Undiscovered Territory
CHAPTER FIVE: Missed the Mark
A small space. Such a small space.
It was simply unnatural to his mind, or the mind of any Namek in full possession of his faculties. Accustomed to a world of flat plains and no visible boundaries, the prospect of a cramped enclosed area was a frightening one, indeed. While this was certainly not the most frightened that Dende had been in his life, he had to admit that it would make the top ten in his list.
He'd been in enclosed spaces before. Back on Earth, he'd had to live in them for quite some time. The Earthlings, for some reason he could not fathom, seemed to like closed-off places, and bunching many people together. How did they stand it? Despite all his time spent there, he had never gotten used to it. He simply could not.
What made things even worse was the fact that the room he and Scargo were in gave the impression of being larger than it was. The dimensions of the room were not in doubt, but access to them was. A barrier, only visible when touched, kept them confined to a space much smaller than the actual size of the room. A trick of the eyes, and a rather cruel one at that. To tempt so much those seeking simple freedom . . . These were a vile people indeed.
Warily, Dende watched over the brim of his cup as the last of the white- clad strangers left the room. He was grateful for the water that they had provided, but he had little doubt that it was not brought for their own comfort. If that scientist wanted to run tests upon him and Scargo, she was likely to want them in prime physical shape.
He let out a breath as he and Scargo were rendered alone in the room once more. The room before them was clean, now: no scattered papers, no loose wires, no strange substances bubbling out of their containers. Normally, to see something so clean would be calming, reassuring, but in this case held only a promise of pain and fear.
"Dende," Scargo said quietly; neither of them had risked speaking while the room had been occupied. The younger boy's face was wrinkled with worry. "We've really gotta get out of here. What those people said was scary."
Dende would have to agree. While he didn't know what all the words meant - many of them were quite large and sounded technical - he understood enough to know that things did not bode well in their case. From what he'd heard, the scientist, Doctor Gneiss, was not one to be delicate with her test subjects.
"I know," he agreed, setting his cup aside. "But I haven't figured a way out of here yet."
Scargo looked up at him, expression filled with hope and trust. "But you will, right?"
"Um . . ." Dende paused. He appreciated Scargo's faith in him, even as he cursed it. Such pressure on his shoulders was overburdening. Still, he could not let him down by letting him know that, and thus smiled weakly. "Sure I will."
"I know." Scargo nodded. "You stood up to that monster that destroyed home. You can do anything."
The unabashed praise . . . Dende wished that he deserved it. He really did. But he wasn't anything special, or any braver than a normal person was. He'd only stood up to Frieza because he'd had no choice. He had been present when the monster arrived, and then saw no opening to escape. At least not when he would have taken one. Those times, either Kuririn or Gohan had been badly hurt, and leaving them like that when he had the power to help had never been an option.
Despite what Scargo believed, he was no hero. He was just someone who had gotten stuck in a bad situation.
"I'm sorry," Scargo spoke up after a moment.
Dende furrowed his forehead in puzzlement. "Sorry for what?"
"Well, I'm talking to you while you're trying to figure a way for us to get out of here. You probably can't think very well if I'm talking." Scargo scooted himself into a shadowy corner and bowed his head. "I'll just be quiet now."
"Scargo . . ." Dende tried, but gave up. Hero-worship condemned him again. He didn't need silence to think. Nor did he need to think much at all. That was something he did far too often, anyway.
But what else was there to do? Just sit there and wait until Doctor Gneiss returned and decided to start experimenting on them? It was certainly not an appealing option. But he'd get nothing accomplished if he just sat still and thought.
Carefully, Dende climbed to his feet, tossing his cup aside. His leg still wobbled underneath him, and felt quite strange with it being healed without but not within. It felt almost hollow, and while that did not bother him much while he sat, it almost made him ill when he stood.
Shaking his head to ignore the odd sensation, Dende reached out his finger again, tentatively. Bracing for the pain. As soon as the tip of his claw went too far, the barrier flashed into existence once more, a blinding red light. He jerked his hand backward, not in much pain since he was careful not to have let it touch his flesh, and frowned. This was going nowhere.
"You're never going to stop that, are you?" a familiar and unpleasant voice popped up. "Is all of your race so thick-headed or is it just the children?"
Much to his own surprise, Dende found himself tempted to make a sarcastic retort, which was very out of character for him. The enclosed space must have been getting to him.
Doctor Gneiss walked casually across the room, calling out over her shoulder, "Gab one of the little ones on your way through, Scree; it's about time that I was able to get started."
Another figure emerged from the doorway, short and pudgy with bright orange skin. Its mouth looked to be almost wider than its face, and its eyes bulged halfway out of its head in a manner that would have been comical if not for the gravity of the situation.
