. "I will stay with the ship. I might be able to make us some money playing golf. That is if my glowing eyes didn't make me stand out so much. Besides I'm really not comfortable with the scams and stuff. I've worked hard al my life to get where I got. I understabd the necesity of what needs to be done, but I would prefer not to be part of it if possible."

Cody speaks up. "Look. We are now the only Novas in this timeline. Resources will *not* be a problem for us. In fact, our situation right now kinda reminds me of this old comic I used to read while I was off-duty, back in Iraq. It was called the Authority, and it involved a group of extraordinary beings and their extra-dimensional ship...If we wanted to, we could do alot of good for any number of worlds now, if that's what you prefer."

"Still, proceeding with caution is reccomended during any mystery, and we still don't know what we are dealing with. We start small, scanning this worlds media broadcasts to get a sense of how close their culture and gloabl affairs have parralled ours. From there we move to foot recconaissance. Gambling is a good idea for petty cash, but getting gold and other universal currencies is even better given our situation. The next order of business is getting the automated hydroponics back online. Then we don't even need outside resources. After our needs are taken care of, we can move onto more fullfilling endeavors."

Morgan looks to Marcus. "Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Maybe we should take the opportunity to approach this from more than one direction. While we are gambling, you and Isabel could collect one or more asteriods full of gold or other goodies. Or you could get some seeds and plants for the hydroponics bay. We can pay for those things now."
He smiles at a new thought, "Another option is that we can rob the bad guys. We might not be able to find the criminals here and now, but history has some pretty big criminals whose did very bad things. Hitler, Al Capone, and lots of others, we can always do the world a favor and change some history while we steal from them."

Having just mentioned her, he looks at Isabel closely for the first time since their 'kidnapping' thinking of how she must be hurting having lost the very last of her family. Without saying anything he walks over and places a hand gently on her shoulder and gives a light squeeze in sympathy then takes the seat next to her without saying anything.

The gears in his mind turning, Cody says,

"Hold on a sec. The ship told us that every choice splits into a different timeline. There are even timelines, now that we are on this ship, where we make different choices. If we go back and stop Hitler, and we travel to the future; we are really just going to the timeline we "spawned." Wouldn't it be less work to just specify which timeline we would like to be in?"

"I for one have always wanted to know what was locked in the Vatican. And for the more larcenous among us, why try robbing Fort Knox when we could recapture the wealth of the Templars..."

"Bottom line is this..." Cody's voice conveys the gravity of raw and powerful truth. "We have here, lost our entire lives. All that we had struggled and toiled for so long in pursuit of whatever happiness we could find on one tiny, isolated planet. Now we have been given the keys to any reality we can imagine. I never dreamed such possibilities and now they are a telepathic thought away."

"I think...well, first things first. Lets all get what we need to satisfy our bellies. Afterwards, when we are content, we should ...and I know this might sound cheesy, but bear with me...we should discuss what we wanted from life, and how we feel about whats happened. I really think we need to find our common ground before we start being reckless with time..."

Morgan listens. "I can't fault your arguements there, and it sounds like a good idea. Lets get what we came for then regroup and talk about how we want to proceed."

Steve notices Isabel's emotional state but decides to not try to address that right now. He can guess at what is wrong... but he doesn't really know how to help. He also focuses in on her drawing and is impressed at the obvious nova level talent there.

While listening to Cody's statements and speech he nods in agreement at several points and then says,

"Agreed. Vegas then for the extremely short run, some of us will shop and/or research, others will generate cash."

Carter grabs his few things, "I'll see what I can find out and try to find out about IDs and the like. I'll probably need more than the $800 I have now though, so first stop is the strip to do a little 'help thyself'." He grins, although he hasn't had the need or desire to pick a pocket in quite a long time Carter is surprised at how excited he is at the prospect of some good old pretty theft.

Putting his $5000.00 back into the backpack, and then slinging it over his broad shoulders, Omar looked towards the others. "I have never been to Vegas. I have heard a lot about it. They are always having fights and things like that." Omar pondered his prospects for a moment. "I am not a boxer, so I'm not sure about that route. They might be having an Ultimate Fighting thing...I will have to look through the papers and Op...I mean internet."

