Sunday arrives and everyone piles into the craft again for the trip down to the planet. You get to the Bellagio's banquet room early and make sure that everything is arranged to your liking. Even though you've arrived early there are already a handful of people lined up at the doors with resumes in hand. Two large men in dark suits stand guard at the doors and prevent anyone from entering. When you approach, they look the group over and take particular note of Omar and Steve and open the doors for you asking if you have any specific instructions about letting the applicants in. They are here courtesy of Belliago security.

A few minutes after you enter, a man in a hand tailored suit enters and approaches Steve. "Sir, welcome back to the Belliago. We are so happy that you decided to return after your amazing run of luck the other day. Needless to say, that was quite an impressive win, and I just want to assure you that we at the Belliago are dedicated to providing you with a level of service and comfort that you won't find elsewhere in Las Vegas or the world for that matter." He pulls a very fancy plastic card from his pocket and presents it, "This is a comp for one of our vip suites, it is good for a week, but if you need more time, just ask for me, Jonathan Hingle. Anything that you need, just feel free to ask. Oh, and I've taken the liberty to arrange for your lunch to be delivered. You only need to tell the kitchen what you would like. Again, we hope you will choose the Belliago for all your future visits." He waits for a moment to see what questions you might have or if there is anything you require before he leaves.

At noon security opens the doors and lets in the job seekers. The crowd that enters the room is maybe two hundred or so people of widely varied backgrounds and ethnicities. Most have resumes in hand for you to look over. It takes only a few minutes to get everyone situated so that you can begin to weed out the candidates you aren't interested in.

Anyone in the party that wants to can sit at a table and the candidates will approach and present their resumes. Those that are obviously unsuited are given $100 and thanked and they leave.
After a good 2 hours of looking over resumes, you have narrowed it down to a pool of 56 possible candidates, and all of the rejects have left the room. Steve asks everyone to be seated in and climbs onto the dias to address the crowd.

(Speach time.)

Carter looks over the amassed crowd of people and shakes his head So many people willing to walk away from everything, it's hard to believe that anybody would choose exile ...

After watching the proceedings for a while Carter gets up and leaves walking out into the casino proper and meandering the floor. He picks a few pockets and lifts a few wallets on his way out to the street.

Carter spends the better part of the afternoon wandering from casino to casino, keeping to the airconditioned comfort of gambling establishments. He wanders through the crowd lifts money, chips and jewlry. Feels good to get back to my roots he thinks to himself, Now if I only had a real reason to do any of this

Eventually Carter makes his way back to the Bellagio and stops by the conference room just as the last of the "unworthy" are leaving, This ought to be good, he thinks as he takes up a position at the back of the room to listen to Steve speak.

The job fair progressed quickly. Omar sat at the table and with a big smile, took the application, and looked over it. Depending on their qualifications, their applcation was put into one of six differing piles. Those who obviously didn't have the experience necessary for any of the positions, were dismissed with a handshake and given $100.00. Most of them turned right around and gambled it in the Bellagio.

Omar enjoyed being around crowds again. It reminded him of the throngs which used to come and cheer on he and his fellow wrestlers. Soon he, and the others, would get to demonstrate their abilities to an unsuspecting group of people who had never heard of a Nova.

While Steve moved up to the podium, Omar motioned for security to close the doors to the banquet room.

Steve thanks Mr. Hingle profusely, and tells him that he’s been very happy with everything, and it was wise of him to introduce security to the situation ahead of time.

After the first cut, Steve dings on a glass for attention then walked up to the podium and starts to speak.

“Thank you for coming here today. This is the point were I make an inspirational and informative speech about the jobs, and answer questions. First the good news. Although they may seem “too good to be true”, the jobs are in fact real. I was in the news a few nights ago as that guy who won 100 million dollars in a single night gambling. That’s where the money for outfitting this is coming from. Oh, and if you’ve lasted this long, then you’ll be walking out that door with 200 dollars. We even already have a ship, we came here in it.”

