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It was 1:03AM, and Penny was still at work.

This was not precisely surprising because Penny was more or less always it work in one way or another. The biggest diversions she took from it nowadays came down to her newly discovered Knighthood. The 11:00 show had wrapped two hours ago. Her talent had done their promos and then waved goodbye for the night. Other than a few security guards, Penny was alone in the building.

Well, alone with Kam.

The pair had left the soundstage thirty minutes ago to head up to Penny’s office. Since Kam still didn’t have a car, the petite producer had been driving him home from work when it was too late to take a bus and a b***h and a half to wait for a subway to rattle into the station. She didn’t mind. Kam was good company. He shut up when she asked him to, was always up for beers if she was, and seemed perfectly comfortable with whatever crass, foul thing might accidentally tumble out of her mouth in the passing of a day.

The promise had been that they would leave at 12:30, but Penny had to answer her massive list of unread emails, check her messages, and review the script for the next day’s show. Kam was used to this constant delay, but late was late. They were supposed to be getting beers, not sitting in her stuffy office while she clacked away on keys like a madwoman.

Penny was a consummate professional in her book. She worked hard, always went above and beyond, and was more or less willing to kill if it meant the betterment of DCNN. Her position within the ranks of producer had been obtained through a hard fought battle of blood, sweat, and tears. She held people to an impossibly high standard at times, always expecting others to be willing to work the same long hours of over time with no financial compensation.

When the employees would fix her with stressed looks and mention their children or their spouses or their amateur soccer league, Penny would frown deeply and offer a curt, “We all have our priorities. Mine is this betterment of our company and the quality of our programming. If yours is Jenny’s fifth ballet recital this season, then that is your choice.” She didn’t mince words. She didn’t hide her scorn. She just watched those family-centric employees stalk out the door with a look in her eye that screamed: quitter.

That didn‘t mean she wasn’t willing to break rules.

After sending out yet another email, Penny swore loudly and then shot up from her desk. She crossed to the door and shut it, stuffing a towel under the frame. The tiny woman circled the room like a hawk, lighting candles, turning on air circulators, and spritzing every manner of odor-killing spray she had before going back to her seat. One hand disappeared into her desk drawer and came back holding a cigarette. She lit it quickly and took a long drag, eyes rolling upward. Nicotine was her lifeblood.

Smoking was strictly prohibited within DCNN studios, but it was a rule that Penny broke on a near-daily basis. The security guards were wise to her game. So far, none had tried to tango with her seriously. The one that had was fired within 48 hours of launching a complaint. Penny would not be trifled with, not when it came to her need to smoke. She said nothing to Kam as she did this dance. Like all her others quirks, he had been exposed to this one before.

When Kam fell back into his chair and groaned, Penny flashed her eyes up to him in a dead stare and snapped, "******** what?" She was a workaholic and had no qualms about it. In fact she had negative qualms about it, which meant that she needed to go find other people's qualms and destroy them -- like Kam's. Kam, however, seemed to have his own ideas about how they could make this night a little smoother.

Penny sucked in an ultra long draw off her cigarette and then blew it hastily in Kam's direction. The whirring fan overhead brought the smoke apart into tiny currents dissipating upward before it could get too close to his face. Mint green eyes watched the younger man as he whipped out a bag of brownies and then began to try and feed her one.

She narrowed her eyes and slowly brought her cigarette to rest in a tiny glass ashtray. "Have we not properly established the friendship dynamic here?" she said, tapping a nail on top of her script. "I cart your a** around. I buy you things. I encourage you to be better." One hand waved in the air. "Wait, scratch that, I can summarize -- I will force feed you your own dreadlocks, Kambojojo, if you keep waving that around at me."

Fingers pinched the cigarette and lifted it to her mouth. Penny inhaled deeply and then craned her neck back for the exhale. "I pick my own poison," she said. Apparently Penny was going to need more convincing.

