Numb3rs (2005–2010): Season 2, Episode 19 - Dark Matter - full transcript
Charlie helps the team solve how many shooters there were in a school massacre.
♪
Hey, guys, how you doin'?
Hi.
Just stay down.
No, no, please.
In here.
Come in. Come in.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Dad, it's me. Pick up.
Stuff's happening at school.
I need you. Come and get me.
Please!
Hey, DMG rules.
Stay where you are,
help is on the way.
I've been the principal at
this school for nine years.
Now, we've had
problems, nothing like this.
Okay. Why don't you tell
me what you know so far?
Oh, God, uh, there
were two shooters.
Uh, eight people were killed.
Seven students and
one of my teachers.
But 12 more kids were wounded.
It all happened in,
like, six minutes.
All right, I'm going
to want to talk
to the students, teachers,
security, everybody.
I'll get a list.
Don, found one of the shooters.
Hey. DON: Hey.
This is Paul Elins.
He's 17 years old.
He's a senior here and
he was absent today.
The headset, the mask, the whole
thing matches the witness accounts.
Looks like he killed
this girl right here.
Victim's name is,
uh, Becky Flynn.
He shoots her and then gets
taken out himself. Thanks.
That has to be
the other shooter.
Security never got off a round.
So what do we
think, a suicide pact?
Yeah, only the other shooter
couldn't close the deal.
Or didn't. If we're
talking about a sociopath,
he might have told
his partner one thing
and had something else in mind.
Well, he probably
escaped with the crowd.
SWAT found his
bag and all his stuff
ditched in an empty
locker near the exit.
Is that hers?
Says "Dad."
It's gonna go to voice mail.
Hello.
Excuse me, sir. My name is
Don Eppes. I'm with the FBI.
Um...
Look, sir, I'm afraid I
have some bad news.
We all use math every day.
To predict
weather, to tell time,
to handle money.
Math is more than
formulas and equations.
It's logic.
Math is more than
formulas and equations.
It's rationality.
It's using your mind to solve
the biggest mysteries we know.
Paul Elins was an honor student.
He excels in math and computers
and he's got acceptance letters
from half the schools in the Ivy League.
All right, so, where's
the dark cloud?
Well, the parents
divorced last year.
He fell into a depression.
Discipline problems.
I mean, why he picked up a
gun and start killing other kids...
There-There's got to
be some kind of trigger.
So, who were his friends?
I mean, the odds are the second
shooter's a student now, right?
Who was probably
absent today, too.
Yeah, but even if
we isolate his friends,
I mean, we could still
be looking at a lot of kids.
Well, this might help. Student
ID. There's a chip on the back.
School takes attendance
using RFID technology.
Radio frequency identification.
Yeah, that's a tagging
system that companies use
to track, uh, packages, inventory,
and shipping and stuff. It's...
I read the technology
section. Yeah, yeah. And?
Chip on the ID, uh, communicates with
a network of sensors around the school.
A central computer
tracks the students.
It's like the GPS system.
That sounds a bit
Big Brother to me.
It's not 100 percent.
The kids leave it at home,
they forget it in the locker.
Well, it should definitely be
able to narrow it down for us,
which kids were running away.
Which will tell us who we
can eliminate as suspects.
Yeah, and anyone who was
absent, we can run down their alibis.
That school has metal detectors.
How did they get
the guns inside?
They got 'em in there somehow.
Well, if the system can
tell us where each kid is,
then we should match it
with witness statements
and map the shooters' route.
By "we," I mean Charlie.
Hmm. I got you thinking
like a mathematician.
Yeah, well...
However, I'm not too
keen on your method.
You see, there's a natural
flaw in witness statements.
And statistics show that
memory is often unreliable.
Well, Charlie,
that's all we got, so...
Actually, you do
have more than that.
Neptune.
Neptune? As in the planet?
The discovery of Neptune
occurred because scientists
inferred its presence
due to its gravitational force
on other planetary bodies.
From the observable, we
can divine the unobservable.
Right.
Remember that trick we
did when we were kids?
The soap and pepper trick.
Yeah, you have the
pepper in the water,
you put the soap in and
the pepper goes everywhere.
Same principle. Except
let's say the students
are the specks of pepper
and the bar of soap
are the shooters.
The shooters arrive
and just like the pepper,
repelled, in this case, by
breaking surface tension,
the students flee.
They scatter in a
predictable pattern.
Yeah, how's that?
Using non-linear
pursuit-evasion equations.
Which is how predators
pursue their prey.
Yeah, but wait, you
can see the soap.
Here's the beauty of it.
Let's try this trick again,
but this time with
clear liquid soap.
Now you can't see the soap,
but the pepper behaves in
precisely the same manner.
It's just the same
with our two students.
Though they may be unobservable,
it's the observable,
the fleeing students,
that will tell us not just how
the shooters got
into the school,
but every single move
they made thereafter.
According to students
who were there,
these shooters were
targeting people out in the open.
Jocks, popular kids, mainly.
A couple of them said these guys
would point a gun at one of them
and shoot the person
right next to 'em.
No one's exactly jumped
to the front of the line
to say they were best
pals with the shooter, either.
Isolation also fits the profile.
Several students
said this kid Paul Elins,
he was a part of
a group of boys.
Called themselves the
DMG. Dark Matter Guild.
Computer geeks, mostly.
Do we know anything
else about 'em?
Well, apparently the editor
of the school newspaper
did a profile on 'em a
couple months back.
Her name's Karen Camden.
So, we're running that down.
Why is that name so familiar?
She was, uh, the
other girl in the closet
when Becky Flynn was shot. Mmm.
Whoever said that I'm the
leader of the DMG, they're full of it.
Actually, you said it, Greg,
in an interview
with Karen Camden.
All right, you want to
know about the DMG?
It's simple.
We're just a guild
of gamers, that's all.
A guild?
I take it you don't know
much about MMORPGs.
Like starting with what
the hell they are, no.
Massive Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Games.
A guild is a team
of players online.
Of which Paul
Elins was a member.
Look, I'm as shocked about
what Paul did as anybody else.
All right, look. What is
the Dark Matter Guild?
Like I said, we're a team.
Dark matter is just a
component in the universe
that exists all around
us that remains unseen.
Well, you and your pals
just stick to video games,
or do you engage in
other activities, as well?
I don't know anything about the
shooting, if that's what you mean.
Why were you absent from school?
I had a cold.
You look pretty
healthy right now.
Look, I told you, I
don't know anything.
And I can't think of
anybody in the guild
that would condone what
Paul did, let alone be a part of it.
The DMG are gamers,
not killers.
Poor Becky.
I keep thinking, why
didn't he shoot me?
That's not your fault, Karen.
And you're never
going to know why.
It could be anything.
It could be because
you wrote that article in the
school newspaper about the DMG.
I just wanted kids to
understand who they were.
So many kids dissed
them, you know?
Calling them dorks, cyber geeks.
You know, jocks pick
on geeks every day.
Bullying happens.
It just doesn't
usually end like this.
I could see his eyes
through his mask.
He looked so angry.
And what about
the other shooter?
I never saw him.
But he shot Paul Elins?
Yeah.
After I just sat
there and waited.
I tried to help Becky, but...
When I didn't hear
anything, I just ran.
You got to know these
kids pretty well, didn't you?
I guess.
Karen, I need to
find that other boy
before he hurts someone
else or he hurts himself.
Do you have any idea who
that second shooter might be?
There's half a dozen
boys in the DMG.
It could be any one of them.
Yeah, but did you get a
feeling about any of them?
Did you have a thought
that maybe one of them
was capable of
something like this?
Anything you say to
me is just between us.
Paul used to hang with
this kid named Justin Price.
And what makes you think him?
Justin's scary.
Into guns. Always bragging about
how he has this huge collection.
And he always used
to talk about Columbine.
Thanks.
Hey, guys. COLBY: Hey, Don.
Kid on the left is Justin Price.
Karen Camden describes him as
some kind of angry loner type.
Mom's a single
parent. She travels a lot.
Neighbors said she's away
at a convention right now,
so we checked the house.
There's no sign of the kid.
Yeah, I got a file on him.
He's got a juvie record.
Now, out of the 77
kids who didn't show up
on the attendance data that day,
we were able to account for 46
of them who were actually there,
just not wearing
their ID badges.