“The thing is, the ship is currently in orbit around the moon. Yes, I’m quite serious. We are not aliens from another planet, but we aren’t from this world either. We are from sideways in time, also known as an alternate world, where events happened somewhat differently. The jobs we are offering are on a space and time ship. Until very recently, about 10 years ago, our worlds were the same. Now let’s talk about the past, for by understanding it we understand the present.”

“My name is Steve Courier and I’m 71 years old. Six months ago I looked the part. I was born in Chicago, and drafted into the Army to fight in Viet Nam. I joined the FBI after I got out. Thanks to Gulf war syndrome I lost sensation in my hands in ‘92. Fairly typical stuff.”

“But in our world, in 1998 things changed radically. Some people started to erupt, that means that in a moment of stress or whatever, they instantly changed into novas, or demi-gods, or quantum wielders, or whatever you want to call it. The upshot is that people started to get powers. 6 months ago I had a heart attack, and instead of dying, my brain started channeling quantum. Thus I became a nova. In my case that means I got a new body. And I now think very clearly, quickly, and I’m luckier than should be possible. We can talk more about this latter...”

“Because that’s your cue to say bullshit and wonder what kind of con game this is. If I were a huckster I’d start mumbling about how you’re supposed to have faith and I’d be asking for money. Instead I’ll ask Omar here to provide some proof. His abilities are somewhat more impressive. He’s bullet proof and really strong.”

Steve tosses Omar a rod of metal rebar from a pile he has on a table.

(Investigative Prodigy on, Lie Detector on, Luck Roll as appropriate, Command Roll for Speech)

Omar stands up and waves briefly at the curious crowd. He moves to the closest applicant; a 20 something man with an athletic build.

"Can you toss me two more rods, Steve?" Omar asks, as he looks at the young man in front of him. Once he gets the exra rods, he asks the man to come up front with him so everyone can see.

"I want you to take this rod and tell me if it is real." Omar says in a loud booming voice, as he hands the man the rebar.

"Sure is" the man smiles, as if he is on stage with a magician.

"Good! Now, I want everyone to watch." Omar replies.

He takes one of the two pieces of rebar that are in his hands and quickly and effortlessly ties it into a bow. Once finished, he hands it to th young man.

After letting what Omar just did, sink in, he makes another request of the young man.

"I want you to take the metal bar you are holding and hit me as hard as you can over the head. Don't worry you won't be able to do much harm to me, if at all."

Omar bends over, exposing his head to the man.

(Ok, let me start with my first post here, hullo all )

Alejandro is still pretty sure this is all a very elaborate trick, even if the metal bar that was just twisted by the man now presenting his head to be bashed open seemed quite real. As does the one he is holding at the moment.

With a small shrug of his shoulders Alejandro takes a fencing attack stance, aims the metal bar and brings it square down on Omar's head.

Omar has a small headache and a slight bruise, both of which go away almost as soon as they are received. Several people in the audience at this point want to examine the bars. Even the ones that examine the bars are pretty much convinced that this is an elaborate hoax.
Morgan steps forward and offers more proof, "If I may have your attention for a moment. One of my gifts is the ability to open holes in the fabric of space negating distance. For instance, I will open a warp to the north pole. Anyone who wants to step through and stand around in the cold for a few moments are welcome to do so. I can only hold the warp open for a few moments so if you dally in the arctic you'll have to wait until I open another doorway, but feel free to take as long as you want convincing yourself that you are really at the north pole."

With that he opens a warp, through which the cold air is quite apparent. Twenty or so take him up on the offer and step through. After a moment he lets the warp go leaving them stranded. Other members of the audience wander around the area where the warp was inspecting floor to see if the can figure out how the trick is done. Morgan gives the ones that went through a couple minutes to get really cold and convince themselves there's no trick before he reopens the warp to let them come back. Those that went through are quite convinced. Some of the others are still a little skeptical but are starting to believe.

(Anyone else want to show off?)

Omar looks around the banquet room, sizeing it up. He knows that if he grows, all disbelief will go away.

