Magic Lamp

Last Time: Julian runs away from Jack and company after mistakenly trying to shoot them with a toy phaser; Jack heads back to the zoo, in search of Audrey, but can’t find her; Madan Haig at CTU tries to solve the Marwan Brother problem using PowerPoint slides; Jack, Curtis, and a CTU tactical squad are cornered by the worse enemy they’ve ever faced, Marwan, his brother Julian, and hundreds of AOL customer service reps.

The follow occurred between 10 pm and 11 pm, which is good for you, because we have free unlimited night time calling rates.

10:00 pm – Under the harsh lights of the abandon warehouse alleyway, Jack and Curtis face down Julian and his gang of hundreds of AOL customer service representatives. Julian says, “You see Mr. Bauer? I have assembled a vast army of vicious AOL customer service reps! …. Well, not so much assembled, because I didn’t take them from pieces and put them together from some ACME “Customer Service” kit, because that would have been cost prohibitive and there are way too many people here to have assembled in that time. When I say assembled, I mean that I brought them together from near and far, but not too far, because then they would have had to drive here and then wanted their parking validated since we don’t have any valet parking at this sort of ‘terrorist scrimmages’ as I like to call them.” Marwan punches his brother in the arm and tells him to get on with it.

10:02 pm – Curtis turns to Jack and says, “What is it with that guy and his rambling speeches?” Jack tells Curtis that he has a plan that just might save them, but in case it doesn’t they have to be ready to run like the dickens. Curtis asks what the heck a “dickens” is, and Jack ignores him as he turns to face Julian. Jack yells, “That’s a pretty good group you’ve assembled there. Where did you did you get that idea — on the Internet? I bet you had to use a lot of different Internet accounts to avoid being caught.”

10:04 pm – Julian replies, “It was simpler than you might think, Mr. Bauer! I received many offers for free AOL accounts through the mail, signed up for them all, and used the various accounts to retrieve my messages!” Curtis mumbles to Jack that he wonders why the bad guys always feel the need to reveal their plans and tactics when they think they’re winning. Julian continues, “That is how I was able to meet all of these people with machine guns trained on you right now. Now that the plan is complete, all I’ll have to do is cancel the accounts to completely cover my tracks!”

10:06 pm – With those words, all of the AOL service reps turn towards Julian and run to him, each of them explaining the importance of keeping a subscription with AOL.

10:07 pm – Jack yells to Curtis and the CTU tactical unit, “Get the heck out of here! As soon as those AOL reps finish with Julian, they’re coming after us!” Looks of horror on all of their faces, plus the fact that they’re all satisfied with their Internet service providers, they all run into one of the warehouse buildings, while the Marwan Brothers run in the opposite direction, being chased by the AOL reps.

Commercial

10:13 pm – Jack is on the Jackphone with Chloe, who is back at CTU. Curtis and the tactical units have deployed into the warehouse to find out what’s there. He wants maps of the layouts of the warehouses, schematic diagrams of the electrical systems, and tactical layouts of the entire area. Chloe asks him if he wants fries with that. Jack tells her that, yes, he does want fries with that, and a serving of “Why Are The Marwan Brothers At The Warehouses” on the side.

10:15 pm – Curtis and one of the CTU tactical officers, easily identifiable by his “CTU Tactical Officer” T-shirt, comes in and tells Jack that he is going to have to see something for himself.

10:16 pm – They enter an office. Curtis points to a wall that has a safe with an open door. Curtis says that he put is left hand in to search the safe, and then he pulled his left hand out. Then he put is left hand back in there, and he pulled it out again. This time, there was a piece of paper stuck to it, and so he had to shake it all about to get rid of it. Jack asks Curtis if that’s what it’s all about. Jack looks at the piece of paper. It’s a letter from the Hokey Pokey Toilet company.

10:18 pm – Jack reads the letter, and tells Curtis that it is a letter outlining the company’s plans to lobby Congress to pass a law for 0.8 gallon “low-low low-flow” toilets, and the make them the standard toilet for all new installations, effectively outlawing the 1.6 gallon toilets in standard use today. In the margin, there’s a note, written in pen, that says, “Consult with Marwans.”

10:19 pm – Jack asks why the Marwans would be involved with a toilet company, especially a toilet company that’s lobbying Congress. Curtis says that he’s not sure, but considering he HATES the 1.6 gallon toilet he has now, he’s going to REALLY hate these new 0.8 gallon toilets, and he’s not going to take this sitting down. The tactical officer asks if his tactical team should stay here, hidden, in order to flush out the person responsible for the letter. Curtis tells him that it’s probably too late, and Jack interrupts to say that if he’s about to do another bad pun, he’ll have arrest someone and throw them in the tank.

10:22 pm – Jack calls Chloe with the new information, and tells her to find out where the Hokey Pokey toilet company is located. Chloe tells him that if he would just learn to use all of the features of the Jackphone that she built for him, he’d be able to look this up for himself. She looks it up, and is about to tell him when he interrupts and says, “Let me guess – Flushing, New York.” She agrees that was a good guess, but they’re actually located in Why, Arizona. Jack says, “What?”. Chloe corrects him and says, “Why”. Curtis says, “I thought he played third base?”

10:24 pm – The CTU tactical unit check to make sure that that coast is clear to make sure it’s O.K. to leave the warehouse, while Jack and Curtis walk right out of the warehouse and leave to go back to CTU.

Commercial

10:29 pm – Jack and Curtis arrive at CTU, and Chloe is waiting for them at the door. She tells them that Madam Haig is really upset because Jack keeps leaving CTU out of the loop while he’s out running around. Jack asks Chloe if Haig realizes what he’s actually doing out there is dangerous, and that he doesn’t always have time to call in while he’s being shot at. Chloe said that isn’t the reason that Haig is upset. It was Jack’s turn to bring the donuts to work this morning, and he forgot.

