Simmering with panic I couldn't fully suppress, even as Dr. Horrible, I exited our building and began to sprint in the direction of the Caring Hands Shelter; I knew the way well enough by then after doing so much… observation… of Penny. I also knew she'd be working that day from 8:30 AM to 2:45 PM (it was 1:36 PM when I left the apartment). When I arrived a few minutes later, out of breath and full of adrenaline, I burst in the door without knocking or ringing the little bell by the entrance.

As my eyes adjusted to the relatively dim light of the shelter, I heard a gasp on my right. My gaze snapped to the scruffy-looking man behind the front desk, who had dropped the magazine he'd been reading and was staring at me with a mixture of surprise and fascination. "You!" I shouted, pointing at him. "Is Penny here?"

"She was, but she just left." He was staring at me with a complete lack of fear; I don't know if it was the stress levels in me snapping or if it was just one too many times of not being taken seriously, but I yanked out the Freeze Ray prototype and jabbed it at his chest.

"Do you know where she is?" I snarled angrily.

His eyes flicked to the side and back up to me. "What're you gonna do, freeze me if I don't tell you?"

I made a mental note to stop labeling my devices where victims could see it. "It might say it's a freeze ray, but I made some modifications. I just forgot to change the label to 'Death Ray 2.0'." I pressed a button, and the device hummed to life as it began its warm-up cycle. "Now, I'm not going to ask you again."

The man's expression turned from defiant to terrified - finally! - and he stammered, "O-okay, man, j-just power that thing down. She went back to her apartment to get something- her cell phone, maybe."

Her apartment… that was the one place in her life I hadn't been. I hadn't even looked it up; I may have been a little… thorough… in my observations of Penny, but I never believed in finding out on my own where she lived. I had always hoped that one day she would take me there herself.

"Where does she live?"

"I-I don't know."

"Can't you look it up?" I demanded to know, gesturing wildly at the computer sitting on his desk.

He shook his head helplessly. "I don't have the authorization to look at personnel files. I'm an old customer turned new hire… I just work the desk!"

I sighed in frustration, hopping over the desk and shoving the man out of his chair. "Move! You're useless." Within a minute of sitting down, I had hacked their network and pulled up Penny's file. I scratched her address quickly on a spare paper that was lying on the desk - no small feat with huge rubber gloves on, mind you - stuffed it into my pocket, and bolted out the door without a backward glance at the front desk man.

Luckily - and unsurprisingly - she lived fairly close to the Caring Hands shelter. Even though it only took me about five minutes to sprint to Penny's apartment complex, I wished I had thought to look up her number as well. That was the other piece of information about her that I didn't have; I felt the same way about her phone number as I did about her address. When she gave me her number, I wanted to be able to accept it without being tempted to quote it along with her. Now, I regretted both decisions to respect her privacy.

By the time I barreled through the front door of the run-down complex, dashed up two flights of stairs, and finally reached her apartment at the end of the dingy-looking hallway, I was gasping for breath, the world seeming to pitch sickeningly below me.

"Penny?" I called softly between gasps, pushing the door open a little. And then I stopped breathing all together when I saw the inside of her apartment. I had always imagined her place taking my breath away, but not like this; it was trashed, with everything from books to clothes to boxes of food littered on the ground.

Without hesitation, I powered up the Freeze Ray, kicked the door open, and burst inside with what I hoped was a fearsome yell. A stupid mistake; I should have known better than to make so much noise. My reward for my stupidity was a punch in the face that knocked me clear into Penny's tiny - but perfectly decorated - kitchen. As I slid backwards across the floor, I couldn't help feeling a sense of déjà vu, and when I looked up through a fog of dizziness to see my attacker, the feeling was complete.

It was Captain Hammer.