In a loud voice. "Ladies and Gentlemen, if you could clear a large area in the center of the room, I will prove to the rest of you that we are who we say we are."

Omar has the applicants make a retangular area 30 feet wide and 30 feet long. He goes to the center of the area, and lies on his side, with his legs curled up against his body. Then he gently pushed quantum through his node and then throughout his body. It grows into gigatic proportions.

Once he has grown, he says to the onlookers. "Feel free to touch me, or climb on me. You will find that I am quite real." He reaches out over the crowd and picks up Steve. "Sorry pal, but they have to realize we are serious." Omar sets Steve down in front of him.

Still feeling chill from the short arctic jaunt, Alejandro takes a few tentative steps towards the now-gigantic Omar and extends his hand to touch the man.

As his pokes assert the reality of everything that has transpired before him his mouth vocalises a mute "Madre de Dios!" and a burning question assaults his mind: "Why us?!"

After examining Omar's enlarged body (Keep it out of the gutter folks) the people are finally and completely convinced. Quite a number of them actually climb on top of him. Apparently the surreal nature of what they've witnessed has put them in a state of mind where things like climbing all over a giant is acceptable. After a few minutes the people do start muttering amongst themselves questions like Why us?, How can this be possible, Are they really talking about giving us jobs, etc.

Carter sits in the back of the room and chuckles to himself. Its a tough one to swallow but he does admit that the other present a pretty impressive show. He shakes his head finally and stands up looking about the room. He walks over to Steve and offers a word on congratulations before heading back out toward the casino proper.

Steve says,

"Thank you, but now comes part two."

Steve does the glass and spoon trick again until he has everyone’s attention, then says,

“Now that you’ve seen enough to believe, I can continue without sounding totally insane.”

“What was that? Why you?” Steve shrugs, “Mostly because you live in Las Vegas. I’ll come to that in a moment, all right.”

“OK, where was I? Oh yeah, novas. There’s about 10 thousand of us now days, all with different powers. As near as anyone can tell, novas erupt and then immediately impose mental limits on what we can do. I suspect that there are limits outside of those limits… but for the most part, if you can think of it, there’s probably a nova somewhere who can do it. Of course Life isn’t perfect, some religious sects in the mid-East have decided novas are evil… maybe that has something to do with the oil market falling apart after gasoline was replaced, and in China has kicked all of their novas out of the country or made them join the army. But in many ways it’s a golden age, super smart novas are inventing new technologies, super beautiful novas are making incredible movies, that sort of thing.”

“And my friends and I have been kicked off the timeline by a group of aliens. Yes, again, I’m serious. And no, I don’t have any proof this time. I’ve got no clue whether they were studying novas or created them or what. My powers make me a nova Sherlock Holmes, and apparently they didn’t like being caught, no one is supposed to know they exist. So they teleported us onto one of their ships, and then sent the ship off on a one way trip off the timeline. This was a few days ago, our time.”

“We now have control of the ship, but we can’t go back. So, we go forward. Eventually we’re going to research a number of things, like the destiny of humanity and whether or not we need to interfere. But first we need to put the ship in order, and that means taking on supplies, and crew, and that sort of thing.”

“The first step was money. Between the six of us we had about 6 grand in cash. One of my gifts is super human luck, so the obvious thing to do was to come to Las Vegas and win money. So we did.”

“This brings us to out fitting the ship. So far we have a machine shop, and food, and more food, and still more food, and we’re going to need a hydroponics bay for even more. Most novas eat a huge amount of food, like five or even ten times as much as a baseline would. Think of Omar eating half his weight in food every day.”

“We have unlimited money, a ship that travels through time and space, we are going to go exploring and see what we can find, and now we are looking for crew. Several cooks, maids, a doctor, that sort of thing. We might be gone a long time, and some of the time jumps we’ll make can take us outside of time for literally months, so phoning home is going to be a real problem.”

“Questions?”

Alejandro tentatively raises his hand.

“er...excuse me Senor Steve. This is really, really fantastic. Like...like Comandante Kirk from La Jornada de las...*ahem* Star Trek coming back in time in the movie to save the whales...and stuff...sort of...”