Omar was excited to meet someone in combat. He would have to spend more energy trying to not kill his opponents, than to beat them. I might do less harm to others if I did security or bodyguard work.

(Privately sent to Isabel over the link)

*Isabel? Steve here, I know I don't know you all that well, but you look so sad there... *

(Outloud to Marcus) "Marcus? Keep in mind there's almost no food here. Are you sure you won't come with us and have a large meal? You wouldn't need to take part in anything you don't want to, and a pair of sunglasses and you'll be fine."

"Actually I've found that I really don't need to eat much. I'm pretty self sustaining. Perhaps isabel and I can start working on things here." Marcus turn to Isabel, "If that's ok with you, or if you would prefer to go that's cool too."

Morgan nods, "Yeah, I pretty much could go without eating at all if I had to, but boy I sure do like eating. Besides, Vegas is famous for some of the best buffets in the world. That's where we'll really take the casinos to the cleaners," he says with a wicked glint in his eyes.

(At this point I'm not sure if Marcus and Isabel are going to Vegas or even the surface of the planet. If you guys decide you want to be part of it just include yourselves as though you were there all along.)

After the discussion those going down to Earth follow the glowing line on the floor to the cargo bay where you find a large Cadillac Escalade SUV. Lorean says "I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of shaping it into something that would fit in where you are going. Like myself it's configuration can change as needed. It is capable of both atmospheric and space flight as well as land and sea travel, it can size down to a one man craft or up to hold about as much cargo as one of your 18-wheelers. It has limited warp capabilities. From Earth to the Moon is about it's limit and only has enough energy for about 3 of those warps a day." After admiring the fine workmanship that 'cadallic' put into the escalade you pile inside. The leather seats are quite comfortable. Because of his ability to control the craft Cody takes the driver's seat. After a brief moment of concentration on Cody's part he wills the craft to jump to a highway just outside of Vegas. A short while later you find yourselves crusing down the strip in Vegas looking for a good casino to hit.

His face was pressed against the window in the back of the limousine. He was excited and could not wait to see the casinos. While a religious man, he was no puritan. The stories he had been told of 'Sin City' had not been exaggerated. This place was a marvel of human showmanship. It was his kind of place...a place where his talents and looks would be appreciated.

The rumbling in his belly brought him back to reality. "Where are we going to eat? I'm starving."

Following the lights leading to the hold, Cody seems surprised to find an earth SUV parked there. Then a moment later he says "I see..."


"Hmmm.. Its a bit small for our group, especially you big guy. m Lets see what we can do about that."

The Cadillac starts to morph and expand, until it has become a full length stretch-Humvee Limosine. As it is lengthening, its skin shifts through the color pallate until Cody finally settles on white.

"There...that should be gaudy enough for Vegas, and give the gamblers enough cred to get into the higher stakes games."

Steve smiles and asks,

"But does it have cable?"

On the way down he frowns, pulls out a hand gun, and says,

"I'd better leave this in the car..."

Morgan looks to the others, "So what's the plan? All to one casino or hit seperate ones? How much should we win before calling it quits and moving to the next place, etc?"

Steve says,

"They won't kick me out, even after I get to seven digits, because they don't punish freak luck. Poker and it's varients is what I'll focus on, maybe with a diversion into the rollet wheel if my luck is running high. The vast majority of my winnings will be coming from other players and the casino wasn't going to get that anyway. I'll head for the place with the biggest pot."

"As for the more skill based of us... play for two hours, then move on."

Morgan nods, "Sounds good to me. Lets do this!" Morgan asks to be let off at Caesar's to start his gambling. As he gets out of the limo at the casino entrance he pulls out $500 and hands it to Cody, "I never heard you say that you had any money on you so take half my stack and see what you can make with it. Why don't we meet at the Bellagio's buffet in about 4 hours for some serious food?"

Steve goes to the Bellagio, Cody to the Venetian, and Carter to the Mirage. (See Table Talk for some options.) Once inside your respective casinos you head to the poker tables, most of the casinos have a seperate room for poker. With it's current popularity, even most of the big games are happening out in the open poker rooms rather than in private, though some casinos do have high roller rooms for extremely wealthy guests, or Whales as they are called in Vegas. Probably best not to get into one of those games just yet, since one hand could wipe you out if you get unlucky, besides most of us don't even have enough money for the buy in.

