I didn't really want to break any eggs, my original intention was to make a "realistic" post (i.e. I figured that the girls who participated had their own reasons to want the money so badly, were each going to generate some kind of fan base, and probably have a support crew behind them).
The fusion reactor is just a plausible motivation for someone like Serena to enter the contest (now I sorta regret it, in fact, because it's the one piece of "weird tech" I mentioned that does not exist as such; oh well, let's just say that Fleishmann and Pons got it right...) and it basically snowballed from there. I tried to give the impression of the whole "Team Fusion" gig building up AFTER Serena had made the final cut, since there's no way in hell she'd have passed selections if she mentioned it before. One good thing is that this subplot gives a possible diversion from the risk of running the storyline into a one-episode-one-week-four-challenges routine.
I'm honestly as curious as you and (I guess) GH to see who will win the WWYD contest and what will be left of them... if this was happening for real, I'd give Team Fusion a 10% on winning, 20% on getting killed and 40% on being arrested on an excuse or expelled on a technicality. I'd also have driven to LA weeks ago to help out, of course 
[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: Conrad Volkov ]