He makes a small pause before continuing.

“I have no real ties to this...timeline. All my close family is either gone or dead. I will go with you if you take me. But, are you planning to take all of us? How can those that get left behind keep on living in the normal world after...well, after all these revelations. This is as big as...as meeting Jesus Cristo...well, sort of...”

He becomes silent and plays with his hands nervously, afraid of having come out as a total fool.

Over the psionic link only to Courier:

*Sigh*

*What did I tell you? All this flash when a subtler hand would do...Why couldn't we just have investigated ourselves? I mean...thats what we *do* now. We could have specifically tailored our search...I mean really have been specific. But a random pool of people in...Vegas??? We should have started with Stanford...*

*But Novas will be Novas, I suppose...assuming we can just waltz in and take charge of the world... This may sound a little wierd, coming from me, but the guy is right...we're messing with these people's heads. Like when I was a kid and saw David Blaine perform. It was so real it screwed me up for a day trying to figure out if magic was real and if I wasnt missing out on some greater reality. How much more have we just done? I think we need to really check our ego's when it comes to Lorean, Steve. Even a little bit of hubris with this much power and things could turn ugly.*

*On top of it all, we're in an odd company now. Omar is showboating. Carter is sulking. Isabel seems autistic. And Marcus is...a golfer? At least Morgan seems pretty OK though.*

*Sigh*

*Sorry for rambling. I just would have prefered to do this our way. That and it feels really good to have telepathic contact without assaulting someone...*

*Glad you're here, Steve.*

Most of the crowd has found their seats and are waiting for the other shoe to drop. A young woman in her twenties raises her hand and speaks, "I don't really know what to think of all of this. I can barely believe my eyes, and I'm still not really sure I believe, but I can't go with you on your space ship. I don't have anything to do right now, but in a few years my mother will need someone to take care of her." She looks hesitant at first and unsure of whether you will let her leave knowing what you are, but when no one stops her she becomes more confident and heads to the door. She does accept the $200 on her way out though. As if her leaving were the opening of the flood gates, many more stand up and make their way to the door; some with looks of regret, others with looks of relief. Once they have all exited, you are left with 17 candidates, who appear ready to leave their homes for good, but like the ones who left, some look more sure of themselves than others, and a couple look positively eager to jump in your spaceship and fly away.

One man stands up. "Money or no money, I want to go with you for the adventure, but I have to ask. You are offering to pay us 5 to 10 times the normal pay, but what good does that do us in space or other realities?" Once he finishes, he sits back down and waits for an answer.

Another young woman stands and asks, "If we go, will we get powers like yours? Could we get powers?" Everyone in the audience looks interested in the answer to this question.

An older man asks, "Those aliens you spoke of, are they chasing you? Are there other aliens?"

Carter leaves the room as the questions begin to fly, Time for you guys to show your true colors, tell these nice folks that they will in all likelyhood not see this world again. Tell them that you don't know if the watchers are after us, watching us, or could care less. And for Gods sake how are you going to explain taint?

Carter shakes his head and takes off through the casino. Eventually he ends up at the bar and starts ordering shots, vodka, bourbon, rum, tequila, whatever he can to get shitty as quickly as possible.

***(Carter at the bar)***
After the 10th shot the bartender starts to question you as to whether you've had enough. Of course with a nova metabolism, you haven't had anywhere near enough yet. By the 15th shot you are starting to get a buzz, but the bartender is giving you very dark looks, despite how little you are showing the effects and is refusing to serve you further. By wandering to another area of the casino you are able to find someone to serve you drinks, but you are on your 20th shot before you are feeling enough effect to be sastified, but you can't mantain it for long unless you keep going, and the staff keeps refusing to serve you when they think you've had too much.

Time to hit the packy! Carter thinks as he stumbles away from the latest bar to refuse to serve him. Luckily its easy enough to find a bar in Vegas and very easy to find a package store when you are determined. Carter begins to stumble through the streets, stopping as needed at casinos on the strip to maintain his buzz. Half an hour later he is in a package store buying half a dozen bottles of assorted high alcohol content liquer.

