Dana Scully's Apartment

8:53 p.m.

Scully shut down her laptop and organized the files that scattered her desk. Even though it was early, she was ready to turn in. It was the first night home from a weeklong investigation with Mulder's "Surfer Yeti," which she was ready to be done with.

With plans of watching the Nick-at-Nite Alfred Hitchcock marathon, she headed to the bathroom to take her shower.

A sharp knocking on her apartment door interrupted her plans. Scully turned on foot and looked through the peephole to see the face of Fox Mulder.

She opened the door, looking quizzically at her partner. "Mulder, what's up?" she inquired.

Mulder stepped into her apartment, walking towards the TV. "You been watching the news, Scully?"

"No, I've been finishing up on the last case," Scully replied, hoping he'd get the point.

If Mulder got his partner's message, he didn't acknowledge it. He turned on the TV and flipped to the local station, where the newscast he had seen earlier was about to repeat. "I want you to watch this, and then we need to go talk to someone."

"Mulder, what's all this about?"

Mulder nodded towards the TV, where the local high school story was being replayed. It only received a three-minute time slot, as schoolyard teenaged violence was no surprise nowadays. But Mulder had seen enough. Scully, however, had not.

"Did you know any of those kids, Mulder?"

He shook his head. "No."

Scully eyed him. "Tell me you don't think this is somehow an X-File..."

Mulder didn't answer directly, which worried Scully. "Come on. There's someone we need to speak with."

Lone Gunmen Headquarters

9:24 p.m.

Scully rolled her eyes as she and Mulder approached the shadowy warehouse. "This better not have anything to do with Frohike."

Mulder shook his head. "No, this is something else. Something serious."

The agents entered the building and found the three men sitting around a computer screen. Frohike looked up and smiled.

"Ah, you have returned...and you have brought the lovely Agent Scully as well," he said gallantly.

Scully smiled politely as Mulder turned to Byers.

"Where's you niece at? I wanted to ask her some questions about the fights that have been occurring at her high school."

Byers nodded towards the back. "She's reading the files and old magazine issues. Don't keep her too long, we're leaving for home soon."

Mulder nodded, and directed Scully to the room he had first seen Casey.

She was sitting at a desk, reading glasses back on, thumbing through an old issue of the Lone Gunmen's magazine. Upon hearing Mulder and Scully enter, she looked up.

With a wry grin she said to Mulder "You ain't gonna pull that gun on me again?"

Scully looked at Mulder suspiciously. He ignored both the question and Scully's look.

"This is my partner, Dana Scully. We wanted to ask you some questions about your school-about the violence that has taken an up rise."

"Sure, what do you want to know?" Casey replied.

"When did these fights start?" Mulder asked.

Casey thought for a moment. "There've always been fights, of course. My school's pretty tame, but no matter what, you'll always have some kids who just want to fight. But the thing is, whenever they'd do something, you'd never be surprised about it. Hearing news like that was just part of a daily routine."

Casey paused, chewing on the end of her reading glasses thoughtfully. "But when those recent fights started occurring, it was different. I guess the first one was about two weeks ago, and it involved someone I knew. This guy was great-always nice to you and everything, you know? No matter who you were. One day he just snapped, and beat the living crap out of a student-an underclassmen asking for directions, no less!

"Of course, the school isn't going to look too far into it; in their eyes he's just one of those 'disturbed children.' No reason to believe that he really didn't remember why he did it. The cops did the drug test, and it came back negative, so the principal suspended him for three weeks. End of story...theirs, anyway."

"What about the others?" Mulder inquired.

"The first one was, what did I say...two weeks ago? And there've been three more since then. The last one involved another kid I knew-a girl named Shelly Brington."

"What were the ages in the four aggressors?" Scully asked, beginning to see where Mulder was going with this, though not sure she agreed.

"Dave is a senior, the next kid is a junior, the next a senior, and Shelly is a sophomore," Casey replied.

"Any known connection?"

"The only connection I make is that they were the least likely to do something like this. That might not have anything to do with it, but I guess that's what made it stand out."

Mulder nodded and stood. "Thank you, Casey. We'll be in touch."

Casey waved goodbye as the two agents left. Scully waited until they were in the parking lot before speaking her mind.

"Please don't tell me you think this is the work of 'Little Green Men.'"

Mulder's features remained serious as he held open the passenger side door for her. "Gray, remember?" was all he said before shutting it and strolling around to the driver's side.

Once inside he smiled at his partner. "Actually, I'm joking. Except for the 'gray' part."

"You don't think this is an X-File?" asked Scully, confused. "But when you came over-"

"It doesn't look like an X-File, but it does merit some investigation by the agents of the X-Files."

"Any reason why?"

Mulder drove slowly back to Scully's apartment, so he would have enough time to tell her everything. "Fighting in suburban schools has risen what in the last five years? Last time I checked it was 38 percent. These fights are the worse ones Casey Byers, an upperclassman, has seen, yet they are not bad enough for the police to really take over. They're border-lining the responsibility between the school and the police. Either way, they won't give the kids the benefit of the doubt."

"Which is..."

"That they're telling the truth. That they really don't remember why they attacked other students at random."

Scully thought a moment. "So what's your plan?"