Wednesday poker existed in a superposition of all possible games until someone observed their cards.
Jack entered the rec room through peripheral vision (the only reliable method) to find the usual suspects: Echo shuffling a deck that kept changing suits, Pi calculating pot odds in dimensions that shouldn't have odds, and Ensign Torres whose shadow was still drafting legal documents from Shadow Union negotiations.
"Castellan!" Echo waved him over. "Ready to lose money that exists in quantum states?"
The table itself couldn't decide if it was round or square, settling on something fractally in between. Chips existed as probability clouds until bet. The deck contained the standard 52 cards plus some that would exist next Tuesday and one that used to be a sandwich.
"Buy-in is twenty credits or equivalent temporal currency," Pi explained, their numbers arranging into chip-like formations. "Your shadow eaten any good redundancy lately?"
Jack's shadow perked up and immediately began consuming the redundant shuffling time. Echo's seven shuffles compressed into one perfect randomization. The cards seemed grateful.
"That's cheating," Torres protested.
"That's efficiency," Jack countered, taking his seat in a chair that was 73% likely to exist.
The first hand started normally. Then the cards achieved consciousness.
"I refuse to be a two of clubs!" Jack's lowest card announced. "I identify as an ace!"
"Identity politics have no place in poker," Echo said firmly, but her king was already transitioning into a queen, who was dating the jack from another deck entirely.
Pi's hand was mathematically perfect—five cards that summed to exactly pi. Unfortunately, this included the square root of clubs and an imaginary spade, neither of which were legal in any known poker variant.
"I'll raise five credits from next Thursday," Torres bet, pushing temporal chips forward.
"I'll see that and raise ten minutes of yesterday," Echo countered.
Jack looked at his cards. Thanks to station physics, he had a royal flush, a ham sandwich (that card again), and something that might be the concept of Wednesday. His shadow helpfully ate the confusion, leaving him with a mundane pair of eights.
"Fold," he decided.
"Your shadow's making the game too normal," Pi complained. "Poker's no fun when causality works!"
As if in response, the deck shuffled itself mid-hand. Everyone's cards swapped randomly, except for Torres who somehow ended up with six aces, all from different dimensions.
"That's statistically impossible," Pi calculated.
"Welcome to Wednesday poker," Echo grinned, revealing her hand: five jokers and a business card from someone named Dave.
The pot at the center of the table had evolved beyond mere credits. It now contained three temporal currencies, someone's missing sock from last Tuesday, the concept of purple, and a very confused sandwich that might have once been a card.
"New rule," Jack suggested. "No cards achieving sentience during play."
"Motion seconded," the deck voted unanimously.
By the third hand, things had deteriorated beautifully. Pi won with a hand that existed only in mathematical theory. Echo's violent shadow was intimidating other players' cards into folding themselves. Torres's legally-minded shadow kept filing injunctions against impossible hands.
Jack's shadow, meanwhile, had discovered poker faces contained massive redundancy. It snacked happily, making everyone's tells disappear but also removing their ability to bluff. The game became weirdly honest.
"I have garbage cards but I'm betting anyway because I'm bored," Echo announced.
"I calculated a 0.003% chance of winning but I like those odds," Pi added.
"My cards are currently in small claims court with each other," Torres sighed.
The final hand ended when the pot achieved critical mass and formed its own investment portfolio. The sandwich-card had somehow won by default, having been the only player to maintain consistent physical form throughout the game.
"Same time next week?" Echo asked, counting her winnings in three different temporal currencies and what might have been someone's Tuesday.
"If the rec room exists," Jack agreed.
His shadow burped, full of redundant poker rituals. Somewhere in its digestive system, all the unnecessary shuffles and meaningless tells were being converted to pure temporal energy.
Just another Wednesday night at Station Zeta-9, where even the cards had commitment issues.