So what's that,
like, 31 absent, huh?
Yeah. Including Justin Price.
So the ATF trace on
the guns at the school
show that they were registered
to a John Price, deceased.
He's Justin Price's uncle.
The guns were off the grid,
but, apparently, he
voluntarily registered them.
All right, so we got our
second shooter there, right?
Hey, guys, what's up?
Our preliminary analysis of
the first minutes of the attack
show that the shooters entered
through the southwest entrance.
According to the police report,
the southwest metal
detectors were down
for scheduled maintenance.
Huh. Coincidence?
Well, as a prominent
cosmologist once said,
"A coincidence is the last
refuge of the uninspired."
What cosmologist said that?
Oh...
Hey, are these the two shooters?
Yeah. The kid on the right is. The
other one we think might be. Why?
I know this place.
This is an all-night cyber cafe.
Yeah, they've got a retro
version of Asteroids there.
I quite enjoy it.
Karen Camden said the DMG kids
were teased for
being cyber geeks.
If they're hiding out,
they'd probably go
someplace comforting.
And open 24 hours.
All right. Why don't
you guys check it out?
♪
He's inside in the back room.
Alone? Yeah.
Isolated in the corner.
You two cover the front.
SWAT's got the back.
All right, sir. Let's do it.
♪ There's no escape,
accept my fate ♪
♪ An eye for an eye ♪
We're FBI. We're gonna
need you to leave the room.
♪ I got nowhere to hide ♪
♪ Someone disguised as me ♪
♪ Committed double homicide ♪
All right! Sweet.
Justin Price, FBI!
Everybody down, on the ground!
♪ A pistol that
belonged to my daddy ♪
♪ One shot down... ♪
Call an ambulance?
No.
♪ A life sentence
for my conscience ♪
He was just a kid.
♪ Now they are
laying in the dirt ♪
So the forensics came
back on Justin Price
and the blood on his boots does
match the victims at the crime scene.
So, we got a second shooter.
Yeah, but there's
another problem.
The gun that David and Colby
found on Price at the cyber cafe
only matches
two of the five kills
that he's accredited
with at the high school.
Yeah. What, he didn't
have any others on him?
No. And, like the first shooter,
he was probably packing
more than one gun.
Which means that
gun is still out there.
Yeah. Plus the rest
of the uncle's arsenal.
Right. So now we
have a bunch of guns
and a bunch of really emotional
kids who might have the potential
of getting their hands on them.
All right, so let's get every
single kid in that DMG
on surveillance, right?
I mean, we got
to find those guns.
At 11:02:58,
Scott Kang was
at X, Y coordinates
335, 211,
heading north.
Oh, evolution is
a cruel mistress.
Human intellect grows unbounded,
while our emotional
maturity is sadly behind.
Larry? It's just high school,
it will always be high
school, you know?
The jocks versus the geeks, and
the popular versus the ostracized.
I remember.
Yeah, but, you know, time was when
we solved our differences with fists,
not automatic weaponry.
Hmm. Times change.
And it's not just guns.
RFID chips and tracking systems.
If this weren't the
new millennium,
I'd swear it's all very
Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Hmm. You know, Megan
feels the same way.
Speaking of,
what was that smile
she gave you all about?
I don't know. It's
her smile. Ask her.
Wait a second.
Can someone clue me in here?
Now, all right, the fact
is, for some time now,
though it's not my
specific discipline,
I have felt a certain
chemistry with Megan.
Which you've kept
fairly well under wraps.
Precisely why my next
overture will be overt.
You're gonna ask
Megan out, Larry?
Yeah. I don't know.
Given our disjointed universes,
I'm... I'm fearful.
What is it, Charlie?
This last grouping
of data entries,
it shows students running
towards the shooter,
and not away from him.
But that obviously
doesn't make sense at all.
I-It could be an
anomaly in the data.
Or an anomaly in the school.
These school plans are old.
Walls could have been
moved, obstructions introduced.
If you're suggesting what
I think you're suggesting,
field work... God, I vowed
never to return to high school.
Mrs. Price, your son,
Justin was associated
with a group of boys at school
known as the Dark Matter Guild.
What can you tell me about them?
Just that they were friends
who'd hang out, play video games.
And have you ever
met any of them?
I met Paul Elins a few times.
I never met any
of the other kids.
I work in healthcare.
It's long hours.
I'm on the road
three days a week.
I wasn't able to
keep tabs on Justin
the way I would have liked to.
Then it sounds like
you were concerned.
I asked my brother John to
spend some time with him.
You know, I wanted him
to have a male role model.
He was in the service.
I thought he could teach him.
But after John was killed,
it affected Justin.
Nothing that I said mattered.
And, Mrs. Price, do you know
where your brother John
kept his collection of guns?
I asked him to get rid of them.
I assumed that he had.
We think there's
more guns out there.
I ran a credit check,
and found a storage unit
that was leased in your name.
And the fees were
paid by money order.
I didn't know anything about it.
You think I'm an awful
mother, don't you?
I think you're a woman
who's lost her son,
who feels responsible.
My son murdered a teacher.
He killed all those children.
How do I live with that?
The banality of
evil is only banal
to those who never see it.
My senior year, a student
showed up at school with a gun.
He held two kids hostage.
What happened?
Eventually, he let them go.
Then he climbed up
to the roof and jumped.
It's a different world
than the one I grew up in.
Any structural discrepancies
we'd hoped to find,
we're not finding them.
Now, given the rate at
which my calculations
show that these
shooters moved...
Hey. Hey, guys, you
know what? I'll tell you what.
You guys mind if I
borrow your walkie-talkies?
Thank you. Thanks.
What... What are you
thinking here, Charles?
You suggested I test
my equations in the field.
Time me.
Okay, Larry. Time?
Uh, 58 seconds.
Charles, what is it?
I need to talk to Don.
We searched that storage
locker that Justin Price rented,
and found some unused ammo.
But if he was storing guns
there once, they're not there now.
But we did find
this. Take a look.
It's a security schedule.
Yeah. It shows that the
metal detectors were down
at the southwest entrance of the
school on the morning of the shooting.
All right, so they knew
exactly where to enter.
Yeah. We found downloaded
blueprints of the school, too.
Hey. What's this?
It's a homemade
modded video game
we took off of
Justin Price's laptop.
He was playing with Paul Elins
the night before the shooting.
What do you think? Like
some kind of a dress rehearsal?
Only they weren't
the only ones playing.
We have evidence that other
DMG kids were online as well.
Hey, guys, there's a problem
with the RFID data, I
need to show you guys.
All right. Put it up.
Okay, I managed to map the
movements of the students.
Now, these red dots,
these are students.
And the black Xs,
those are the shooters.
Now, during the first
two minutes of the attack,
the students behaved
as one would expect.
All right. Well, then
what's the problem?
Eventually, a group of students
actually started moving
towards shooter number two.
Maybe there was a dead
end over there or something.
No. No. I walked those halls.
There was no dead end, David.
Check this out.
These are the locations
and the times of death
of our murdered victims.
Now according to the data,
the time between the
murder of victim number four
and the murder of
victim number seven
was 33 seconds.
However, I've retraced
the steps of shooter number two,
and I found that where victim
number four was murdered
to where victims numbers five,
six, and seven were murdered,
took twice that amount of time.
So what does that mean?
We know that shooter number
one took out these three victims.
And we know shooter
number two took out these two.
What about the
other three victims?
There's only one explanation
for the aberration
in the anomaly,
and that is that you guys aren't
just looking for a missing gun.
Guess what? You're
looking for a third shooter.
Agent Reeves,
my secretary says that you
think there was a third shooter.
I'm afraid that's
what it looks like.
First these shootings,
and then Justin
Price gunned down.
Now you say another
one of my kids is involved?
Where does this end?
I think as soon as we
find this third gunman.
I wanted to reopen school,
get the kids back to some
kind of normal routine.
I can see now
that's not possible.
Mr. Northrup, right now
we need your cooperation.
We need the files of everyone
associated with the DMG.
That might be a problem.
What do you mean? Why?
Well, the parents of these
children feel their kids
are being unfairly singled out.
They've hired lawyers and they
make it clear that they won't consent.
So you're saying we
need a court order?
I'm afraid that's
what it's gonna take.
There may be another way.
How?
Construct the information
from public records.
