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Penny was hightailing it across the street when she spotted a lost-looking kid lingering by the doors. She had a Big Gulp clutched in one hand, a cigarette pinched between two fingers, and a bag fat with papers under one arm. She click-clacked across the pavement and came to an abrupt stop in front of the taller kid. The finger clutching the cigarette pushed a pair of sunglasses up to the top of her head. Penny narrowed her eyes at him, studied his features.

Her ring finger pointed out at him. "I know you. You're one of the DCU interns, yeah? Working with Craig and the daytime sound techs?" Penny was a producer for the late night news. She only saw him when she came in early for meetings or for additional work. The station was her home. She noticed when they moved the extra speakers across the room. She definitely noticed new faces.

The cigarette burned away at her fingertips. She took a drag off of it and exhaled off to the side. "You lost? You look a little lost." Penny was crass, direct, and the youngest producer in the entire station. If Matthew hadn't noticed all 5'0" of her before, he had probably at least heard of her.

Penny let the cigarette dangle from her lips so she could search through the pocket of her black slacks. She came away with a cellphone, checked the time and date. Her finger tapped away at a calendar she kept there too. "It's Tuesday," she said, her words muffling around the cigarette. Mint eyes flashed up from the surface of the phone. "Craig doesn't work today. He spends the second Tuesday of every month visiting his mother upstate. She went totally nutso after she walked in on his dad sticking it to the neighbor or something." It occurred to Penny after the words left her mouth that she probably shouldn't have said it. That sort of feeling came over her all the time.

The phone disappeared back into her pocket, and she plucked the cigarette from her lips, flicking ash to the ground. "How about you don't tell him I said that? Craig is sensitive about his mother." And Penny really didn't need another complaint filed against her. "Why don't we make a deal -- I can take you inside and find something for you to do, and you don't tell Craig about that thing with his mom, okay? Okay." Penny flicked her cigarette to the side and then clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder, pushing him toward the door.

Penny was pushy in general.

Using her fingertips to push, Penny steered Matthew into the building. She took one second to swipe her employee badge and another to log him into the building as an intern after getting his name. She wasn't exactly shy about taking charge, not on her home turf. "I'm Penny," she added quickly, manuevering through the metal detector ahead of him. "I'm a producer for the 11:00." Well, she was the 'assistant' who more often than not was calling all the on-set shots. The rest of the late night staff was more than happy to cash their paychecks and let her do all the heavy lifting. Penny preferred it that way too.

After passing rows of offices and moving from one soundstage to another, Penny finally came to a halt outside of an office stocked to the brim with old and damaged sound boards. "Stay right here," she said, poking her head inside. After a moment, she crossed back to Matthew. "Huh, no George either. Am I the only person who works in this ******** place?" She laughed, as if it was joke.

There was a line of headsets on the far wall. Penny pulled one free and slipped it on to her head. She had just begun to say, "Hey, can someone get George on the radio?" when something fell from the ceiling and hit her on the head.

Penny swore loudly, stumbling forward. She glanced down to see what hit her. It was a piece of plastic from the scaffolding above. "What the...?" A hand reached out protectively to shove the younger boy to the side. "Watch out. Something just--" Her eyes squinted, narrowed. "Is something moving up there?" she said quietly, as if to Matthew.

Cupping both hands to her mouth, she shouted up, "HEY. WHO IS DICKING AROUND IN THE LIGHTING RIG?" Something flickered by. Again, she grabbed Matthew and pointed high above their heads. "Did you see something up there?" she asked.

Penny zagged left, trying to get her head in the exact position that Matthew's had been in. Ever since she had awakened as a Page, she had begun to assume that every bump and hiss was some sort of monster lurking in the darkness. She had been attacked in the film studio once before, and then there had been the on-air murder of several anchormen by mysterious people claiming to be members of one of the gangs. Looking back, Penny had no idea how to look at that event.

For whatever reason, the DCNN station seemed to be some sort of hotbed for activity. Penny wasn't about to let her guard down. The pair stood there awkwardly for awhile. If Matthew tried to speak, she shushed him harshly.

After two minutes of this without a flicker of movement, Penny straightened. "This city is making me so damn paranoid," she said, shaking her head and stepping away from Matthew. "Sorry about that, kid. You never know in this place, am I--" Something black and inky fell from the ceiling, gripped each of Penny's shoulders in its claws, and then lifted her into the air, flying off toward the opposite side of the room.

Penny was still sailing high above the floor. The hawk youma was snapping at her throat, and it was taking every ounce of her attention not to have her throat ripped out. She could hear the intern yelling for help below her. Really? Really? There were headsets. There were sharp, pointy things. If she wasn't so busy focusing on not dying, she might have taken a moment to b***h at him.

Instead, she swatted at the throat of the youma and wondered if she could transform into Cimmerian without Matthew noticing. A siren began to wail. The heavy metal doors that led from the sound stage they were at to the next slammed shut. A tinny voice announced that the emergency security system had been triggered, citing an intruder in Stage 4. Penny and Matthew were in Stage Four. <********>.

"GET OFF ME," Penny shouted, gripping at whatever she could. Apparently one handful hit a particularly delicate spot. The beast let out a wail and then released her. She fell ten feet to the ground, landing on some excess batting from the insulation with a thud.

Falling hurt, secret crimefighter identity or not. Penny nearly transformed on the spot into Cimmerian just to shove her fist down the youma's ******** throat. "Good thing Jerry has been a ******** a** lately about cleaning up," she murmured, grabbing the kid's hand and getting to her feet. The youma continued to circle, screeching every so often.

From what she could see, it was a hawk youma with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. She would have preferred to see a beak. "It's a monster, is that not obvious?" she said, grabbing the taller boy by the elbow and yanking him behind a massive speaker. "Destiny City strikes again, am I right? Now let's me and you focus on not dying here. The flying monkey up there triggered the security system, which means the police are coming. We just need to hold out long enough for them to get here." The police might not be the best at handling these problems, but they had guns -- and guns could kill youma.

Never been close to one before? s**t, Penny had killed them before. "Either have I," she said, crouching lower. It was one thing to waste a youma in powered form with Gehenna at her side. It was entirely another to be trapped as a civilian with a total stranger just trying to survive for however long it took the police to show up with guns.

A gun. Why didn't Penny pack heat? She regretted it now.

When the youma screeched, Penny ducked lower. "This isn't the first one we've had in the studio. These... monster things. Genetic testing gone wrong, aliens on the loose, a boogeyman -- pick your conspiracy theory, am I right?" She was babbling. It was what she did. She was accustomed to talking until things made sense for her.

The youma swooped low by them, knocking over the lighting rig. Penny grabbed Matthew by the collar and dove to the right to avoid it. It shattered on the ground. "Do you know how expensive that thing is?" It was unclear whether she was talking to the youma or Matthew.

They needed a place to hide-out, that much was clear. Penny scanned her mental map of the studio. Wait! "There's a storage closet on the opposite side of the stage," she said quietly to Matthew. "If we can get there, we can lock the door and wait it out for the cops." Peeking over another amp, she pointed to the door. It was about twenty-five feet away.