[b]17 minutes later...[/b]

Ryder tried not to use her telekinetic abilities extensively, even when the researches were actively running tests on her. She had a habit of underselling her own powers to make others believe she was weaker than expected. Right now, though, there wasn't a need to keep her cards so tightly close to the chest. She repeatedly flung herself hundreds of feet in a straight line with her telekinesis, ensuring a safe landing with the same trick and occasionally dropping herself into a tree to make sure she wasn't being tailed. What would normally be a 45 minute drive down a road full of twists and turns was cut down to less than 20 by Ryder's efficiency. To a certain sensitive telepath, it would feel like the psychic equivalent of seeing lightning flash in the distance sky: There one second, fading away the next. Ryder did this until she came up on the town. As far as she knew, this place was less than friendly to people like her. As long as she played it cool, and ditched the gun, then maybe she could come out of this fine. All she had to do was not start acting stupid suddenly.

Ryder floated the gun up out of her hands, and used her powers to cycle the action and pull out two more bullets. She then sent the pistol flying far into the distance in an adjacent direction, expecting it to land a few thousand feet away from her current location, perpendicular to the town to suggest she went in that direction if anyone found the gun. If not, who cares? Social convention would make it less likely that anyone just grabbed her if she was out in the open. It would raise questions as to why armed personnel were chasing the child without police uniforms. That would give her enough time to find a few things she needed to cement her momentum. Ryder walked to the outskirts of town, and dropped the spare bullets into a storm drain as she headed down a sidewalk. There weren't a lot of people milling about, as this place wasn't particularly large. But there was enough that a crowd could easily form around her if they thought she was a mutant. Ryder was visibly young and not easy to confuse for an adult, so it might raise suspicion if she walked up to an ATM, snapped her fingers and made it spit out a few hundred dollars. 

Even with this low concentration of people, she had to assume someone was watching her. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think Umbra had sort of UAV on the town at this very moment. One she wasn't aware of- And if that was the case, she couldn't look in the sky for it because that would draw its attention. Cameras could be scrambled, and she could cause a transformer to blow, but that would be like sending up a flare. No, it was time to play it cool. Ryder stopped at the corner of a street. There was an electronic store on her left with a pretty big parking lot. People could be seen inside going about their days. There were two sets of doors to go in through, both on opposite ends of the building. There were enough cars that suggested the people inside were in rather high numbers. If Ryder could get in there and make off with a few electronic gizmos, then she could put together a gadget or two, to throw off Umbra and supplement her powers in ways she needed. Remote hacking could be made easier with a device that interfaced with something, she could make a drone that linked to her mentally... But she needed resources. 

[color=00ffff][i]Think, Ryder. How do you turn a disadvantage into an advantage?

...That's how.[/i][/color]

[hr]

Approximately 7 minutes later, Ryder was inside with a hand basket. She walked casually and attentively to the back of the store, and picked out a few things that she determined would be quite useful to her. A reel of black ribbon cable, two small starter robotics kits meant for little kids, a Raspberry Pi, portable battery, soldering kit, laser pointer, Android phone and charger. Her basket was mostly full by now, but this was all she needed. Ryder was absentmindedly tuned into the cameras up in the ceiling, aware of everything that was happening right now. She knew that no one was looking at her suspiciously. Feeling out further, it seems there was a room in the back where everything fed to. If she damaged that, everything would go down, but there would be evidence of something weird happening. But she didn't need to hit the brain to make the organism divert its attention. Ryder made her way to one end of the store and stayed near the door. Thankfully, no one was paying attention to her since she was pretending to just be standing around and waiting on someone else. 

The door was but five feet away, and Ryder just had to measure her play... Ryder pushed out a very faint, psychic nudge to the surrounding people, providing some motivation to walk in a direction that was further away from her. She waited until the surrounding area thinned out a little, when suddenly the camera bluescreened. Whoever might've been watching the recordings would be lead to believe that something simply disconnected. A loose cable, a dusty socket, and such. Nothing major. Ryder counted to thirty, knowing instinctually that the bug was still active because no one could figure out the problem. When she counted to thirty-one, the lights exploded. Bits of glass showered down with sparks that plunged the surroundings into darkness. Ryder feigned flinching, but a thin layer of telekinetic energy caused the glass to fall around her, and not directly onto her. Someone yelped in fear, and others ran back as another light blew up. 

By now, people began running back as a knee-jerk reaction. The anti-theft alarms went dead, and Ryder ran out in the confusion.

[hr] 

Ryder briskly walked into the parking lot, and willed another light so go [i]boom[/i] above a cash register while she was still thinking about it. Once the automatic doors closed behind her, there was no shouts or sounds of cracking glass to alert someone outside, therefore no one noticed her leave with an unbagged hand basket full of electronic goods... At least, that was until some cop rolled a window down as Ryder walked by. He was an older looking guy and raised an eyebrow at her. 

[color=yellow]"They let you take that basket with you?"[/color]

Ryder didn't respond to the guy. She made his window shoot back up slightly, to make him focus on that instead. He shut his trap for a moment as he wondered what the deal with his window was. But alas, he opened the door and followed her on foot when he noticed she was walking away rather quickly. 

[color=yellow]"Hey, now, have you got a receipt for that bag, kid?"[/color] He asked, in a slightly raised voice.

Ryder kept quiet. His radio started acting up and squealed annoyingly. Instead of stopping to figure it out, he just turned the volume down. She walked down a sidewalk and turned, and there were a few pedestrians on the street corner. The cop caught up to her and firmly dropped a hand on her shoulder. [color=yellow]"Hold it. Did you pay for all that-"[/color]

This was the point where Ryder had her own knee-jerk reaction. She lost count of how many times someone bigger and stronger than her had mistreated her down in Umbra's basement, and something from that history woke up in her as she turned around and punched the cop square in the chest. Her telekinesis augmented the punch such that the man was flung backwards ten feet away. The air distorted and shimmered like the event horizon of a black hole, and the bystanders realized what they just saw.

[i]"Hey- That's a mutant!"[/i]

The cop heard this, and drew a gun as he stood up. 

[color=00ffff][i]Shit.[/i][/color]