Military personnel have
the same access as colleges.
Transcripts, activities,
club memberships.
Justin Price had
a criminal record.
Maybe one of the members
of the DMG does, too.
Anything in the public record we
can use the Patriot Act to get at.
Eight dead, 12 wounded.
I'd call that an act
of domestic terrorism.
More files. Sorry, team.
Oh, it's okay.
Charlie promised to
take a look at the data
for my solar
physics presentation.
Thank you.
And you still think you
can do this in one day?
Yeah, using my support
vector classifier, yeah. Sure.
See, the algorithm's gonna
go through it all, okay?
Grades, activities,
disciplinary actions,
to evaluate traits ascribed to
the FBI school shooter profile.
Still seems like
a really tall order.
You know,
Michelangelo always said
that his sculptures
already existed.
It was merely up to him to
release them from their prison.
Well, what he means
is that this process
is a lot like that
of a sculptor.
Preserving only what's
relevant to the image he seeks,
a sculptor chips
away at a block.
Well, in this case,
this algorithm
tells the computer
which details from the
public records to keep
and which to chip away at,
which to discard as irrelevant.
Until slowly, an image appears
from this massive block of data
which, you know, if we're lucky,
correlates with an
already existing image,
the profile of the
random school shooter.
I know a lot of women who'd
like to get ahold of your algorithm
and run it against the
personals to find the perfect man.
Oh, hey, uh, you...
you know, you said
we were supposed to do
something earlier, remember?
What? You said it.
We're supposed to
do it. Let's go. Right.
See you. Right. Bye.
What was that about?
Merely a very crude
attempt at lending privacy.
At the risk of sounding
embarrassingly misguided,
would you care to
join me for dinner?
Or a show, perhaps?
Or maybe even some
terpsichorean pleasure?
I don't know what
the third one means,
but dinner sounds nice.
Okay.
On one condition, though.
You have to take me
for a ride in the car.
Delighted. Call me.
I will. I will call you.
Charlie said he's halfway
through his analysis.
So far, he's got no hits.
Oh, we're stuck without
those student files,
I can tell you that.
What about the court orders?
The kids' lawyers are
hemming and hawing,
so it may take the
judge another day.
I'm hoping this may help.
I found on the school's
ISP in the deleted files
an e-mail sent out the
day before the attack
CC-ing all the
members of the DMG
telling them to be careful
at school the next morning.
Guess who sent it?
What, Gregory Dietrich? Yeah.
There you go. So I'm
gonna give it to the judge.
And I'm hoping if we push,
we might be able to
get a warrant for his file
in the next couple of hours.
All right. Do it.
Pick up the kid,
but just be careful
now, all right?
Still revisiting high
school, Charles?
Just mapping our
shooters' third route.
You got a date, huh?
You don't seem too excited.
Mine is an inner frenzy.
I'm like some highly
agitated molecular brew.
I can't even settle
on a restaurant.
Ah, well, you know,
Italian's always romantic.
Listen, kinetics of
angel hair and red sauce,
it's a bit too much of
a challenge, I'm afraid.
Plus, I think I prefer
not to wear a bib.
I think you need to
loosen up, you know.
Free your molecules,
and your ass will follow.
Oh, yeah, well, sound advice.
I just ran Gregory Dietrich's
student file through analysis.
He's the leader of the DMG.
He scored off the charts
on the FBI school
shooter profile.
Hey, our algorithm
came through, my man.
Larry, still debating the
complexities of capellini?
No, I'm just considering
the complexities
of shooter three's route.
Now, if your main goal was
simply to shoot other students,
why such a convoluted path?
I don't know. Insanity, maybe?
Oh, no. Even a crazy person
can get from point A to point B.
Two months ago, Gregory
Dietrich made an online purchase
of an Evil Twin kit.
And what is that?
It's a hacking device to
tap into Wi-Fi networks
and steal sensitive data.
So what? So they
can get blueprints
and some security
schedules, stuff like that?
Exactly like that. Our guys
detected a Wi-Fi breach
at the high school
security database
a week after Dietrich
bought the device.
Traced it to him?
Yeah, and the kid's
not so smart, after all.
Got further proof of that.
Surveillance just saw him
running into his house
like a man on a mission.
Ah, the lawyer must
have tipped him off.
He's making his move.
I just can't get my head around
this whole high
school shooting thing.
You know, I mean, I
came from a small town.
There's 200 kids in my
high school, not 2,100.
Everybody knew everybody.
If some punk was running around
with a pile of guns and bad
intentions, we'd know about it.
I don't get it either, man.
Where I grew up, this
kind of stuff didn't happen.
Don't get me wrong, man,
kids got shot, but it was
over something, you know?
Pair of sneakers, an
insult, drugs, you know.
It was definitely stupid,
but looking at those kids
he shot in their own school.
Wouldn't have thought
about it at the time, but...
Maybe we were luckier than we
thought growing up where we did.
Yeah.
There he is.
Five bucks says he runs.
Yeah? Ten bucks
says I catch him.
I got the kid! I got the bag!
You should spend a
little more time in PE, kid.
Going hunting, Gregory?
I got nothing to say.
Yeah. That one's
new. Stand up. Let's go.
My client already told you
he had nothing to do with
the attack on the school.
Your client was in possession
of a semiautomatic weapon.
A gun that was part
of a collection of guns
owned by Justin Price's uncle.
Which doesn't prove a thing,
unless that gun was
used in the attack.
Why'd you have it?
You don't have to answer that.
No. No, it's okay.
I want to answer it.
Justin gave me the gun.
We'd go off into the woods.
We'd fire off a couple
rounds at cans and stuff.
And while you were out there,
no one ever mentioned going
and shooting up the school?
That I won't let him answer.
You bought a device to hack
into the school's database
to steal blueprints. We
have your name right here.
We traced it to you.
That's your name, isn't it?
Those blueprints
were for my game.
For authenticity.
For authenticity? Hey, wake up.
These are kids you
went to school with.
They were shot in cold blood.
Authenticity.
It wasn't me!
But you hated them, didn't you?
Look, why don't you guys
try living with it every day?
The way they look at you,
like, like you're
not even there.
So you took your revenge?
It was Paul and Justin.
But you wish it
was you, don't you?
I think we're done here.
His lawyer's right, you know?
The gun we found on him
isn't a match for
our missing weapon.
You're not going to
like this much, either.
His e-mail story holds up.
That warning that was sent
out to the other DMG members,
it was sent from his account,
but it originated from
the school library.
So he sent it from the school.
Not unless he was
in two places at once.
His school ID badge says
he cut out early that day.
His ATM card and a
security cam photo says
he was making a withdrawal
the same time the e-mail was sent.
I mean, he created the
game, he's the leader.
All this goes down and then
he's got nothing to do with it?
I don't buy that.
Charlie, your advice,
free your molecules.
I made a reservation
for Megan and I
at an Ethiopian restaurant.
Ethiopian, on Fairfax.
Thinkin' outside the box.
Wish me well.
Hey, you know,
um, you were right.
Shooter number three's
route doesn't conform
to any predictable
pursuit-evasion result.
I'm thinking that I must
be missing a variable.
Up until now, I gotta be honest,
I think we've been looking at
this school shooting the wrong way.
Let's take a look
at the route taken
by our first two shooters.
Their movement is methodical.
They are pursuing students
in a logical progression.
Now, let's take a look
at our third shooter.
Appears here
and for the next minute makes
his way through the school
killing victims until
vanishing here.
Most likely changed clothes.
Shooter number
three's route is circuitous.
It's inefficient.
Yeah, but it's a
random shooting spree.
Doesn't it make sense that he
would choose a random path?
Intuitively, yes, but,
well, mathematically, no.
Mathematicians apply
a path minimization
to analyze this kind of
predator-prey dynamic.
What exactly is that?
The snake pursues the mouse.
Mouse runs, the
snake is relentless
and tracks every step.
And when it runs into obstacles,
it finds the quickest, most
economical way around them.
Now, using path minimization,
we can predict the snake's path
because the snake only
has one thing on its mind,
finding the most
efficient point A to point B
between it and its dinner.
So shooter number three is
just a lousy snake, or what?
Shooter number three's route
was definitely not determined
by path minimization.
So, what, then?
Maybe, this.
Now we know that the school
uses RFID chip technology
to take attendance.