10:31 pm – The Marwan Brothers are driving down the street, and Marwan is ranting at Julian. Marwan is very upset that they haven’t been able to kill Jack Bauer, that they’re running out of money, and that nearly all of the thugs, villains, sidekicks, goons, and hooligans they’ve been using have either fled, been arrested or been shot. The phone rings, and Julian answers.

10:32 pm – The Hollywood Terrorist mastermind is on the phone, and wants to know what happened with the plan to attack Jack Bauer at the warehouse. Julian says, “We had Bauer cornered like a hospital bed’s sheets; I mean that you could have bounced a quarter off of it! The bed sheets, not Bauer. He proved to be a much more difficult person to actually shoot in so much as there wasn’t very much shooting as there was more running away and screaming. The down side of that was that we were the ones running away and screaming and Jack was doing more of the escaping thing. I think next time he should be a lot less ‘escapey’ and a lot more ‘capturey’ or even ‘deady’. The best thing that….”.

10:34 pm – Hollywood interrupts, and wants to know whether how much money they have left. Marwan points out that they’re actually pretty low on cash, and have resorted to checking under seat cushions and handing in bottles to obtain the deposits back. Hollywood suggests that they find some money right away, because hiring more lackeys is going to cost money, and if they want to get Jack Bauer, they need to do it soon, because they need to get to Flagstaff right away.

10:36 pm – Just as Hollywood hangs up, Julian points to a mall where an armored car being loaded up with bags. His brother agrees that’s a great idea, and Julian slams his hands into the steering wheel, saying it’ll never work, because the mall is closed, and that means that the Orange Julius is probably closed too. Marwan smacks Julian on the back of the head, and points to the armored car. Julian finally gets the idea, but looks disappointed when he realizes he won’t be getting a frozen drink tonight.

10:38 pm – The two security guards outside of the mall are continuing to load up the armored car. One of the guards says, “Have you ever noticed that when someone says ‘Nothing exciting ever happens around here’, that it’s that exact time when something exciting happens?” Just as he finishes this sentence, Marwan and Julian, masks pulled over their heads, point guns at both of the security guards. The guard says, “SEE?! I told you that always happens!”

Commercial

10:43 pm – Jack is with Chloe, going over the information they have about everything that’s happened today to see what the Hokey Pokey Toilet company has to do with what’s happening, and more importantly, whether they can make any predictions about what’s going to happen next. Chloe says, “Oh, sure – What am I, a mind reader?” Jack says, if this toilet proposal actually makes it through congress, there are going to be a lot of really mad people.

10:45 pm – The guards have taken all the bags they’ve been loading onto their armored car, and have nearly finished loading everything into the back of the Marwan’s SUV. Julian says, “Well, I bet that’s the last time you say, ‘Nothing exciting ever happens around here’ isn’t it?” Just as he finishes saying this, a group of people wearing dark sunglasses and really bad toupees come out from behind the bushes and point their guns at the guards and the Marwans. The apparent leader of this new group points his gun in front of him, and orders the guards and the Marwan Brothers to put everything in the back of the group’s station wagon, which is just driving up. Someone says, “Psst! His glasses!” One of the other members with a particularly awful toupee spins the leader to face the Marwans and the guards, and the leader repeats his demand. The person driving the station wagon drives it right into the armored car, and the driver starts yelling, asking who’s stupid idea it is to put on dark glasses in the first place.

10:47 pm – Back at CTU headquarters, Curtis notices a blinking dot on her computer monitor, and asks Chloe what it is. Chloe patiently begins to explain that the blinking dot on the computer screen is called a “cursor”, and Curtis interrupts, saying he was talking about the blinking dot on the map.

10:49 pm – Chloe realizes that the blinking dot on the map is a report of a robbery taking place at the mall. She types a few commands into her computer, and tells Jack there is a 95.5815162342 percent chance, based on the traffic patterns in the area, the wind direction and the barometric pressure that the Marwans are at that scene. Jack says, “Wow! Really?” Chloe laughs, and says, “No, we just identified it by their license plates”. She points at the screen, which is zoomed in on a license plate that reads “I H8 JACK”. Jack and Curtis leave.

10:53 pm – The badly toupee’d group at the mall is still pointing their guns at the Marwans and the guards, while the leader of the group is over by the station wagon yelling at the driver. The driver of the car says, “I didn’t mean to do it! It’s these stupid glasses, President Manilow”. Manilow pulls off his dark glasses, and says, “Great! Just great! How in the heck are we going to escape now? You know we’re short on funds and this is the only reason we had to do this!” There are squealing tires, and as the group turns to look, the Marwan Brothers are in their SUV, speeding off towards the exit of the mall.

10:55 pm – The Marwan Brothers’ car goes barreling out of the parking lot of the mall, right in front of the SUV that Curtis and Jack are in. Jack points at the license plate, and says, “It’s them! Follow them!” Curtis says that he’ll get right on that.

10:57 pm – The Marwan SUV finds and exit to the freeway, and drives onto it. The CTU SUV follows. The freeway is completely clear. Curtis tells Jack it’s because this is one of the freeways in Los Angeles that no one ever uses.

10:59 pm – Jack tries shooting the Marwan’s SUV, but keeps missing. Marwan leans out of the passenger side of their SUV, and throws something towards the CTU SUV. Jack takes aim and shoots Marwan in the arm! The object that Marwan threw lands right in the middle of the hood, right by the windshield. It’s a stick of dynamite!

11:00 pm – Time’s up!