Penny prickled at his use of her Page name. Her lips drew into a purse. The hand that held her pen stopped ticking. There were cameras and microphones all over the station, but the petite producer had ensured that none of those devices were ever live in hers. It meant picking one of the older office. Her desk looked older than her, and her chair only had three wheels. She was tucked in one of the back corners by the storage while the other producers had offices upstairs with wide glass walls. Glass walls? Um, no. Penny wanted her privacy.

Especially now that Kam was peddling contraband.

One hand reached out to poke at the baked good. "That was College Penny," she mused, pulling it closer. Kam was selling her on it, and truth be told, the girl could use a little relaxation. All this Knighthood stuff had thrown a serious wrench in her normal schedule. She was the queen of adjusting to things, but it didn't make it devoid of stress.

Slowly, Penny smashed out her cigarette, unwrapped the brownie, and lifted it to her lips. "******** it," she said. And then she began to eat.



Twenty minutes later, Penny was spinning in circles in her three-legged office chair, head lolling. "You know," she said, staring up at the ceiling, "that spaceman -- Kurma? -- he was cute. Like. I dunno. I don't have time for much beyond sex, but goddamn, there was something about him. I dunno. Maybe I'm in a dry spell. I dunno -- but that spaceman? Kurma? He was... cool." Spin, spin, spin.

Penny stopped twirling in her chair. The rotations slowed and then stopped, leaving her bleary-eyed and gazing at Kam. She fixed him with a serious look for a moment and then sang back, "Someday you will find me, caught beneath the landslide..." One hand raised up to flip back and forth in long, low conductor strokes. "In a champagne supernova in the sky!" The notes might have been right, but the rhythm was all wrong. Penny wasn't the type to blow out your eardrums. She wasn't exactly what someone might call 'enjoyable' to listen to either.

In that moment, she believed her voice was a sweet as the tears of an angel -- one of those cute baby ones with the rosy cheeks and curly blond hair.

After a long pause, Penny said, "We don't need iPods. We have music in our heads. I have entire news programs in my head that haven't even happened yet. They are just there. Waiting. For me to bring them to the world." She lifted her hands dramatically in front of her and then let them coast back to her side.

Somewhere down the hallway, there was a clatter of metal on metal, something falling over. Penny sat up suddenly. This station was her lifeblood. She could almost sense the tremors of discomfort. "Did you hear that?" she said, glancing over to Kam.

Penny sat up in her chair, one arm lifting from its dangled position to grip the armrest. When he opened the door, she bolted upright. "Hey, man, no, not cool," she murmured, flapping her hand at him. Before she agreed to eat the brownie, there had been a solemn promise not to open the door under any circumstances. The only people left in the building where the night security guards and maybe a random higher-up who, like her, breathed, ate, and slept the job. Either way, Penny didn't want to risk getting caught doing what they were doing.

She got to her feet slowly, wobbling. They had been sitting in the same positions for an hour just talking. However strong the brownie Kam had given her was, it was proving to be particularly potent for the girl who preferred beer and cigarettes as her drug of choice. Normal movements had become more interesting to her. She could still move freely, but it was all delayed, like the space between her brain and her muscles had somehow doubled.

After centering herself with a few breaths, Penny crossed over to where Kam was peering through the door. "You are the brownie expert," she said, leaning heavily on him. "I am the TV station expert -- and don't you ******** forget it." Taking a cautious step into the hallway, Penny looked left and then right.

There were something to the right, a wetness on the floor. "Damn," she murmured, taking a few more hesitant steps out of the safety of the doorway. She stooped down and then poked the goo with her finger. Oil spills happened from time to time, or grease smears from some of their heavier equipment. This was neither. The second she touched it, her finger began to burn. "********," she shouted, her voice echoing off the walls.

In a flash she ripped off her cardigan and used it to hastily wipe the goo off of her before it could do any damage. Penny hustled back into her office and slammed the door shut behind her. "Problem," she said, chucking her cardigan to the floor and staring at the red, irritated skin on her finger. "There is some sort of trippy snail trail out there that feels like lava when you touch it. It's not oil or grease from our equipment." She frowned deeply. "Please tell me maybe we are just being crazy." God, she hoped so. She really really hoped so.