Tells teachers when
students are in class
and when they're absent.
Keeps track of
students using a PDA.
Right. Names and
locations of the students
show up on the screen.
Yeah, the DMG kids, we
know they have the capability
to break into the
school security system.
Yeah, so why couldn't
they hack into the RFID?
They definitely weren't
taking attendance.
Charlie's right.
Can you bring up the model
for shooter number three?
Look at the behavior
in the model.
Oh, he's letting the
students go right by him
without even taking a shot.
Because he's targeting
specific students,
the quarterback,
the skateboarder
and the swim team captain.
Yeah, and the system would
tell him exactly where they are.
Oh, that, no, that's
sufficient. Thank you.
So the last time I
had Ethiopian food,
I was at a conference
on Bondi accretion
in Addis Ababa.
What? Oh, am I being tedious?
No, no, tedious would be
a... a week at Quantico
studying note-taking
skills at a crime scene.
Oh, speaking of which,
I heard you and Charlie
went down to the school.
Yeah. It was horrific.
I just kept thinking all
the while, you know,
if I could only
corral a wormhole
and go back in time,
just talk to these young
men before they did it.
And what would you say to them?
I would say high
school is ephemeral.
And I don't know if the
meek inherit the Earth,
but Bill Gates and
the Google guys,
you know, they did all right.
You seem to have done well.
No. Well, now,
but in high school?
Oh, I don't think you and I
would've been at the same table.
I, uh, in fact, I wasn't
permitted a table.
I was kind of a
mess in high school.
Yeah?
That surprises me.
It was a surprise
to most people,
particularly my parents,
who could, you know,
barely show their face at
the country club for a while.
Oh, no, country club.
You're one of those.
Social register, too.
You're full of surprises,
you know that.
So this... this FBI thing,
why did you become a G-man?
Well, it's... it's a little
more complicated,
but I have three older sisters,
and I was my father's last
chance at having a son.
I can play every ball
game known to man.
As I got older, it just got
harder to switch gears.
In fairness, I should say
that the FBI has given me the greatest
sense of equilibrium I've ever felt.
On most days.
You do seem a little
distracted tonight.
It's just the case.
You know, Charlie's math
proves that our main suspect
does fit the shooter profile
for a school shooting.
But his math also shows us
that our shooter number three
wasn't on a killing rampage.
You know, I'm failing
to see the inconsistency.
The first two shooters
fit the profile of
a school shooter.
They show unbridled rage.
This third shooter
was calculated.
It was a planned attack.
It's indicative of a
whole other motive.
You know, in cosmology,
when faced with
logical inconsistencies,
I like to fall back
on an old chestnut.
If you don't like the answer,
ask a different question.
6:00 a.m. I get a
call from Charlie
saying you got some
new angle on the case.
It was something
that Larry said to me
over dinner last night.
Wait, wait, you and Larry
had dinner last night?
No. Come on. Moving on.
He just got me thinking.
You and I both have our doubts
that Dietrich is the third shooter.
Right.
So what if we need to
look at this in reverse?
What if we need to
study the victimology?
Shooter number three
picked all of his targets
for a specific reason.
There has to be a reason why.
Oh, I see. So, what, just have
Charlie do what he was doing
with the suspects, but
do it with the victims?
Yeah. If we can find the
common denominator,
it might take us
back to the killer.
Yeah, yeah. All
right, that's good.
Where'd you have dinner?
So, I ran a cluster analysis
on the student files
of our three victims,
Rob Holt, skateboard dude,
Thomas Caballo, quarterback,
and Lewis Ives,
swim team captain.
Uh, the two jocks share
numerous commonalities,
they're both seniors, both
captains of their squad.
What about skateboard dude?
Well, his only commonality
is that his name appeared
in an investigation of steroid
abuse by student athletes.
He was a suspected supplier.
Some of the students
mentioned that,
and the school investigated,
but nothing came of it.
Any other correlations?
All three names
appeared in a police report
of a keg party that got so
rowdy the neighbors complained.
However, there were a
dozen students on that report.
None of them were victims,
none of them had any apparent
relationship to the victims.
Yeah, but still, maybe
something happened at the party.
Yeah, something
enough to motivate a killer.
You got a list of
kids at the party?
Can you put it up? Yeah.
So, we just need to find a
connection between these names
and one of the DMG kids.
Karen Camden.
Wait a minute, she
was on the police report?
She has a connection
to all the DMG kids.
Yeah, she wrote a story
about them for the school paper.
She knows them really well.
She knows they were
having violent fantasies.
Yeah, but why would she
want to take part in this attack?
I don't know, but it might
explain why they spared her,
not just because she gave them
props in the school newspaper.
Absolutely. Maybe
she's in on it.
Karen Camden purchased
a Wi-Fi PDA three weeks ago.
Okay, so that would allow her
to track anyone in
school, right? Mmm-hmm.
Her credit card showed
a bunch of charges
to a motel in the Valley.
The manager ID'd
her and Justin Price.
Oh, a pretty girl
could get a teenage boy
to do a lot of things. Right.
Especially if he's not
used to the attention.
And if he has the inclination.
I mean, look at Pamela Smart,
she got one to kill
her husband for her.
So what, she seduces Price,
uses him and... and blows him off?
She could've even gotten him
to shoot Paul
Elins, his own friend.
She could've made-up the
whole murder-suicide pact.
She probably knew they were
fantasizing about the shootings
and then just pushed
him over the edge
and he becomes
the third shooter.
Why? What's the motive?
Well, the best guess,
we look at the victims.
The answer's probably
gonna lay there.
School steroid scandal.
Article was written
by Karen Camden.
I thought that
investigation went nowhere.
And no prosecutions, though
some of the team captains
lost their college scholarships.
Yeah? Just to get even, huh?
Karen's not a violent person.
She'd never do
anything like this.
Yeah, but something
happened at that party, didn't it?
Something that
changed your daughter.
Mrs. Camden, we
have eight people dead
and 12 more in the hospital.
If you know the reason for
this, we need you to speak.
They raped me.
Becky was the one who set it up.
She invited me to that party.
Helped Rob Holt,
Mr. Skateboard Cool,
slip something into my drink.
Then Jake Porter raped me and
the others watched and took pictures.
Oh, God, Karen. God, honey.
I wrote that story
about the steroids.
They blamed me for
messing up their scholarships.
Why didn't you press charges?
They were the
stars of the school.
It would be my
word against theirs.
Karen, eight people are dead
that you went to
school with every day.
I'm going to need you to put
your hands behind your back.
I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Jake Porter.
Yeah?
Take your headgear
off, tough guy.
We want to talk to you.
What's this about?
You're under arrest for
the rape of Karen Camden.
What are you talking about?
We spoke to Karen.
She gave us a statement about
what happened at the party.
You're talking about the same
girl who shot up the school
with her psycho-geek
pals, right?
Everybody's talking
about how she's the one
who engineered the whole thing.
You're telling me you
believe Karen Camden?
The girl's a whack job.
It'll be my word against hers.
Yeah, would've been.
Except for Rob
Holt's cell phone.
Your moron friend took a
picture of you with his phone.
Let's go. Turn around.
I'm not going
anywhere with you guys.
Yeah, you are.
You're coming with us.
Get off me, man.
Get your hands behind your back.
What is it with guys
and dirty pictures?
Stand up.
Where's Big Papa?
The caterer.
Ah, getting serious.
No, I just think he doesn't
want to have to cook, you know?
You never get enough?
Look, what do you want from me?
I like seeing how
they spin it, you know?
You think anybody really knows
how any of this stuff happens?
Definitely not.
I know that when I was
in high school, I was so,
uh, angst-ridden.
Yeah. Well, I mean,
you didn't shoot anybody.
No, but there were
days when I wanted to do,
you know, real...
real damage to, uh...
To you.
To me?
Hey, buddy, take your best shot.
Come on.
Wait, I'll help you out,
I'll get on my knees.
Come on. I'm not a kid anymore.
All right, tough guy, let's go.
Maybe we should step outside.
Let's go. Let's go. All right.
How about now? How about now?
Oh, there you go. Come on.
You ain't got nothing.
All right, all right. How
about we just get pizza?
No, I don't want to go
out, man, I just got home.
There's a lovely pot
roast in the fridge.
Oh, it's a week old. Come on.