A short while later he has checked into a room at the MGM Grand and is sitting in a pile on the floor drinking heavily. Better to drown out the pain than to live like this ...

Steve says,

“Just keep in mind what happened to the red shirts.”

Well… it seemed like a good idea at the time. But I’m expecting some of these people to drop out.*

Ditto. … and I have concerns myself. If they don’t grow out of it, we’re going to have to give them the opportunity for suicidal revenge. Build or find a time machine, and let them go back to Earth Prime.*

Steve smiles with regret and says,

“Then please take $200 and go with our thanks. I can’t complain, the advertised job doesn’t match the reality.”

Steve laughs and says,

“Well if I’d advertised that money was meaningless I didn’t think I’d get an answer.”

“More seriously, I expect people will drop out as we go along. I expect to reward service. Actually we could use some help in figuring out a fair way of recompensing people. Your weight in gold per year? Or maybe our cure for cancer or whatever? And yes, there will be timelines where there are no people and thus no money, but I expect that wherever there are people, there will also be money. With nova powers and the ship it’s trivial to generate insane amounts of money.”

Steve grimaces,

“The short answer is I don’t know. Keep in mind this is not a well understood phenomenon, but… you need to have the right genetics in order to erupt. Personally I think that’s a cop-out and a confession of ignorance of our medical establishment. Supposedly there are tests that tell you whether or not you are latent, but they are expensive, on a different timeline, and not very predictive. All very confidence building.”

“Lots of latents don’t erupt at all. Lots and lots of people have spent big money over many years to find out how to make people erupt. Novas are big money and have big money. To the best of my knowledge no one is even close to an answer, much less a solution. Some latents erupt all by themselves, presumably because the level of quantum on our planet is higher than yours because the space shuttle exploded while carrying some mysterious cargo. All very X-files. Lots of latents erupt around other novas. That’s probably the most common eruption type, just because the biggest source of quantum is a living nova. That’s how I erupted…”

Steve points to Cody and smiles,

“There he is. He was staying at my place then I had a heart attack and erupted. Blame him.”

“OK, supposedly, about one person in 100,000 is a latent. Those aren’t good odds. What I would like to say is that the chances of you personally erupting are so small they shouldn’t figure into the equation. That is my advise for how you should decide whether or not you want to come. However…”

Steve waves his hands a bit in frustration, “However, you were chosen almost at random and I’m superhumanly lucky. It’d be outrageously lucky for us to have one of you be a latent, but well… it could happen.”

“While we are on that subject, there are downsides for being a nova. Yes, you get powers. You also change. Normally this is for the better, but there are downsides, sometimes serious. Most novas are sterile. You change into something somewhat removed from the normal human, it shouldn’t be a surprise. Most novas eat an insane amount, we’ve mentioned that.”

“Novas who can not fully control their powers are said to be tainted. At low levels this is odd but not dangerous, say they erupt and find their eyes glow. Basically they don’t quite store all their quantum correctly. Taint is one of the big fears in being a nova, continued abuse of your powers can lead to less and less control over them. There have been a few people who have continued to change until… well… until human isn’t really a word that should be used. As far as we know, although abuse of powers generates taint, there is no cure. That’s going to be a high priority on things for which to look.”

Steve answers,

“Chasing us? No. They left us a message saying we were to never go to any of “their” timelines, by which they mean “our” timeline, and they programmed the ship so she can’t. They created the ship, they apparently control time way past anything we can even dream of, whether they even care enough about us to watch us is conjecture. So far we’ve seen no sign of them, but it’s early.”

“As for other aliens, the ship claims that she has run into a hostile group of aliens some time ago. On that timeline they’re xenophobes, and the ship and they apparently fought it out. Figuring out how much of a problem they are going to be is another high priority.”

Lorean speaks up over the communications. "Sorry to interrupt, and I hope you don't mind that I was listening, it just gets kinda lonely up here with everyone gone. Also, if you ever don't want me to listen all you have to do is ask me to tune out and I will. I promise, no lip reading or anything. Anyway, something you just said was not quite accurate..."

