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His bullhorn hanging from his hand at his left side, Security Leader Clyden kept young Security Agent Osmo Martin nearby on his right side. "Stay close, Punk; this'll be good training for you. You'll learn the proper way to deal with druggie insurgents." He said it with a cocky, confident tone.

Osmo Martin asked, "What'll be done with them, once they surrender?"

"Don't worry about that. Our job is to catch them. The judges and tribunals will know how to deal with the criminals.”

Agent Martin stared hard at the delapidated miners' house. Then, he glanced around at other Security Agents scurrying into place, surrounding the building. Again he stared at the structure itself, hard as he could. How he wished he were able to see through the wall, to see what went on inside at this very moment.

Behind those walls, the guests at the wedding recovered from their shock. Albert Zoeniga reminded, "We've eluded these Security Agents before. We can do it again! I'll go out to talk to them, to stall them and distract them, and you folks go out the back door or the side doors, and make a run for it! Find a weak point in their ranks if they already have us circled. Maybe at least some of us can escape! We may not all be caught-"

Jane Zoeniga tried to put the brakes on that idea. "Whoa, whoa, what are you saying, Dear? You can't do that! If you let them catch you, they will make you into a miner! Bad idea, Al."

"Jane, someone should do it, while the rest of the gang escapes. And if I am stuck in the mines, I am sure you all will continue to protest the Governor's policies as before, and you will draw the attention of the world- both worlds- to our troubles, until all the political prisoners are released back into freedom."

Brother Edmund took hold of Albert Zoeniga’s shoulders. "Bro. Albert, if we are going to make a run for it, then we all do it together!"

"Amen!" another called.

Kelli O’Mally looked about the old cafeteria. "Hey,where's Nina?"

Meanwhile, Albert Zoeniga respectfully answered his elder who had just performed the wedding ceremony for Jane and him. "I agree with you, Bro. Edmund, that what you say is good thinking, except I believe there needs to be a distraction while the rest hightail it away. I am one of the youngest here, and in the best shape, so I think I should do the distracting. I will then also take off, after giving our brothers and sisters a head start. And when you all are escaping them, that will then provide a distraction for me to also make a run for it."

Sec. Ldr. Clyden's voice boomed again from the outside. "Listen to me, citizens! Give yourselves up- NOW! Don't make this hard on yourselves!”

Even as Albert began to step toward the exit, his bride begged, "No, Hon, you don't have to do this-" But Albert Zoeniga forced himself to block out her pleas, as well as those of everybody else, striding resolutely to the door.

He spoke to no one in particular. "No greater love has a man than this, to give up his life for another... But don't worry. You know they won't kill me."

Jane Zoeniga whimpered, "Al-" She reached out to stop him, but he gently moved her aside and kept going. And out the door he went-

-just as Security Leader Clyden gave the order to launch the teargas grenades.

In the pantry store room, Nina McCleer put down the cake and asked X-9, "What can we do now? We cannot let them take us- at least not all of us! If they do, no one will be around anymore to call out Xavier on his injustices, and then what will become of our loved missing ones- and of us? The public might just forget about the whole problem over time, with nobody to remind them!”

The robot let out a tinny moan. "If only I had stolen- er, borrowed a faster transport to get here! And then I lost more time, trying to find its tracking device, so I could tug it out, as I had my own! Not that Sparkle City actually has an adequate infrastructure to support tracking technology very efficiently-"

Nina McCleer grabbed the door handle and threw open the door, ready to join her spiritual family- No, wait, the door didn't open! Not now, not at this time, to have this stupid door stick again! She pounded on the stubborn door. "X-9, help me get this open!”

At that point, she and the robot heard smashing glass- windows?- come from the cafeteria, accompanied by the swooshing sounds of perhaps small rockets, must be tear gas grenades, most likely- She heard them crash into  floors or walls, different places inside the building- several loud impacts could be heard from her place inside the store room. Next came the hiss of the releasing gas. She imagined thick white fog spraying out canisters, filling the air inside of the old, drafty building, even creeping into the store room from under the stuck door.

Nina McCleer hacked and gagged. She heard her fellow protesters in the cafeteria also suffering and coughing uncontrollably. Nina’s eyes blinked wildly, trying to shut out the stinging, and tears poured from them.

Meanwhile, in the cafeteria, a young boy ran for a door at the back. The door led directly to the outside. He kicked it open- despite the burning vapors, he could still see enough to do that, and the fresh air helped clear his eyes some. But then he saw what he had no desire to see- many Security Agents standing alert just beyond the door, ready to spring into action. Already the place must be surrounded, and from the looks of things there seemed to be no break in the siege by which the house church members could slip through to escape.