Omar goes off in search of other types of action, while Marcus and Isabel start looking for food supplies and stuff for the hydroponics garden. They also start looking for other things the group needs like linens and towels, pillows, plates and silverware, and all the other little things that one takes for granted until stuck on a space ship that lacks the human touches.

When Omar enters the Bellagio, he pushes a small amount of his quantum into his appearance, making him seem like Moses has just entered the casino. This is deliberate, as he loves the attention, and the owners of the Casino might take notice and offer him some work.

After picking up a local paper, he first scans the headlines to see if there are any differences between the normal timeline and this one. After that, he pours through the classifieds for work as a bodyguard or for amateur fights with open entries. Omar then heads to the sports booking location at the Bellagio, where he begins looking for amateur sporting contests.

Steve walks into the Bellagio and activates Lie Detector. He asks an employee for directions and is referred to some pamphlets on the rules of poker, he quickly reads the rules, memorizes them, and then he’s off to the contest.

He finds the theory of this distasteful. Not taking money from baselines, not even him personally gamboling, but more gamboling in general. The phrase “Gamboling is a tax on people who are bad at math” comes to mind and he mentally adds to that, “and a trap for adrenalin junkies and others without the will to stay away”. On the whole he thinks this activity is unproductive and probably a bad influence on society.

Mentally he sighs, doesn’t let his expression change, and goes to work. Whatever the theory, in practice it was here and he might as well get started. Steve heads for the poker area, starts with the lower monetary amount tables and attempts to work his way up.

Over the next four hours Marcus, Isabel and Cody do the really important work of finding all the things the group needs to purchase and begin making the arrangements. They place the orders and see to the logistics of arranging to have the stuff ready for pickup. The only thing the businesses are waiting on is the payment.

Morgan is the first to be dropped off at a casino. He makes his way inside and finds a place at one of the poker tables playing no limit holdem. He'd spent a bit of time in Vegas after his wife died and was familiar with the game and its big players. This world seems very similar to Earth prime and Morgan avoids one of the tables with a former gold bracelet winner preying on the minnows. After a hard fought four hours he walks away from the table and cashes in $15,000 in chips, very satisfied and on top of the world.

Carter is the next to be dropped off. The Mirage has a nice big poker room with 50 tables, but one end of the room is right next to the Sports Booking area and even though the poker room is smoke free, there is a constant air of cigarettes and cigars thanks to the sport book area. Despite that, the tables are nice and the service is great. After four hours and a few setbacks there is a huge crowd five deep surrounding the table. There is one professional poker player at the table and two 'whales'. The pro has done a great job of holding his own, and despite Carter's winnings has managed to not lose his original stack. The two whale's on the other hand have lost big time. It's a good thing they are very rich, because they are going home today with much smaller bank accounts. By the time the two men decide they've had enough, Carter has $65,000 dollars of their money. The hardest part of the day is the paperwork necessary to get the money. The casino makes you sign forms agreeing to pay the IRS about half of your winnings. At the end of the four hours it takes two other people to help carry your suitcases of money.

Omar makes his way to the Sports booking room in the Bellagio and scans the boards for events. Much to your interest, your own name is on the board as a 2 to 1 favorite for a wrestling match Tuesday night. No events are listed that you can take part of this afternoon unfortnately. Though many people take notice of you, you don't seem to have the best time communicating with them. They don't seem very helpful or friendly really, although you do get many looks. Asking about sporting events that you could participate in also doesn't earn you much information. For just a minute you think someone is about to tell you something useful when he shuts up and looks around as though afraid of being over heard. He thinks better of whatever he was going to say and hurrys off. After a while you wander in to the poker room and thanks to your height you get a good view of the huge stack of chips Steve is amassing.

Meanwhile Steve is also dropped off at the Bellagio. The poker room is big, new and the air is clean. Unlike Carter who managed to get into one of the big tables right away, Steve plays a few hands per table then moves on. It's a good thing too, because with his enhanced intelligence and natural good luck he only loses a couple hands the whole time. Before long he is invited to play with a group of whales. Not long after that they began to sorely regret that invitation. It's only after a little intimidation help from a looming Omar that you are allowed to cash out that much money. $100,000,000 later, it takes both Steve and Omar as well as another fellow to carry all of the cash.

