24 – Two Days Later – Hour 22
The following takes place between 4 pm and 5 pm
4:00 pm – Jack, Chloe, Morris and Bill are standing next to two white poles. They look around for a moment, and realize there are many more white poles all around them. An eerie deserted feeling comes over them. Bill says, “I don’t like this. Where are all the people?” Morris looks up and says, “Better question: What the heck are those things?”
Everyone looks up and sees a large circular platform at the top of each pair of poles. Chloe says, “Either we’re in the future, or Seattle has gone crazy with that Space Needle design.”
4:03 p m- Jack uses some binoculars he finds in the Batman utility belt he’s still wearing, and scans the sky. He points off into the distance as he watches, and says, “It looks like a stream of flying cars over there!”
Chloe says, “That’s still not much of a hint. Are we in Seattle or not?”
Bill suddenly yells, “Jack! Look out!”
4:04 pm -Jack turns around just in time to be bowled over by a grey blur that hits him fast and hard, knocking him to the ground.
The object that hit Jack turns and heads back, slowing down. It’s a dog…wearing a jet pack.
The dog makes noise that sounds like, “Ruh Ro.” as he slows down to where Jack fell.
4:06 pm – Jack rubs his head, and sees the dog. He says “Great… Just great. Talking dogs…” and then passes out.
Commercial
4:11 pm – Jack wakes up. He’s lying on the floor, surrounded by Chloe, Morris and Bill. Jack says, “I had the strangest dream! You were there… and you… and you! I was in a far-away land, traveling to the Emerald City…”
Chloe slaps Jack, “Snap out of it and quit screwing around! We have to figure out where to go!”
A man runs into the room. “Is he OK? Where do you have to go? You’re not going to sue are you?” He falls to his knees, “Oh, please! Don’t sue! I have two kids, a wife, a dog, and a robot to feed! Mr. Spacely will be so mad! Please!”
Jack sits up, “Calm down! I’m not going to sue! Where are we? Who are you?”
The man says, “George Jetson. You’re in my house!”
Jack introduces everyone, and then asks, “Why would we sue you?”
George looks surprised to hear Jack say this. “What? What do you mean?”
Jack says, “Well, it was an accident, right? Why would I sue you for that?”
George looks suspicious and says, “It’s how you earn your living? Half the population are lawyers, and the other half sue… You’re not from around here are you?”
4:15 pm – Jack says, “No, as a matter of fact we’re not.” He sizes up George, and decides he’s O.K. “You have to promise not to tell anyone… We’re time travelers.”
George says, “And…?”
Bill says, “What do you mean, ‘and?’ Doesn’t that surprise you?”
4:16 pm – George says, “Why should that surprise me? My son was off on a time-travel field trip last week! He went to 2010, to listen to the Big Diddy Gore and the “I Was Just Kidding” concert tour…”
Chloe says, “Big … You mean Al Gore?”
George exclaims, “Oh! You’ve heard of him! He was really big back in 2010. Toured all over the country after the fight.”
Chloe asks, “Fight? What fight? You mean the 2000 election?”
George scoffs. “Pffft! That was nothing! He got into it with some of the candidates for flying around in jets during the 2008 election cycle, and decided to bag the whole election thing. He started wearing his Nobel Prize around his neck and created a rap group.”
Morris says, “And he was famous for this? For this rap music?”
George says, “For a while, but…”
4:19 pm – Jack interrupts, “This is all really fascinating, but we came here to do a job, not to find out who the latest rap artists will be in…. What year did you say this was?”
A woman’s voice calls from the other room. “George, dear! We’re home!”
The dog goes bounding out of the room, saying “Roh Roy!”
4:20 pm – George motions for everyone to follow him, and they go into the next room. A woman is standing in the kitchen with a young boy and a white haired young woman.
George says, “Let me introduce you. This is my wife Jane, my son Elroy, and my daughter Judy.”
Morris mutters, “Daughter? That white hair makes her look like a grandma!”
Chloe slugs him in the shoulder.
4:22 pm – Jane says, “Everyone’s still out on vacation. The stores weren’t crowded at all. We had…
Jack says, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we really need to get some information. Do you have a computer we can use?”
Elroy speak ups, “Sure! I got one with my cereal.” He points to a small capsule tied to a square box.
Chloe picks up the capsule. “This is a computer? That’s amazing!”
Elroy takes the capsule out her hand. “That’s the cereal.” He hands her the box, “This is the computer.” He walks away, saying “Geesh! Grown-ups! Come on, Astro!” He and Astro leave.
Chloe stares at the box in her hand. “How do I use this? What does it run?”
Jane says, “That runs the latest and greatest from Microsoft: Windows XP!”
Morris asks, “Windows XP?”
Jane says, “Oh, you know… They keep coming out with new operating systems every couple of years, but everyone wants to use something kind of stable, so we just keep going back to Windows XP, even for the toy computers like that one.”
Chloe says, “Well, how do I use it?”
4:25 pm – Jane takes the box from Chloe’s hand, and places the box on the table. She presses both sides at once, and 42 inch video panel appears in mid-air, just floating there. Jane says, “It’s a bit of a toy, like I said. It only has three exabytes of storage, and a 400 terahertz CPU. It should be good enough for browsing on the Internet.”
Chloe stares at the video screen. It’s still dark.
Chloe asks, “Why isn’t doing anything yet?”