There is a slight pause before she continues, "The Watchers actually only forbade me from taking you back to your original timeline. They warned you to not interfere in their timelines, but they didn't actually program me not to take you there."

She waits a second for that to sink in before going on, "Also, I have been thinking about what some of you have been saying about being taken away from all that you cared about. I could actually take to you a timeline very similar to your own. It would not be the one you left from, but it would be identical in almost every respect. Your friends and loved ones would be there, your lives would be mostly back to normal, the only thing I would have to do is pick timelines where you suffer fatal accidents so that you could step in and replace yourself."


******************

The audience sits quietly listening to Steve's speech and his answers. They are mostly in a state of numbness, having had most of what they believe turned upside down. Some still look positively eager to join up, others look less sure, but no more have left. Finally, a hand goes up and the man asks, "I'd like to join up with you and the monetary rewards are not that important, but one thing I'd like is the right to stay on a timeline if I found one that I liked."

Another of the audience members, laughs and speaks up, "I won't complain about my weight in gold per year of salary!"

Omar shrinks down to his normal size, and looks to the first man who raises his hand. "You may choose to stay on any timeline you wish. But we need you to work for at least two years. After such time, you can settle down with your riches, on a world of your choosing, and live like a king."

Omar walked amongst the prospective employees, smiling and shaking hands. He answers any questions they have about him specifically. Questions like: "How much can you lift?", "Can you stop a bullet?", "Does it hurt when you grow?", etc...

*No worries Lorean, and thank you. It's good to have a guardian angel looking over our shoulders.*

(To everyone) *That's about 71 million dollars for a payroll, or roughly 3.4 metric tons of gold. Sounds like a good mission after this one then, it's bad for moral to let people know you don't have money to pay them at the moment. A world where war or some natural disaster took out humanity about 10 years ago. Wide spread use of a rapidly decaying radiactive? Impact from a space astroid throwing up dirt, like the dinosaurs?*

*Lorean, any advise, and how long would such a trip take? Oh, and should we purchase music and movie DVDs or do you have a library?*

Lorean responds, "I contain in memory every book ever written in your timeline, in every language, as well as images of the artwork of every major artist, and complete recordings of all movies, television and optnet programs. One moment. Reconfiguring." A few mintues later you receive an image in your minds of Lorean's new shape. The ship now looks more sleek than before and vaguely angelic. "I have reconfigured to accomodate the new crew and now include many more facilities for exercise and relaxation. I included accomidations for a crew of 50 incase you decide to expand the crew somewhat as you travel."

*Thank you Lorean.*

Steve says,

"Well, that's the general overview. Not exactly like signing up for crew on a rich man's over sized boat. Lots more money, more opportunity, and yes, more risk. No lies people, you could die out there, or get lost. On the other hand, while Captain Kirk of the Enterprise could count on not being killed as long as his ratings were good, I can’t. Unlike Omar I’m not bullet proof, I’m going to work very hard to avoid danger.”

“On that subject, while you are imagining what could happen, if I understand the mechanics of this, while dying is a worry, being maimed isn’t. Thanks to the very talented Mr. McIntyre…”

Steve points to Morgan, “…we have a healer. As I understand it, Healers are literally miracle workers for injuries of all types.”

"Let's see, other things… the ship can’t supply clothing. I’m not sure if we want to go the uniform route, but pack for everything, and I mean everything.”

“Moving on to a subject close to everyone’s heart, i.e. payment in general and gold in particular. 100 kilos times 17 people times 2 years is about 3.4 metric tons of gold, or roughly 70 million dollars. While we could buy that on the open market, that would attract an inconvenient amount of attention so I’m thinking we’ll visit a planet where war or something took out humanity but left the buildings more or less intact. Then we’ll make a resource run.”

Steve slaps his hands together.

“OK, let’s see who is left. Please call out your name, say a little about yourself, and let me find your resume.”