How do you know that?
Of course. You eat
here more than I do.
I'll pay, how's that?
Hey, guys, how you doin'?
Hi.
Just stay down.
No, no, please.
In here.
Come in. Come in.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Dad, it's me. Pick up.
Stuff's happening at school.
I need you. Come and get me.
Please!
Hey, DMG rules.
Stay where you are,
help is on the way.
I've been the principal at
this school for nine years.
Now, we've had
problems, nothing like this.
Okay. Why don't you tell
me what you know so far?
Oh, God, uh, there
were two shooters.
Uh, eight people were killed.
Seven students and
one of my teachers.
But 12 more kids were wounded.
It all happened in,
like, six minutes.
All right, I'm going
to want to talk
to the students, teachers,
security, everybody.
I'll get a list.
Don, found one of the shooters.
Hey. DON: Hey.
This is Paul Elins.
He's 17 years old.
He's a senior here and
he was absent today.
The headset, the mask, the whole
thing matches the witness accounts.
Looks like he killed
this girl right here.
Victim's name is,
uh, Becky Flynn.
He shoots her and then gets
taken out himself. Thanks.
That has to be
the other shooter.
Security never got off a round.
So what do we
think, a suicide pact?
Yeah, only the other shooter
couldn't close the deal.
Or didn't. If we're
talking about a sociopath,
he might have told
his partner one thing
and had something else in mind.
Well, he probably
escaped with the crowd.
SWAT found his
bag and all his stuff
ditched in an empty
locker near the exit.
Is that hers?
Says "Dad."
It's gonna go to voice mail.
Hello.
Excuse me, sir. My name is
Don Eppes. I'm with the FBI.
Um...
Look, sir, I'm afraid I
have some bad news.
We all use math every day.
To predict
weather, to tell time,
to handle money.
Math is more than
formulas and equations.
It's logic.
Math is more than
formulas and equations.
It's rationality.
It's using your mind to solve
the biggest mysteries we know.
Paul Elins was an honor student.
He excels in math and computers
and he's got acceptance letters
from half the schools in the Ivy League.
All right, so, where's
the dark cloud?
Well, the parents
divorced last year.
He fell into a depression.
Discipline problems.
I mean, why he picked up a
gun and start killing other kids...
There-There's got to
be some kind of trigger.
So, who were his friends?
I mean, the odds are the second
shooter's a student now, right?
Who was probably
absent today, too.
Yeah, but even if
we isolate his friends,
I mean, we could still
be looking at a lot of kids.
Well, this might help. Student
ID. There's a chip on the back.
School takes attendance
using RFID technology.
Radio frequency identification.
Yeah, that's a tagging
system that companies use
to track, uh, packages, inventory,
and shipping and stuff. It's...
I read the technology
section. Yeah, yeah. And?
Chip on the ID, uh, communicates with
a network of sensors around the school.
A central computer
tracks the students.
It's like the GPS system.
That sounds a bit
Big Brother to me.
It's not 100 percent.
The kids leave it at home,
they forget it in the locker.
Well, it should definitely be
able to narrow it down for us,
which kids were running away.
Which will tell us who we
can eliminate as suspects.
Yeah, and anyone who was
absent, we can run down their alibis.
That school has metal detectors.
How did they get
the guns inside?
They got 'em in there somehow.
Well, if the system can
tell us where each kid is,
then we should match it
with witness statements
and map the shooters' route.
By "we," I mean Charlie.
Hmm. I got you thinking
like a mathematician.
Yeah, well...
However, I'm not too
keen on your method.
You see, there's a natural
flaw in witness statements.
And statistics show that
memory is often unreliable.
Well, Charlie,
that's all we got, so...
Actually, you do
have more than that.
Neptune.
Neptune? As in the planet?
The discovery of Neptune
occurred because scientists
inferred its presence
due to its gravitational force
on other planetary bodies.
From the observable, we
can divine the unobservable.
Right.
Remember that trick we
did when we were kids?
The soap and pepper trick.
Yeah, you have the
pepper in the water,
you put the soap in and
the pepper goes everywhere.
Same principle. Except
let's say the students
are the specks of pepper
and the bar of soap
are the shooters.
The shooters arrive
and just like the pepper,
repelled, in this case, by
breaking surface tension,
the students flee.
They scatter in a
predictable pattern.
Yeah, how's that?
Using non-linear
pursuit-evasion equations.
Which is how predators
pursue their prey.
Yeah, but wait, you
can see the soap.
Here's the beauty of it.
Let's try this trick again,
but this time with
clear liquid soap.
Now you can't see the soap,
but the pepper behaves in
precisely the same manner.
It's just the same
with our two students.
Though they may be unobservable,
it's the observable,
the fleeing students,
that will tell us not just how
the shooters got
into the school,
but every single move
they made thereafter.
According to students
who were there,
these shooters were
targeting people out in the open.
Jocks, popular kids, mainly.
A couple of them said these guys
would point a gun at one of them
and shoot the person
right next to 'em.
No one's exactly jumped
to the front of the line
to say they were best
pals with the shooter, either.
Isolation also fits the profile.
Several students
said this kid Paul Elins,
he was a part of
a group of boys.
Called themselves the
DMG. Dark Matter Guild.
Computer geeks, mostly.
Do we know anything
else about 'em?
Well, apparently the editor
of the school newspaper
did a profile on 'em a
couple months back.
Her name's Karen Camden.
So, we're running that down.
Why is that name so familiar?
She was, uh, the
other girl in the closet
when Becky Flynn was shot. Mmm.
Whoever said that I'm the
leader of the DMG, they're full of it.
Actually, you said it, Greg,
in an interview
with Karen Camden.
All right, you want to
know about the DMG?
It's simple.
We're just a guild
of gamers, that's all.
A guild?
I take it you don't know
much about MMORPGs.
Like starting with what
the hell they are, no.
Massive Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Games.
A guild is a team
of players online.
Of which Paul
Elins was a member.
Look, I'm as shocked about
what Paul did as anybody else.
All right, look. What is
the Dark Matter Guild?
Like I said, we're a team.
Dark matter is just a
component in the universe
that exists all around
us that remains unseen.
Well, you and your pals
just stick to video games,
or do you engage in
other activities, as well?
I don't know anything about the
shooting, if that's what you mean.
Why were you absent from school?
I had a cold.
You look pretty
healthy right now.
Look, I told you, I
don't know anything.
And I can't think of
anybody in the guild
that would condone what
Paul did, let alone be a part of it.
The DMG are gamers,
not killers.
Poor Becky.
I keep thinking, why
didn't he shoot me?
That's not your fault, Karen.
And you're never
going to know why.
It could be anything.
It could be because
you wrote that article in the
school newspaper about the DMG.
I just wanted kids to
understand who they were.
So many kids dissed
them, you know?
Calling them dorks, cyber geeks.
You know, jocks pick
on geeks every day.
Bullying happens.
It just doesn't
usually end like this.
I could see his eyes
through his mask.
He looked so angry.
And what about
the other shooter?
I never saw him.
But he shot Paul Elins?
Yeah.
After I just sat
there and waited.
I tried to help Becky, but...
When I didn't hear
anything, I just ran.
You got to know these
kids pretty well, didn't you?
I guess.
Karen, I need to
find that other boy
before he hurts someone
else or he hurts himself.
Do you have any idea who
that second shooter might be?
There's half a dozen
boys in the DMG.
It could be any one of them.
Yeah, but did you get a
feeling about any of them?
Did you have a thought
that maybe one of them
was capable of
something like this?
Anything you say to
me is just between us.
Paul used to hang with
this kid named Justin Price.
And what makes you think him?
Justin's scary.
Into guns. Always bragging about
how he has this huge collection.
And he always used
to talk about Columbine.
Thanks.
Hey, guys. COLBY: Hey, Don.
Kid on the left is Justin Price.
Karen Camden describes him as
some kind of angry loner type.
Mom's a single
parent. She travels a lot.
Neighbors said she's away
at a convention right now,
so we checked the house.
There's no sign of the kid.
Yeah, I got a file on him.
He's got a juvie record.
Now, out of the 77
kids who didn't show up
on the attendance data that day,
we were able to account for 46
of them who were actually there,
just not wearing
their ID badges.
So what's that,
like, 31 absent, huh?
Yeah. Including Justin Price.