Jane says, “I told you, it’s running Windows! It’s still booting!”
Commercial
4:32 pm – Jack and Bill stand near the window overlooking the rest of the buildings. He asks George, “Where is everyone? You’re the only people we’ve seen, except for those airplanes out there.”
George says, “Those aren’t airplanes. That’s the expressway. Anyway, everyone’s down in Miami for The Herald Hunt. Biggest event in the country. It’s in its 74th year. The Herald Hunt is run by Dave Barry and Tom Shroeder…”
Jack says, “Yeah, I know what it is. I was there last year… Wait a minute, how could those guys be running it still? Wouldn’t they be…” He counts on his fingers, and gives up. “Really old by now?”
George says, “Oh, they’re still around. I think they were the ones that discovered your body could be preserved by beer. Anyway, a few years ago, they decided to let computers handle the whole thing. They did a personality download to the computers to create puzzles for the Hunt.”
Bill says, “Why did they do that?”
George says, “They used to make the puzzles themselves, but it got to the point where the people solving the puzzles were SO good at it, they were solving the Hunt before the Hunt started. After that happened, Tom and Dave decided to switch to computers.”
Jack asks, “Did that work?”
George says, “Oh, yeah… Now it does. It took a few weeks to get the computers started up though. When they first started the download, it filled up 45 terabytes with booger jokes before it started working on Hunt puzzles.”
4:37 pm – Jane walks over to Jack and tells him he has a phone call. She presses a button on the wall, and a large video phone descends from the ceiling. Fenster is on the screen.
Fenster says, “Jack! I’m glad I got you! Ex-Secretary of Defense Heller is REALLY mad. He drove off a couple cliffs within the last couple of hours alone. He wants to hold CTU accountable for Audrey’s disappearance. He’s threatening to shut the place down!”
Jack responds, “Now, excuse me if I’m mistaken here…. But you’re talking about Ex-Secretary of Defense Heller, right?”
Fenster says, “Right…”
Jack says, “He’s an ‘EX’ Secretary! Let him drive off all the cliffs he wants to. What’s he going to do? He’s not in the position to do anything anyway. I’ll look for Audrey when we get out of this mess. Get Nadia to get some help over there, to get us out of here!” He presses a button and the video phone retracts into the ceiling.
4:42 pm – Chloe says, “Hey, Jack! I got it working! You have to come and see this!”
Jack and Bill walk over to Chloe and she points at the screen. “You see that? That’s the CTU website!”
The web page she’s pointing at reads: “Welcome to CTU: Comforting Terrorism Unit”.
Jack yells, “Comforting?! That’s just wrong!! What’s happened to our CTU?!”
4:46 pm – Jack asks George to take them over to CTU headquarters. They get into George’s flying car. Chloe asks how they fuel it. George tells her that they’ve found that by capturing all the hot air and methane generated in Washington D.C, they were able to supply most of the country’s fuel needs.
Commercial
4:51 pm – They arrive at a building covered with painted flowers and the letters CTU perched on top of it.
Bill says, “This looks like something out of the sixties!”
Chloe looks at Morris and says, “If you say ‘groovy’, I’m going to taser you.”
4:53 pm – They walk towards the building, and see a small display in front of a fountain. On the display, there’s a picture of a rabbit and a wolf holding paws. The plaque reads:
“Dedicated to all those terrorists who are just so gosh darn hard to convince that bombing, shooting, and hostage taking are bad things. We hope that through our continued efforts, we’ll get an understanding of why they are so mad at us. We also hope that they’re not doing bad things while we wait for their next moves, so we can make the world a better place through hugs and pats on their thighs.
Signed,
Jacques Bauer – Head of CTU – Comfort Terrorism Unit”
Jack looks like he’s about to throw up. He asks, “What’s going on around here? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever read! Hugs? Pats on the thigh?! Is this guy kidding??”
4:55 pm – They walk into the building where the doorman hands them each a flower. They walk up to the receptionist. Jack says, “I want to talk to this Jacques Bauer, right now! There are some terrorists on the loose around here somewhere, and we need to talk to him right away!”
The receptionist says, “I’m sorry, but he’s in a meeting right now can can’t be disturbed.” She glances over at the conference room behind her. Jack sees this, heads for the door and opens it.
4:57 pm – Two figures at the end of the conference room are hugging. A man says, “There! Isn’t that so much better! A nice hug will help get that hostility out!”
Jacques turns, and Chloe says, “Jack! That could be your brother! …Er, I mean if you still had a brother.”
Jack says, “Shut up, Chloe!”
A metallic voice says, “Yes, shut up, Chloe! Jack and I have some business to deal with.” The figure turns, and it’s the same hooded figure they’ve been following. “Your days of following me around have ended! With this device, I’ll send you all to a place where you can’t do any harm!”
Jack runs towards him, and ZAP! There’s a flash of light. Jack’s gone.
Chloe yells, “Again with the melodrama…” The figure points the device, and ZAP! Chloe, Morris and Bill are gone too.
Jacques looks at the hooded figure, and says, “Now, what did I tell you about hostility? Hug it out!” He tries to go for another hug, but the hooded figure pushes a button on a wrist watch, and disappears in a flash of light.
4:59 pm – Jack, Bill, Chloe and Morris find themselves standing on the sidewalk of an urban street.
5:00 pm – Time’s up!