(Steve makes mental notes about the new crew, specifically medical personnel and whether or not there is a sufficient "spread" in skills. Medical personnel he will meet with seperately to ask them what they would advise bringing.)

(To everyone) *So what do we do now? Send them home and give them a few days to put their life in order? Say... 3 days, we'll give them our cell phone number, and have them meet back here in three days at noon?*

One by one the candidates stand up and tell a little about themselves and their skills. Some of them would like a couple days to get their lives in order, some of them are more eager.

The same man that made the joke earlier about not minding his weight in gold, asks a question. "I am a machinist by trade, name's Oliver. I could use a couple days to get things together, but I was in Vegas on a last fling vacation kinda thing having lost my job when the company went out of business. I was looking down the barrel at some hard times coming and I don't really have much by way of clothes with me here, and I'm not so sure that what I do have would be that great for hanging around on a spaceship. If you guys are wantin to hire me, could you maybe give out a signing bonus that I could use to shop for some gear?" He looks hopefully at you. (Those using lie detector think he's honest.)

Several of the other candidates, nod their heads at this and look to you guys to see what you'll say.

One of the others, a rail thin woman with a bandana on her head raises her hand, "Did you say miracle healing?" She pulls the bandana off her head revealing a few stray tiny whisps of hair; she's obviously been undergoing kemo. "Can you cure cancer?" She looks a little cynical, but at the same time a sliver of hope is in her eyes.

Morgan looks at her with sympathy, but not pity, and gestures her over. She walks over to him and stands hesitantly, "Should I sit down or lie down or something?" He shakes his head and reaches out and puts his hand on her head, and says, "Sorry for the cliche, but I find that head or chest works best when healing, nothing spiritual about it." With that his eyes begin to glow with a golden inner light first turning his irises into molten gold, then as the healing continues they glow brighter and brighter and his hand begins to shimmer as well. As you watch her hair grows back and she fleshes back out and her skin takes on a healty tone. When he is done he removes his hand and his eyes slowly return to normal. "I think your doctors had you mostly cured of the cancer before I healed you, but I've finished the job for them. You should be completely free of the cancer now." She begins to cry and throws her arms around him and just sobs for long minutes. Morgan looks a bit embarrased but hugs her back and eventually leads her to a seat and helps her compose herself.

There no longer appears to be anyone in the audience showing any signs of hesitation about joining the crew. Morgan says over the link, 'She says her name is Mary, and she was a registered nurse before she got sick."

Steve nods and says,

“Yes… that does make sense. Shall we say…”

Steve does some mental calculations based on how much money they brought with them and continues,

“…20 thousand dollars? That’s two packs of bills, and we might as well give it to everyone. Glad to have you on board Oliver. You and I need to sit down afterwards. We’re setting up a shop on board and I could really use advice on what would be useful.”

(Steve watches Morgan heal Mary and then comments)

“Well, I’m impressed.”

“OK, other business. My cell phone number is as follows, please write this down and put it in your wallet. If you are planning on leaving, we’re going to be meeting back here at noon three days from now. Remember the name we’re using, “Nova Explorations”. From the looks in my fellow novas faces, I can tell it’s time to eat once again. This hotel has a restaurant, doesn’t it?”

*Lorean, I have some questions about security. Who is allowed to give you orders? Meaning that if I leave a few of our crew on board and they order you to move to a different timeline while none of the novas are on board, would you obey?*

"No Steve. Think of this as being a military ship, just for the sake of analogy. You and the other nova's are the ships officers, those you bring on board from the various timelines are enlisted men. However, I too am intelligent and thus rank as an officer, the enlisted men would not be able to give me an order that I would be forced to obey. Of course that analogy doesn't accurately portray the reality. In truth it is more like a ship whose crew is made up entirely of Captains with the ships computer also being a Captain, and now we are adding a bunch of privates. Even if you asked me to move to another timeline and one of the others was not on board, short of an emergency, I would not leave them behind without asking them first. It's good that I'm smarter than the average bear. Those kinds of situations shouldn't be a worry to you."