As they walked into the suite, the odd shape of the exterior wall or window made the room seem odd but that was the least of his worries.  He had grabbed a USA today off of the front desk as they registered and as he set down his pack he asked how much money she had.  His father had given him $200 dollars when he had gotten his drivers license and he had kept it folded behind his drivers license and never used it since it was there in case of emergencies only.  He'd had more than one meal of Ramen noodles but had not dipped into the emergency money.<br/><br/>"Emmy, we just finished the big basketball bracket and pool a couple weeks ago.  I did fairly well and although I don't remember every score of every game, I bet that if I worked backwards, I could fill this out almost perfectly.  That is 64 games and we can win a lot of money.  We don't need to get rich and buy cars and houses, but if we are going to go back in time i want to do research, I want to plan.  We should buy laptops and know what we are getting ourselves into.  We should know about where we are going and the history of the place."<br/><br/>Walking toward the window and looking out at the strip.  "We can vacation here for a while, camping in luxury, but let's treat this like a job and spend some part of the day, figuring out the replicator and what we can and can't do.  We talked to Ben about bullets but what about a bag of ice, a package of steaks, medicines, soap, toilet paper, can we get a bag of gold and replicate that?  We can eat at the restaurants here, go to the clubs here, gamble and make money here, and we can get ready for our big adventure."<br/><br/>He spread out the paper on the coffee table and the tournament was going to start the following day.  He looked at the first round and tried to remember the big upsets.  Then he just looked at the big bracket printed out and got a pen from the table beside the bed and started to fill it out.  He stopped and looked at Emmy, "I can't believe this is actually happening to us.  I can't think of anyone else, I'd rather be on this adventure with.  Does that plan work for you?  We are here for three days but the tournament will take a few weeks.  I say we take the next three weeks and live like kings and queens.  We can get everything we need and have a lot of fun before we head back in time even further."<br/><br/>Ben had said they couldn't take things through the portal that were alive and there was the big room at the portal itself.  They could store things there so whatever they could carry could be used in their current day whenever they decided to go back.  Mark was just finishing his MBA and had been spending his summer working as an intern with a major retail company.  Buying products, selling products, supply and demand.  It was interesting to watch the process of determining need, negotiating price and shipping, marketing and selling the products.  He wondered what people in the time they were going would want to buy.<br/><br/>As Emmy started to unpack their bags and put things in drawers, Mark went back to the bracket and started to fill it out with the games he knew and since he knew the final eight teams with certainty, the rest seemed to fall  into place and soon he was done.  "I think we have our path to financial freedom laying before us."