A woman press-checks a projector rifle as she runs. Blue and green force fields twinkle around her hulking armor. Taking several deep breaths, she steels herself for the engagement to come. She will only get one shot.

Sounds of intense battle rumble through the claustrophobic hallway. A scientist stumbles around the corner, ducking into a supply cabinet. Two troopers are close behind. One turns and fires a shot, the recoil sending him crashing. A beta-polymer penetrator rod ejects from the barrel, trailing black smoke. He doesn't get the chance to watch his shot. A searing ball of pure energy teleports above his head and plummets, and a wisp of smoke was all that remained where a man once stood. The other trooper doesn't get the chance to fire before she meets a similar fate. 

The Sentinel rounds the corner, and the woman, sighting the corner on one knee, fires. The penetrator rod jolts out of the muzzle. A fraction of a second later, a multi-combustion solid-fueled rocket engine ignites, and the rod lurches forward at five kilometers a second. A sonic boom rocks the facility as it crosses the hallway in the blink of an eye, ramming into the Sentinel's neck joint. 

Shields disintegrate the penetrator, but the sheer kinetic energy of the impact is enough to hurl the Sentinel backward. Titanium wall paneling buckles as the automaton disappears under a cloud of dust and debris. 

The scientist darts out from the supply cabinet. He grabs the woman by the arm, and the two sprint down the corridor. Another Sentinel rounds the corner, shaking the floor paneling with heavy footfalls. The pair tumbled into a laboratory before it could finish the job, the heavy blast doors disrupting the Sentinel's targeting sequence. A sacrificial turret springs down from the ceiling, spraying the Sentinels with lasers. With those few bought seconds, a teleportarium roars to life. The two are whisked away to a distant corner of the facility. 

A fleeting moment of peace shatters the woman's adrenaline-fueled concentration. "What the fuck is happening?" she pants, slumping against the wall.

The scientist drags her to her feet. "See this?" he says, holding up a small thumb drive. "Someone is after the information on this drive."

"What?" the woman asks. "Why?"

"I don't know. But all of our data cores were wiped, and that Sentinel isn't taking any prisoners. I don't know how many people in here are still alive." The scientist snatched a backpack off the floor and started throwing items in. "But you, you can beat them. Or at least survive. That's what you're trained to do, right?" He throws the backpack at the woman. "Never upload this drive to a computer. They'll be scouring the Network. Trust no one. No one else can see what is on this drive, do you understand?"

"I don't-"

"Tell me you understand!"

"Y-yes, yes! I understand."

"Good." The scientist reaches into his pocket and retrieves a small cylinder, twenty centimeters long and less than a centimeter in diameter. "This is a blinker. One-way teleporter. Snap it in half, and you're gone," he explains, thrusting it into her palm along with the drive. "Take it and run. Never stop running. Never look back," he says as a deafening explosion rocked the building. With trembling arms, he pushes her away. "Go! You need to go. We'll do what we can."

"Wait!" the woman shouts. "What do I do with it?"

A thunderous crash shatters the woman's eardrums as the damaged Sentinel teleports into the room. Without a moment's hesitation, it does an about-face and fires. The scientist is vaporized instantaneously.

Now utterly motionless, the Sentinel probes the decimated room for signs of life but registers none. After a moment, it vanishes, and the subsequent vacuum implosion buries the two halves of the blinker under hundreds of feet of rock and stone.