So the ATF trace on
the guns at the school
show that they were registered
to a John Price, deceased.
He's Justin Price's uncle.
The guns were off the grid,
but, apparently, he
voluntarily registered them.
All right, so we got our
second shooter there, right?
Hey, guys, what's up?
Our preliminary analysis of
the first minutes of the attack
show that the shooters entered
through the southwest entrance.
According to the police report,
the southwest metal
detectors were down
for scheduled maintenance.
Huh. Coincidence?
Well, as a prominent
cosmologist once said,
"A coincidence is the last
refuge of the uninspired."
What cosmologist said that?
Oh...
Hey, are these the two shooters?
Yeah. The kid on the right is. The
other one we think might be. Why?
I know this place.
This is an all-night cyber cafe.
Yeah, they've got a retro
version of Asteroids there.
I quite enjoy it.
Karen Camden said the DMG kids
were teased for
being cyber geeks.
If they're hiding out,
they'd probably go
someplace comforting.
And open 24 hours.
All right. Why don't
you guys check it out?
♪
He's inside in the back room.
Alone? Yeah.
Isolated in the corner.
You two cover the front.
SWAT's got the back.
All right, sir. Let's do it.
♪ There's no escape,
accept my fate ♪
♪ An eye for an eye ♪
We're FBI. We're gonna
need you to leave the room.
♪ I got nowhere to hide ♪
♪ Someone disguised as me ♪
♪ Committed double homicide ♪
All right! Sweet.
Justin Price, FBI!
Everybody down, on the ground!
♪ A pistol that
belonged to my daddy ♪
♪ One shot down... ♪
Call an ambulance?
No.
♪ A life sentence
for my conscience ♪
He was just a kid.
♪ Now they are
laying in the dirt ♪
So the forensics came
back on Justin Price
and the blood on his boots does
match the victims at the crime scene.
So, we got a second shooter.
Yeah, but there's
another problem.
The gun that David and Colby
found on Price at the cyber cafe
only matches
two of the five kills
that he's accredited
with at the high school.
Yeah. What, he didn't
have any others on him?
No. And, like the first shooter,
he was probably packing
more than one gun.
Which means that
gun is still out there.
Yeah. Plus the rest
of the uncle's arsenal.
Right. So now we
have a bunch of guns
and a bunch of really emotional
kids who might have the potential
of getting their hands on them.
All right, so let's get every
single kid in that DMG
on surveillance, right?
I mean, we got
to find those guns.
At 11:02:58,
Scott Kang was
at X, Y coordinates
335, 211,
heading north.
Oh, evolution is
a cruel mistress.
Human intellect grows unbounded,
while our emotional
maturity is sadly behind.
Larry? It's just high school,
it will always be high
school, you know?
The jocks versus the geeks, and
the popular versus the ostracized.
I remember.
Yeah, but, you know, time was when
we solved our differences with fists,
not automatic weaponry.
Hmm. Times change.
And it's not just guns.
RFID chips and tracking systems.
If this weren't the
new millennium,
I'd swear it's all very
Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Hmm. You know, Megan
feels the same way.
Speaking of,
what was that smile
she gave you all about?
I don't know. It's
her smile. Ask her.
Wait a second.
Can someone clue me in here?
Now, all right, the fact
is, for some time now,
though it's not my
specific discipline,
I have felt a certain
chemistry with Megan.
Which you've kept
fairly well under wraps.
Precisely why my next
overture will be overt.
You're gonna ask
Megan out, Larry?
Yeah. I don't know.
Given our disjointed universes,
I'm... I'm fearful.
What is it, Charlie?
This last grouping
of data entries,
it shows students running
towards the shooter,
and not away from him.
But that obviously
doesn't make sense at all.
I-It could be an
anomaly in the data.
Or an anomaly in the school.
These school plans are old.
Walls could have been
moved, obstructions introduced.
If you're suggesting what
I think you're suggesting,
field work... God, I vowed
never to return to high school.
Mrs. Price, your son,
Justin was associated
with a group of boys at school
known as the Dark Matter Guild.
What can you tell me about them?
Just that they were friends
who'd hang out, play video games.
And have you ever
met any of them?
I met Paul Elins a few times.
I never met any
of the other kids.
I work in healthcare.
It's long hours.
I'm on the road
three days a week.
I wasn't able to
keep tabs on Justin
the way I would have liked to.
Then it sounds like
you were concerned.
I asked my brother John to
spend some time with him.
You know, I wanted him
to have a male role model.
He was in the service.
I thought he could teach him.
But after John was killed,
it affected Justin.
Nothing that I said mattered.
And, Mrs. Price, do you know
where your brother John
kept his collection of guns?
I asked him to get rid of them.
I assumed that he had.
We think there's
more guns out there.
I ran a credit check,
and found a storage unit
that was leased in your name.
And the fees were
paid by money order.
I didn't know anything about it.
You think I'm an awful
mother, don't you?
I think you're a woman
who's lost her son,
who feels responsible.
My son murdered a teacher.
He killed all those children.
How do I live with that?
The banality of
evil is only banal
to those who never see it.
My senior year, a student
showed up at school with a gun.
He held two kids hostage.
What happened?
Eventually, he let them go.
Then he climbed up
to the roof and jumped.
It's a different world
than the one I grew up in.
Any structural discrepancies
we'd hoped to find,
we're not finding them.
Now, given the rate at
which my calculations
show that these
shooters moved...
Hey. Hey, guys, you
know what? I'll tell you what.
You guys mind if I
borrow your walkie-talkies?
Thank you. Thanks.
What... What are you
thinking here, Charles?
You suggested I test
my equations in the field.
Time me.
Okay, Larry. Time?
Uh, 58 seconds.
Charles, what is it?
I need to talk to Don.
We searched that storage
locker that Justin Price rented,
and found some unused ammo.
But if he was storing guns
there once, they're not there now.
But we did find
this. Take a look.
It's a security schedule.
Yeah. It shows that the
metal detectors were down
at the southwest entrance of the
school on the morning of the shooting.
All right, so they knew
exactly where to enter.
Yeah. We found downloaded
blueprints of the school, too.
Hey. What's this?
It's a homemade
modded video game
we took off of
Justin Price's laptop.
He was playing with Paul Elins
the night before the shooting.
What do you think? Like
some kind of a dress rehearsal?
Only they weren't
the only ones playing.
We have evidence that other
DMG kids were online as well.
Hey, guys, there's a problem
with the RFID data, I
need to show you guys.
All right. Put it up.
Okay, I managed to map the
movements of the students.
Now, these red dots,
these are students.
And the black Xs,
those are the shooters.
Now, during the first
two minutes of the attack,
the students behaved
as one would expect.
All right. Well, then
what's the problem?
Eventually, a group of students
actually started moving
towards shooter number two.
Maybe there was a dead
end over there or something.
No. No. I walked those halls.
There was no dead end, David.
Check this out.
These are the locations
and the times of death
of our murdered victims.
Now according to the data,
the time between the
murder of victim number four
and the murder of
victim number seven
was 33 seconds.
However, I've retraced
the steps of shooter number two,
and I found that where victim
number four was murdered
to where victims numbers five,
six, and seven were murdered,
took twice that amount of time.
So what does that mean?
We know that shooter number
one took out these three victims.
And we know shooter
number two took out these two.
What about the
other three victims?
There's only one explanation
for the aberration
in the anomaly,
and that is that you guys aren't
just looking for a missing gun.
Guess what? You're
looking for a third shooter.
Agent Reeves,
my secretary says that you
think there was a third shooter.
I'm afraid that's
what it looks like.
First these shootings,
and then Justin
Price gunned down.
Now you say another
one of my kids is involved?
Where does this end?
I think as soon as we
find this third gunman.
I wanted to reopen school,
get the kids back to some
kind of normal routine.
I can see now
that's not possible.
Mr. Northrup, right now
we need your cooperation.
We need the files of everyone
associated with the DMG.
That might be a problem.
What do you mean? Why?
Well, the parents of these
children feel their kids
are being unfairly singled out.
They've hired lawyers and they
make it clear that they won't consent.
So you're saying we
need a court order?
I'm afraid that's
what it's gonna take.
There may be another way.
How?
Construct the information
from public records.
Military personnel have
the same access as colleges.
Transcripts, activities,
club memberships.