Shortly thereafter, everyone meets for dinner at the Bellagio's buffet. Morgan strolls in looking particularly pleased with himself and his decent little stack of hundreds. That is until he sees the suitcases. Even if he had mega wits, which he doesn't it would have been hard to keep his face from registering his disappointment at being so outclassed.

"Geez, I taught you guys the game this morning!"

You settle in for a nice meal, but about halfway through two men walk up to your table and address themselves to Steve. One is wearing a suit and carrying a small briefcase, the other a Police officer's uniform. The man in the suit speaks first, "Sir, I believe you are the gentleman who just won $100 million?" Without waiting for a reply, he pulls out a leather badge wallet with IRS credentials and holds it out for you to look at. "If you don't mind I would like to settle accounts with you, my name is Agent Harris. If you would prefer we could count it out in your room here, or you could accompany us to my office. If you will cooperate I will try not to inconvienence you too much."

After a series of dissapointing encounters with the locals of this timeline, Omar heads out to watch Steve work. The man is making some serious cash, and Omar decides that he wll play bodyguard/intimidator for him. Omar does wonder why everyone seemed paranoid of him over at the sports booking area. It is probably because he is Middle Eastern.

After intimidating some high rollers into settling their bills, Omar heads out with Steve to cash in the chips. The woman at the counter asks if Steve would just take a check, but he declines. Omar then straps the huge bags of cash to him, and heads out of the casino with Steve and a casino bodyguard. The throngs of people, who have now gotten word of Steve's accomplishment, are like a sea in front of him. Omar decides he will just gently push a hold through the crowd. Soon, though, two men in suits approach, and identify themselves as being from the Internal Revinue Service.

Omar leans down to Steve and whispers. "I thought you didn't have to pay taxes in Nevada. Do you want me to 'scare' them off?"

He turns towards the officers and glowers at them. "Aren't we supposed to report all this at the end of the year when we file our taxes?"

(Earlier)

The hand was dealt and Steve watched the other players for several moments without looking at his cards. Steve had won the last three hands and the table felt he was due for his comeuppance. Whale #1's left eyebrow twitched just a hair above his glasses, he also shifted his balance forward about a third of an inch. Translation: Good but not great cards. Whale #2 was holding garbage, but he might bluff. Pro #1 faked a broad smile, trying to say that he had very good cards. He was lying twice, by telling everyone he had good cards he was trying to say he didn't. His eyes didn't shift up however so he was actually telling the truth.

Steve glanced at his own hand. Pair of Aces, pair of Jacks, and a two. A baseline would discard the two and hope for a full house. From the way the cards were landing that would be the wrong move, neither a Jack nor an Ace was one of the 16 cards that he thought might come up next. Steve discarded both aces and the two. There were two Jacks that might come up with his 2nd or 3rd card, if it happened that would give him a three of a kind.

Steve's three cards came out and his poker face broke slightly and he almost frowned, the Pro took note he was unhappy and prepared his move. This was almost annoying, he’d gotten both Jacks, this gave him four of a kind. This would be the 4th time in a row he had four of a kind. This was almost embarrassing, especially for someone who didn’t believe in Luck. If it were possible, and he was sure it wasn’t, he would have gotten the impression his powers were laughing at him.

Steve waited exactly four seconds and then raised the pot by 50 thousand. Whale #1 raised by 20 thousand, Whale #2 dropped out, the Pro raised by 150. Steve then did the same. No one dropped out or raised again, more than a million changed hands at the end, as did the dealer, and the deck of cards. Considering the age and lack of beauty of the dealer, Steve was pretty sure this was the pit boss. To add insult to injury he asked the waitress for another Bourbon. The Pro hid a smirk well, only a rank amateur drank while he gambled and luck couldn’t hold out forever.

(Also earlier)

On the way out Steve says, to Omar,

“Thanks again for staying around. Just getting out would have been a problem.”

((Lie Detector on))

"Agent Harris you say? Of the Internal Revenue Service?" Cody asks.