A part of GE-04 didn’t want to move. 

She had nowhere to go, after all. But her stomach gurgled--Tyler called it 'hunger'--and she allowed herself to stand and wander towards a shelf in the back of the store. Tyler’s favorite food was ‘Cheetos’. She spotted a vaguely familiar row of orange bags, huffed with excitement at her progress, and grabbed two bags with such force they exploded into orange dust. She stood perfectly still for a few moments, eyes wide, before wiping her hands off on her leggings and gingerly reaching for another bag.

With all the combined self-control of a superpowered amnesiac and a seventeen-year-old boy, she delicately tore the bag open, dumping half its contents to the floor, and stuffed the rest into her mouth as quickly as possible. Her mouth was full of dust by the time she swallowed, and now she was ‘thirsty’. She stared at all the bottles lining two walls of the store, grabbed a yellow bucket of greenish water on the floor instead, and dumped it into her mouth. She choked and coughed at the taste. Water was horrible, tangy and bitter. She threw the bucket away, and it smashed apart against a sprinkler with enough force to activate it. Water shot out of every sprinkler and began soaking everything in the gas station.

GE-04 gasped in surprise, then jumped onto the remains of the clerk counter to slurp from one of the sprinklers. That water was much better. She would have to avoid greenish water, she supposed. When she had her fill, she sat down on the counter and watched the way the water puddled on the tile. It seemed almost peaceful, but outside, wailing sirens grew closer.

She tried to ignore it, but when she saw police cars screech into the parking lot, she burst through the doors to greet them.

“Jesus! Hold your fire!” Many people were kneeling behind their cars, perhaps to hide. One man poked his head up over his hood. “You! Put your hands on your head and lay down!”

Fear rolled off the policemen’s minds in tangible waves. It was contagious. Her hands balled into fists, and she struggled against her wrist cuffs in a vain attempt to get free. The man seemed to pick up on it. “Do you understand English? Just keep calm, ma’am! We don’t want to hurt you!” Not that they could. Nothing could hurt her but her restraints.

[color=44aaaa]“Take them off!”[/color] She shouted, and stepped toward the line of cars. Every trigger finger in the blockade flinched.

“W-we can take them off when you come with us, ma’am! Just lay down and put your hands out!”

GE-04 was drowning in the anxiety the officers expressed. She could sense it in their minds like a stench she couldn’t wave away. The horizon beyond the policemen was full of stars, and their light blurred together until it was blinding. [color=44aaaa]“No!”[/color] She cried, agonized when that only made their fear worse. [color=44aaaa]“St--stop! Stop!”[/color] She bit her lip, on the verge of something Tyler called tears. Crying was a sign of weakness. She growled to hide it. [color=44aaaa][i]“Get away from me!”[/i][/color]

The pumps were covered by a roof, and she whipped her hands out to smash the nearest supporting pillar. It crumpled into uselessness, bent, and dragged a corner of the roof with it. The collapse crushed two pumps, and more importantly put thousands of pounds of metal between GE-04 and the police. Screams rang out, but she ignored them, and turned to run into the wilderness away from the city. The darkness grew closer as she picked up an inhuman pace.