Penny wasn't about to apologize for knocking Kam over. If anything, she was a little impressed with herself. If not for the icky painful goo and the terrifying intoxication, she would have railed him about it, no doubt. As it were, the petite producer took to pacing a tiny trench across the floor, shaking her head and murmuring about monsters.

"I know battery acid, Kam. I am a virtuouososososo of battery acid." One hand pointed harshly at the wall in the direction of the trail. "That is not battery acid." She said it with a touch of disbelief. Was he really questioning her knowledge of the studio? Really? Apparently he needed a reminder. "The studio is my wilderness, Kambojojo, and I am Bear <********> Grylls. I will such elephant s**t for the water left in its piss. I will bite the asses off ants. I will strip naked and roll around in dead animal bits to blend in. I will..." She lost her train of thought, staring off in a corner.

Something else fell outside and snapped her back to reality. "Bob Marley," she said, clutching Kam's forearm. "You're the captain right now of this psychedelic funboat, but we're floating in my ******** ocean. There's a white whale out there, and YOU need to tell me where to throw my fists because -- and this is me being honest now -- I have been seeing tiny globes of light that I am 97% sure are actually fairies for the past fifteen minutes." It was probably a bad sign that Kam was being elected to lead their motley duo.

Not fairies, right. "If we don't clap, they'll die anyway," she said. It made perfect logical sense to her addled brain. Adrenaline fought with nicotine and narcotic for dominance. It created a perfect storm of confusion in the petite producer's head. Penny lifted both hands and began to rub her temples, as if doing so would force a good solution to their problem out of her mouth.

Belatedly, it occured to her that Kam had become Gehenna, just in time for him to bellow out a battle cry and go running off ahead of her. "Wait for me!" she shouted, flashing between Penny and Cimmerian just as quickly.

Wow, it was a really good thing there were no security cameras inside her office. How would she explain the footage of two magical fighters bursting out through her door? Well, that would take some sober creativity later.

Rounding the corner, Cimmerian chased after Gehenna, leaping over a low amp and narrowly avoiding a light. "Do NOT break anything!" she ordered, voice tipping with seriousness. Even in the haze, Meri did not want to see the studio ransacked.

The trail of slime led them across Stage 4 and all the way into the back storage room. It was where old, outdated equipment went to die -- or be sold, either one. Meri came to a slamming stop once they crossed the threshold, shutting the heavy iron door behind them and flicking on a light. "The only exit out of here is through a window," she whispered. "We got nailed for a fire code violation because of it, but the new door isn't in yet."

Up ahead, the trail bent to the left. "Come 'ere, youmayoumayouma," she called, pulling free her bow and notching an arrow.

When Gehenna signaled her, Cimmerian nodded sharply. She had just begun to step away when she turned back and whispered loudly, "I feel like ******** Robin Hood, or maybe Maid Marian." Her eyes went wide. "OH s**t. Marian." She pointed a thumb at her chest, finger still hooked on the bow string. "CimMERIAN." That was apparently all she had to share. The words left her mouth and then she was doing as told, scooting around the corner and drawing her bow up to her chest.

The icky snail trail was not in this aisle, not most of it anyway. Meri stopped to the side of a smudge. It seemed to have turned the corner, come to the very spot she stood and then disappeared. Relaxing her grip on the bow, she straightened. "Ghen, the trail stops. It just -- ow." Something splashed on her shoulder, a burning pain. She glanced to it: a single drop of icky black youma trail.

After a moment, another drop fell. Cimmerian craned her neck up slowly. The ceiling towered high above them. In the low light, she couldn't make anything out. Then, there was a shape moving quickly through the darkness. "s**t, another flying one!" she shouted.

Except she was wrong. It wasn't flying. The snail youma was falling. It was falling right on top of her.