The plague
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Disclaimer: I own nothing. This show, and it's characters, belong to the Fox network. Any similarity between them and real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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The following takes place between midnight and 1am. Events occur in real time.
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12:00
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At a covert American military base a young soldier named Chris silently stands at the guard post. Things are quiet, most at the base are asleep. Only an hour into his shift, Chris would prefer things stay this quiet, but that is not to be. Chris hears the alarm, hopes it's just malfunctioning. He checks the security monitors of the lab, the virus has gotten out. Chris knows the procedure is to lock down the gate immediately, but he panicks. His house is near, he runs over to it. His wife Sarah is up, trying to get baby Bianca back to sleep.
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Chris: This is it!
Sarah; Are you sure?
Chris: Yes! Get Bianca in the car, I'll get the bags.
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Sarah knows her husband is right from his panic. They had prepared for this. Other guards had also prepared, but they weren't close enough to get out in time. Chris and Sarah just hoped they could make it out in time. They got their bag of essentials and drove out with their baby. By the time they made it out the gate, everyone in the lab was dead. Meanwhile president David Palmer is woken up at 3am D.C. time. He is told of the outbreak, and brought to the situation room.
Jack Bauer is playing chess with his daughter Kimberly. Kim can't believe her eyes. Jack has only two pieces, his queen and king. Yet somehow, he has cornered her. She can take his queen, leaving him with only one peice, but then he will take her king with his. Either way, Kim has lost. She takes his queen, might as well make his victory costly. Kim then goes off to bed, kissing both of her parents goodnight first. Jack grabs a pudding from the fridge before heading to bed himself. Before he can make it to the bedroom he gets a call from Tony Almeida, his second in command at CTU.
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Jack: Yes Tony?
Tony: There's a situation, we're all being called in.
Jack; What is it?
Tony: I don't know. Walsh is cming to brief us all further.
Jack: Okay, I'll be right over.
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Jack tells Teri he has to go to work. Teri kisses Jack and goes to bed, hoping he comes back soon. Meanwhile president Palmer is briefed on the outbreak by general Bowen.
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Bowen: This base was designed to create vaccines against biological weapons. Unfortunately a technician named Jenkins was attempting to smuggle the cordella virus out, and it got released.
Palmer: How many casualties from this?
Bowen: If they locked the base down in time, just those in the base. It has fewer than 1,000 people, mostly scientists and soldiers, a few family members.
Palmer: Isn't there anything we can do for them?
Bowen: I'm afraid not sir. It was late, most of the people there are asleep. Hopefully they won't wake up at all because if they do, they will be i intense pain. Our priority has to be making sure the virus is contained, or many more will die.
Palmer: Agreed. Put the local military on stand-by, we might have to take certain measures to contain the virus.
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Jack Bauer arrives at CTU. Tony Almeida is here, along with the third-in-command Nina Myers. Jack had a brief affair with Nina when he and Teri were seperated, things have been a bit awkward since then. Also here is Chloe OBrien, the best computer technician Jack has ever seen, Richard Walsh, Jack's mentor and superior, arrives. He briefs Jack's team on the situation, the suspected alliance between Shariff and Adam, the outbreak of the cordella virus. After the briefing Walsh speaks to Jack alone in Jack's office.
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Walsh: There are two things. If Shariff is involved in this, we do have a resource, a mutual aquaintance.
Jack: His former protege, Ishmael Ali. I got Ishmael to trust me, and I betrayed him. He's about 24 hours away from his execution. Ishmael wants to hurt this country, and kill me. All he has to do to achiece both of these things is, nothing. Just sit back and watch.
Walsh: It won't be easy, but if there's ayting you can think of to get Ishmael to give us intel.
Jack: I'll try, but I'm not optimistic.
Walsh: There's one more thing. There may be a element, within the agency, involved in this attack.
Jack: Towards what end?
Walsh: I don't know, but for the next 24 hours, I need you to be all over this. You're the only one I can trust.
Jack: I busted six agents, and my own father. It didn't exacty make me popular around here.
Walsh: I know. It broke my heart when Jamey Farrell was arrested, but we have a job to do. If these terrorists get control of this virus, we could be looking at nothing short of genocide. I'm counting on you Jack. So are millions of innocent people. They just don't know it yet.
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12:15