Justin Price had
a criminal record.
Maybe one of the members
of the DMG does, too.
Anything in the public record we
can use the Patriot Act to get at.
Eight dead, 12 wounded.
I'd call that an act
of domestic terrorism.
More files. Sorry, team.
Oh, it's okay.
Charlie promised to
take a look at the data
for my solar
physics presentation.
Thank you.
And you still think you
can do this in one day?
Yeah, using my support
vector classifier, yeah. Sure.
See, the algorithm's gonna
go through it all, okay?
Grades, activities,
disciplinary actions,
to evaluate traits ascribed to
the FBI school shooter profile.
Still seems like
a really tall order.
You know,
Michelangelo always said
that his sculptures
already existed.
It was merely up to him to
release them from their prison.
Well, what he means
is that this process
is a lot like that
of a sculptor.
Preserving only what's
relevant to the image he seeks,
a sculptor chips
away at a block.
Well, in this case,
this algorithm
tells the computer
which details from the
public records to keep
and which to chip away at,
which to discard as irrelevant.
Until slowly, an image appears
from this massive block of data
which, you know, if we're lucky,
correlates with an
already existing image,
the profile of the
random school shooter.
I know a lot of women who'd
like to get ahold of your algorithm
and run it against the
personals to find the perfect man.
Oh, hey, uh, you...
you know, you said
we were supposed to do
something earlier, remember?
What? You said it.
We're supposed to
do it. Let's go. Right.
See you. Right. Bye.
What was that about?
Merely a very crude
attempt at lending privacy.
At the risk of sounding
embarrassingly misguided,
would you care to
join me for dinner?
Or a show, perhaps?
Or maybe even some
terpsichorean pleasure?
I don't know what
the third one means,
but dinner sounds nice.
Okay.
On one condition, though.
You have to take me
for a ride in the car.
Delighted. Call me.
I will. I will call you.
Charlie said he's halfway
through his analysis.
So far, he's got no hits.
Oh, we're stuck without
those student files,
I can tell you that.
What about the court orders?
The kids' lawyers are
hemming and hawing,
so it may take the
judge another day.
I'm hoping this may help.
I found on the school's
ISP in the deleted files
an e-mail sent out the
day before the attack
CC-ing all the
members of the DMG
telling them to be careful
at school the next morning.
Guess who sent it?
What, Gregory Dietrich? Yeah.
There you go. So I'm
gonna give it to the judge.
And I'm hoping if we push,
we might be able to
get a warrant for his file
in the next couple of hours.
All right. Do it.
Pick up the kid,
but just be careful
now, all right?
Still revisiting high
school, Charles?
Just mapping our
shooters' third route.
You got a date, huh?
You don't seem too excited.
Mine is an inner frenzy.
I'm like some highly
agitated molecular brew.
I can't even settle
on a restaurant.
Ah, well, you know,
Italian's always romantic.
Listen, kinetics of
angel hair and red sauce,
it's a bit too much of
a challenge, I'm afraid.
Plus, I think I prefer
not to wear a bib.
I think you need to
loosen up, you know.
Free your molecules,
and your ass will follow.
Oh, yeah, well, sound advice.
I just ran Gregory Dietrich's
student file through analysis.
He's the leader of the DMG.
He scored off the charts
on the FBI school
shooter profile.
Hey, our algorithm
came through, my man.
Larry, still debating the
complexities of capellini?
No, I'm just considering
the complexities
of shooter three's route.
Now, if your main goal was
simply to shoot other students,
why such a convoluted path?
I don't know. Insanity, maybe?
Oh, no. Even a crazy person
can get from point A to point B.
Two months ago, Gregory
Dietrich made an online purchase
of an Evil Twin kit.
And what is that?
It's a hacking device to
tap into Wi-Fi networks
and steal sensitive data.
So what? So they
can get blueprints
and some security
schedules, stuff like that?
Exactly like that. Our guys
detected a Wi-Fi breach
at the high school
security database
a week after Dietrich
bought the device.
Traced it to him?
Yeah, and the kid's
not so smart, after all.
Got further proof of that.
Surveillance just saw him
running into his house
like a man on a mission.
Ah, the lawyer must
have tipped him off.
He's making his move.
I just can't get my head around
this whole high
school shooting thing.
You know, I mean, I
came from a small town.
There's 200 kids in my
high school, not 2,100.
Everybody knew everybody.
If some punk was running around
with a pile of guns and bad
intentions, we'd know about it.
I don't get it either, man.
Where I grew up, this
kind of stuff didn't happen.
Don't get me wrong, man,
kids got shot, but it was
over something, you know?
Pair of sneakers, an
insult, drugs, you know.
It was definitely stupid,
but looking at those kids
he shot in their own school.
Wouldn't have thought
about it at the time, but...
Maybe we were luckier than we
thought growing up where we did.
Yeah.
There he is.
Five bucks says he runs.
Yeah? Ten bucks
says I catch him.
I got the kid! I got the bag!
You should spend a
little more time in PE, kid.
Going hunting, Gregory?
I got nothing to say.
Yeah. That one's
new. Stand up. Let's go.
My client already told you
he had nothing to do with
the attack on the school.
Your client was in possession
of a semiautomatic weapon.
A gun that was part
of a collection of guns
owned by Justin Price's uncle.
Which doesn't prove a thing,
unless that gun was
used in the attack.
Why'd you have it?
You don't have to answer that.
No. No, it's okay.
I want to answer it.
Justin gave me the gun.
We'd go off into the woods.
We'd fire off a couple
rounds at cans and stuff.
And while you were out there,
no one ever mentioned going
and shooting up the school?
That I won't let him answer.
You bought a device to hack
into the school's database
to steal blueprints. We
have your name right here.
We traced it to you.
That's your name, isn't it?
Those blueprints
were for my game.
For authenticity.
For authenticity? Hey, wake up.
These are kids you
went to school with.
They were shot in cold blood.
Authenticity.
It wasn't me!
But you hated them, didn't you?
Look, why don't you guys
try living with it every day?
The way they look at you,
like, like you're
not even there.
So you took your revenge?
It was Paul and Justin.
But you wish it
was you, don't you?
I think we're done here.
His lawyer's right, you know?
The gun we found on him
isn't a match for
our missing weapon.
You're not going to
like this much, either.
His e-mail story holds up.
That warning that was sent
out to the other DMG members,
it was sent from his account,
but it originated from
the school library.
So he sent it from the school.
Not unless he was
in two places at once.
His school ID badge says
he cut out early that day.
His ATM card and a
security cam photo says
he was making a withdrawal
the same time the e-mail was sent.
I mean, he created the
game, he's the leader.
All this goes down and then
he's got nothing to do with it?
I don't buy that.
Charlie, your advice,
free your molecules.
I made a reservation
for Megan and I
at an Ethiopian restaurant.
Ethiopian, on Fairfax.
Thinkin' outside the box.
Wish me well.
Hey, you know,
um, you were right.
Shooter number three's
route doesn't conform
to any predictable
pursuit-evasion result.
I'm thinking that I must
be missing a variable.
Up until now, I gotta be honest,
I think we've been looking at
this school shooting the wrong way.
Let's take a look
at the route taken
by our first two shooters.
Their movement is methodical.
They are pursuing students
in a logical progression.
Now, let's take a look
at our third shooter.
Appears here
and for the next minute makes
his way through the school
killing victims until
vanishing here.
Most likely changed clothes.
Shooter number
three's route is circuitous.
It's inefficient.
Yeah, but it's a
random shooting spree.
Doesn't it make sense that he
would choose a random path?
Intuitively, yes, but,
well, mathematically, no.
Mathematicians apply
a path minimization
to analyze this kind of
predator-prey dynamic.
What exactly is that?
The snake pursues the mouse.
Mouse runs, the
snake is relentless
and tracks every step.
And when it runs into obstacles,
it finds the quickest, most
economical way around them.
Now, using path minimization,
we can predict the snake's path
because the snake only
has one thing on its mind,
finding the most
efficient point A to point B
between it and its dinner.
So shooter number three is
just a lousy snake, or what?
Shooter number three's route
was definitely not determined
by path minimization.
So, what, then?
Maybe, this.
Now we know that the school
uses RFID chip technology
to take attendance.
Tells teachers when
students are in class
and when they're absent.
Keeps track of
students using a PDA.