The boy slammed the door shut before any of the Agents had a chance to pounce and catch him. He gasped out, between fits of coughing, "They’re all over the place!"

As for Albert Zoeniga, he, too, readily saw that the place was too well surrounded for them to get away. He had grasped that fact no sooner than he had stepped outside. He never expected the situation to be so hopeless- usually the lax Security Agents underestimated the church people, besides not being well-organized usually.

Sec. Ldr. Clyden must have whipped his Agents into better shape, perhaps being inspired by Gov. Bright's fury over the protesters getting away from him at the stadium. This time, Security Agents swarmed the exterior perimeter of the old miners' house.

"Arrest that man!" Sec. Ldr. Clyden immediately ordered, pointing at Albert Zoeniga when he exited the front door.

A bunch of Agents rushed Albert Zoeniga (Agent Osmo Martin held back, though) and brought him to Clyden for questioning. The Security Leader demanded, "How many of you are in there? How many weapons do you have? What kind? Answer me!"

"What? We don't have any weapons-"

Clyden barked, "So, only this guy came out! They want to be thick-headed, eh? Okay, send in some more gas and some smoke bombs as well!"

Agent Osmo Martin suggested, "Security Leader Clyden, shouldn't we give them some time to come out first, before we send in more tear gas and smoke bombs, and we smother them?”

“Ha, and that shows what you know! Give them time to devise an escape? I don't think so!"

Albert Zoeniga pleaded, "Osmo, do something- Get them to call off the gas attack, and give the church people time to surrender!"

Osmo Martin turned to Albert. "Al, quick, yell for your friends to speedily give themselves up, to surrender for their own good, before all that gas causes harm to them!"

Young Agent Martin turned back to Sec. Ldr. Clyden, about to say something, and Clyden cut him off. "Punk, know your place! You're still in training, and I have been dealing with felons like this since you were in grade school! If you want to make official status, learn to take orders, not give them to your superiors!" The chief of security bellowed to the agents manning the launchers, "Didn't you guys hear me? I said, Fire another round of smoke and gas bombs!"

Albert Zoeniga (and also Osmo Martin, and even a few Agents, too) watched in horror, as the order was obeyed.

Still unable to escape from the store room and half-blinded from the hideous clouds of vapor permeating everywhere, Nina McCleer gasped for get clean air. Nina’s friends must wonder what had become of her, for she could hear them calling to her. "Mrs. McCleer! Nina! Sis. Nina! Hurry, where are you?"

X-9 said, “If we open the door, the teargas will sweep in and you will be in worse condition, Mrs. McCleer! We’re going-“

Another smoke bomb could be heard exploding.

Her eyes ran. She choked and pounded on the door. "Help! The door is stuck again!" Devastated at this turn of events, she said to X-9, "I- I guess this is it. Sounds like the others are giving up, and want me to join them in solidarity. Thanks for coming to warn us, anyway, X-9- I- I hope someone else is called on to carry the torch! I- I can hardly breathe- feel faint-"

X-9's robot eyes had no trouble with all the tear gas and the smoke. "I suppose it is important for humans to bear troubles together, rather than alone." He grabbed the door handle, about to open it, and then he stopped, for a terrible thought had occurred to him. "The Security Agents are sending in all these missiles and rockets- but do they not realize that there may yet be here some samples from long ago of a very volatile grade of fuel ore, and maybe even pure fuel, too- left here from when the humans had mined the ore and had came here at the end of their shifts?"

Nina McCleer then thought of that cabinet in the room where they had placed all those loose rocks and stones that had littered the building. It was impact-resistant, but could it keep out a launched teargas grenade?

“As a matter of fact, X-9, there are a lot of samples-"

Outside the building, Albert Zoeniga struggled to pull free of the pair of Agents restraining him. "Stop that- stop firing on them! Those gas and smoke bombs- There are elderly people and children and women in there- And how can they even find the doors to leave, if you keep blinding them with all that smoke and teargas??"

Sec. Ldr. Clyden snorted, "Oh, you'd like us to stop, wouldn't you? Well, I'm not taking any chances of them escaping me again and making a fool of me!"

Frantic, Albert Zoeniga demanded, "I said stop it! You could set off some of those fuel ore samples still on the premises if a rocket smashes through the cabinet where they are stored-"

Osmo Martin’s eyes widened. "What's that, Al?”

And then, just as Albert had feared, one of the rockets indeed smashed into that cabinet of ore samples.

A giant bright flash and a whoosh came from where the old miners' quarters stood, vaporizing almost the entire structure in an instant. The exploding force shattered every window of every nearby building, as well as the windows of all the Security Agent vehicles and other nearby cars. The force knocked down- flat to the ground- every Security Agent surrounding the building, and Albert Zoeniga as well.

(c) 2012 drk