24 Declassified: Chaos Theory/8:00pm-9:00pm

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 P.M. AND 9 P.M. PACIFIC STANDARD TIME.

8:00pm PST &mdash; Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles In the prison's community hall, a broken-nosed corrections officer shouts to Jack Bauer that he has a call waiting. Jack goes to an empty phone cubicle to answer it. Peter Jiminez, a recent CTU recruit formerly of Diplomatic Security Services and the Central Intelligence Agency, asks him how he's holding up. Jiminez expresses his support for Jack's plight, saying, "It's bullshit what they're doing, it's bullshit that they didn't back you about Tintfass in the first place, and I'm saying it to their faces right now." Jack deduces that Christopher Henderson and probably Ryan Chappelle are listening to the call, and assures Jiminez that he'll be alright. Just then, the guard announces to the inmates that it's time for showers, so Jack thanks Jiminez for his support and hangs up.

8:11pm PST &mdash; CTU Headquarters, Los Angeles

Peter Jiminez hangs up the phone, while Christopher Henderson asks how Jack is holding up. He replies that Jack is in jail; Ryan Chappelle remarks that it's where he belongs.

The man Jack shot, Adrian Tintfass, was a middleman who made his living by putting together people who could use one another. Three months earlier, the CIA's listening stations had picked up his name in a conversation between an arms dealer in the Ukraine and a terrorist named Hassan, recently escaped from an Afghan prison. Jack tracked Tintfass down and managed to break him in interrogation, but the information he provided had little or nothing to do with Hassan, so he was released. Jack, however, remained convinced that he was instrumental in Hassan's next plot. Three weeks ago, he barged into a back room of Winston's, a dive bar in the Fairfax District, and shot Tintfass in front of four witnesses. With no judge willing to post bail for a suspect with Jack's skills, he was now stuck in federal prison, waiting for his trial.

Henderson comments that Jack's reticence is typical: "He'll shut it all off. Undercover inside his own skin." Chappelle, smirking, tells him not to feel sorry for the man, claiming he's a murderer. Jiminez, angrily, says that he's saved their asses more than once from what he's heard, and leaves the room. Henderson, looking for a way out of the conversation, reminds Chappelle of the threat assessment meeting at 8:30, and leaves to make coffee.

8:18pm PST &mdash; Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles

Jack shuffles into the shower room with the other inmates, finds an open shower nozzle, and starts to shower down. Immediately, he senses something is wrong: all the other nozzles have been turned on, but the other inmates have all disappeared. Three fully clothed Latino inmates enter the shower room, headed directly for Jack, one of them carrying a shiv made from a sharpened toothbrush.

Jack breaks a soap bottle on the ground, spilling it onto the ground, then grabs the nozzle overhead and kicks the lead attacker in the chest, making him slip and fall to the ground. He grapples with the second attacker, throwing him into the wall, then delivers a few punches to the fat third attacker, cracking his jaw. The second man gets to his feet and tries to throw Jack to the ground, but Jack grabs and twists his groin, forcing him to the floor.

The thin attacker with the shiv, now back on his feet, hesitates, just as whistles blow and a squad of guards storms the room, throwing both him against the wall. As they are handcuffed, Jack notices that the thin man has an MS-13 tattoo on his forearm.

8:29pm PST &mdash; Beverly Hills Fight Camp, Los Angeles

Despite its dilapidated facilities, Beverly Hills Fight Camp had gained a reputation as home to some of the greatest full-contact fighters in the world, champions of the growing Brazilian sport known as mixed martial arts. Originally known as vale tudo and then as "no-holds-barred fighting," the sport had since been popularized and sanitized for a mainstream audience, and today MMA was a multimillion dollar business.

Tonight, the gym is empty except for a single fighter: Mark Kendall, who seven years ago had won the title of Extreme Fight heavyweight champion of the world. Admittedly, the title had only lasted three months, but he was determined to make his comeback. Fight magazines had asked him why he was trying to reclaim his title now, at thirty-six, when most people seemed to think the sport had grown past him. Privately, Kendall knew that he had no other choice: his three-year-old daughter was deathly ill, and somebody needed to pay for her medical treatment.

8:42pm PST &mdash; Federal Holding Facility, Los Angeles

Escorting Jack back to his cell, the guard with the broken nose - Adam Cox - asks why he got in a fight with the three inmates; Jack jokes that he was simply bored. The officer laughs, then, serious, cautions him that his attackers were MS-13 gang members, and advises him to watch his back.

Formally known as Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 was a street gang started by immigrants from El Salvador on the streets of Los Angeles, which had since grown into one of the most dangerous gangs in the United States. Jack had had only fleeting run-ins with them, usually by accident; certainly nothing that would have caused some personal vendetta.

Overhearing the name, Emil Ramirez - Jack's cellmate - asks about what happened in the shower, then expresses awe that Jack survived a fight with three MS-13 members. Jack asks if Ramirez has dealt with them firsthand, but he explains that he hasn't - an associate of his used to be a member. Ramirez, a former accountant, goes on to explain that he was arrested for murdering his boss after being caught embezzling money from his company. Then, he confides that the people he works with planning something big - by this time tomorrow, Jack will know exactly what it is.