Right. Names and
locations of the students
show up on the screen.
Yeah, the DMG kids, we
know they have the capability
to break into the
school security system.
Yeah, so why couldn't
they hack into the RFID?
They definitely weren't
taking attendance.
Charlie's right.
Can you bring up the model
for shooter number three?
Look at the behavior
in the model.
Oh, he's letting the
students go right by him
without even taking a shot.
Because he's targeting
specific students,
the quarterback,
the skateboarder
and the swim team captain.
Yeah, and the system would
tell him exactly where they are.
Oh, that, no, that's
sufficient. Thank you.
So the last time I
had Ethiopian food,
I was at a conference
on Bondi accretion
in Addis Ababa.
What? Oh, am I being tedious?
No, no, tedious would be
a... a week at Quantico
studying note-taking
skills at a crime scene.
Oh, speaking of which,
I heard you and Charlie
went down to the school.
Yeah. It was horrific.
I just kept thinking all
the while, you know,
if I could only
corral a wormhole
and go back in time,
just talk to these young
men before they did it.
And what would you say to them?
I would say high
school is ephemeral.
And I don't know if the
meek inherit the Earth,
but Bill Gates and
the Google guys,
you know, they did all right.
You seem to have done well.
No. Well, now,
but in high school?
Oh, I don't think you and I
would've been at the same table.
I, uh, in fact, I wasn't
permitted a table.
I was kind of a
mess in high school.
Yeah?
That surprises me.
It was a surprise
to most people,
particularly my parents,
who could, you know,
barely show their face at
the country club for a while.
Oh, no, country club.
You're one of those.
Social register, too.
You're full of surprises,
you know that.
So this... this FBI thing,
why did you become a G-man?
Well, it's... it's a little
more complicated,
but I have three older sisters,
and I was my father's last
chance at having a son.
I can play every ball
game known to man.
As I got older, it just got
harder to switch gears.
In fairness, I should say
that the FBI has given me the greatest
sense of equilibrium I've ever felt.
On most days.
You do seem a little
distracted tonight.
It's just the case.
You know, Charlie's math
proves that our main suspect
does fit the shooter profile
for a school shooting.
But his math also shows us
that our shooter number three
wasn't on a killing rampage.
You know, I'm failing
to see the inconsistency.
The first two shooters
fit the profile of
a school shooter.
They show unbridled rage.
This third shooter
was calculated.
It was a planned attack.
It's indicative of a
whole other motive.
You know, in cosmology,
when faced with
logical inconsistencies,
I like to fall back
on an old chestnut.
If you don't like the answer,
ask a different question.
6:00 a.m. I get a
call from Charlie
saying you got some
new angle on the case.
It was something
that Larry said to me
over dinner last night.
Wait, wait, you and Larry
had dinner last night?
No. Come on. Moving on.
He just got me thinking.
You and I both have our doubts
that Dietrich is the third shooter.
Right.
So what if we need to
look at this in reverse?
What if we need to
study the victimology?
Shooter number three
picked all of his targets
for a specific reason.
There has to be a reason why.
Oh, I see. So, what, just have
Charlie do what he was doing
with the suspects, but
do it with the victims?
Yeah. If we can find the
common denominator,
it might take us
back to the killer.
Yeah, yeah. All
right, that's good.
Where'd you have dinner?
So, I ran a cluster analysis
on the student files
of our three victims,
Rob Holt, skateboard dude,
Thomas Caballo, quarterback,
and Lewis Ives,
swim team captain.
Uh, the two jocks share
numerous commonalities,
they're both seniors, both
captains of their squad.
What about skateboard dude?
Well, his only commonality
is that his name appeared
in an investigation of steroid
abuse by student athletes.
He was a suspected supplier.
Some of the students
mentioned that,
and the school investigated,
but nothing came of it.
Any other correlations?
All three names
appeared in a police report
of a keg party that got so
rowdy the neighbors complained.
However, there were a
dozen students on that report.
None of them were victims,
none of them had any apparent
relationship to the victims.
Yeah, but still, maybe
something happened at the party.
Yeah, something
enough to motivate a killer.
You got a list of
kids at the party?
Can you put it up? Yeah.
So, we just need to find a
connection between these names
and one of the DMG kids.
Karen Camden.
Wait a minute, she
was on the police report?
She has a connection
to all the DMG kids.
Yeah, she wrote a story
about them for the school paper.
She knows them really well.
She knows they were
having violent fantasies.
Yeah, but why would she
want to take part in this attack?
I don't know, but it might
explain why they spared her,
not just because she gave them
props in the school newspaper.
Absolutely. Maybe
she's in on it.
Karen Camden purchased
a Wi-Fi PDA three weeks ago.
Okay, so that would allow her
to track anyone in
school, right? Mmm-hmm.
Her credit card showed
a bunch of charges
to a motel in the Valley.
The manager ID'd
her and Justin Price.
Oh, a pretty girl
could get a teenage boy
to do a lot of things. Right.
Especially if he's not
used to the attention.
And if he has the inclination.
I mean, look at Pamela Smart,
she got one to kill
her husband for her.
So what, she seduces Price,
uses him and... and blows him off?
She could've even gotten him
to shoot Paul
Elins, his own friend.
She could've made-up the
whole murder-suicide pact.
She probably knew they were
fantasizing about the shootings
and then just pushed
him over the edge
and he becomes
the third shooter.
Why? What's the motive?
Well, the best guess,
we look at the victims.
The answer's probably
gonna lay there.
School steroid scandal.
Article was written
by Karen Camden.
I thought that
investigation went nowhere.
And no prosecutions, though
some of the team captains
lost their college scholarships.
Yeah? Just to get even, huh?
Karen's not a violent person.
She'd never do
anything like this.
Yeah, but something
happened at that party, didn't it?
Something that
changed your daughter.
Mrs. Camden, we
have eight people dead
and 12 more in the hospital.
If you know the reason for
this, we need you to speak.
They raped me.
Becky was the one who set it up.
She invited me to that party.
Helped Rob Holt,
Mr. Skateboard Cool,
slip something into my drink.
Then Jake Porter raped me and
the others watched and took pictures.
Oh, God, Karen. God, honey.
I wrote that story
about the steroids.
They blamed me for
messing up their scholarships.
Why didn't you press charges?
They were the
stars of the school.
It would be my
word against theirs.
Karen, eight people are dead
that you went to
school with every day.
I'm going to need you to put
your hands behind your back.
I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Jake Porter.
Yeah?
Take your headgear
off, tough guy.
We want to talk to you.
What's this about?
You're under arrest for
the rape of Karen Camden.
What are you talking about?
We spoke to Karen.
She gave us a statement about
what happened at the party.
You're talking about the same
girl who shot up the school
with her psycho-geek
pals, right?
Everybody's talking
about how she's the one
who engineered the whole thing.
You're telling me you
believe Karen Camden?
The girl's a whack job.
It'll be my word against hers.
Yeah, would've been.
Except for Rob
Holt's cell phone.
Your moron friend took a
picture of you with his phone.
Let's go. Turn around.
I'm not going
anywhere with you guys.
Yeah, you are.
You're coming with us.
Get off me, man.
Get your hands behind your back.
What is it with guys
and dirty pictures?
Stand up.
Where's Big Papa?
The caterer.
Ah, getting serious.
No, I just think he doesn't
want to have to cook, you know?
You never get enough?
Look, what do you want from me?
I like seeing how
they spin it, you know?
You think anybody really knows
how any of this stuff happens?
Definitely not.
I know that when I was
in high school, I was so,
uh, angst-ridden.
Yeah. Well, I mean,
you didn't shoot anybody.
No, but there were
days when I wanted to do,
you know, real...
real damage to, uh...
To you.
To me?
Hey, buddy, take your best shot.
Come on.
Wait, I'll help you out,
I'll get on my knees.
Come on. I'm not a kid anymore.
All right, tough guy, let's go.
Maybe we should step outside.
Let's go. Let's go. All right.
How about now? How about now?
Oh, there you go. Come on.
You ain't got nothing.
All right, all right. How
about we just get pizza?
No, I don't want to go
out, man, I just got home.
There's a lovely pot
roast in the fridge.
Oh, it's a week old. Come on.
How do you know that?
Of course. You eat
here more than I do.
I'll pay, how's that?