This new figure, Scree, waddled toward him, and Dende shrank back a little, involuntarily. Apparently not noticing or caring about the unfavourable reaction, Scree pressed a few spots on the wall - probably a control pad, Dende presumed. A brief flash of red sprang up, followed by an odd hum, as if the machinery around them was feeling sick.
The controls for the barrier . . .
"Ahh!" Dende could not stifle a yelp as Scree's hand shot out with unexpected speed to take his arm, and pulled him to his feet. Still unsteady and feeling a grinding pain in his shoulder, he struggled as mightily as he could to escape, but with no success. His assailant didn't even look annoyed.
"Come along now, little one," Scree said in an almost sympathetic tone. "No sense in keeping the doctor waiting. As you've likely seen, she can be the impatient type."
"Dende!" Scargo called out, rushing from the corner in a wave of worry. But before he could get far, Scree punched another few buttons and the younger Namek found himself caught in the barrier. He let out a strangled scream before falling backward.
"Scargo!" Dende tried more vigorously to escape, but was still denied.
"Now, now little one. Your young friend is quite all right. Best to worry about yourself now."
And Dende found himself being dragged across the room, to a door on the other side that he hadn't seen earlier. It lead to a smaller room, which was occupied by Doctor Gneiss and many other unsavoury looking things.
As he was pulled into that room, Dende caught a glimpse of Scargo regaining a sitting position and looking at him with fearful eyes. Dende wished that he could find some way to be reassuring. But right now he found himself following Scree's advice, worrying about himself.
The door whooshed shut.
* * *
Something bad had happened. He had known it would, had known it all along.
Whelk flew high above the grass topped buttes of the planet, eyes open for any sign of the missing children. It seemed that his preparation over the years might well end up paying off. He managed some smugness out of this fact, though a part of him wished that he had been just being paranoid like many of the others thought.
Others such as Limpet, who few along ten or so feet below him. While Limpet had always been a fairly skilled and powerful fighter in his own right, he had never seemed to deem it necessary to keep up training between potential battles. It was infuriating, to say the least. And quite the waste of a potentially fine fighting partner. So much potential, all put to ruin.
Still. He was helping now, so Whelk could not bring himself to resent the other Namek entirely. "Have you seen any sign of them yet?"
"Nope, I'm afraid not," Limpet called over the wind - softly, since their race was gifted with acute hearing.
Whelk cursed under his breath. Hours of searching and they'd gotten nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. It was frustrating, and a blow to his pride.
"We've likely been overreacting to all of this, you know," Limpet said, in an infuriatingly light tone. "It isn't as though children don't simply go wandering off for awhile. I know that I did it when I was a child."
Whelk snorted. "Absent minded even back then, were you?" he retorted, levelling his altitude with that of his companion. "Children may go running off from time to time, but I know these ones a bit. Scargo may lose track of time and forget to come back., but I've never seen that kind of behaviour out of Dende."
"If you say so," Limpet replied with a long-suffering sigh. "I was merely offering an opinion. It isn't as if I'm going to abandon the search."
Whelk didn't even bother dignifying this with a response. Why he'd had to end up paired with Limpet on the search . . . Oh, they got along just fine much of the time, despite the latter's silly tendency not to take things seriously; in turn, Limpet had always insisted that he was too uptight, and needed to relax every once in a while. Privately, Whelk had decided that silly game called golf had addled the other Namek's brain. It did that to a lot of brains actually, though he was not about to insult his village elder.
His eyes searched the ground below, his limited abilities to sense ki stretched out across the field of his vision. Nothing registered on either sense. But he could not shake off a grim sense of foreboding. Not so much that they would not find the children, but that it would be too late once they did.
Ruthlessly, he shoved that thought aside. Perhaps Limpet did have a point about telling him to lighten up. Not that he would ever concede that publicly. The children were fine, and would surely remain so once he found them.
Whatever threat had claimed the children - and he was sure that there must indeed be some kind of threat - was going to pay for disturbing his people's long fought-for and well-deserved peace.
"How much longer do you suppose we'll be at this?" Limpet's whining once again.
"As long as it takes!" Whelk snapped, his patience wearing thin. "Why are you always asking such ridiculous and pointless questions?"
"There is no such thing as a pointless and ridiculous question," Limpet countered with a grin. One that faded when Whelk gave him a sharp look. "You're quite poor company today. Poorer than usual, in point of fact. I'm beginning to think that I would be having more fun paired up with Chiton."
With a soft harrumph, Whelk increased his flying speed, in as much an attempt to end the conversation as continue the search for the missing children. He'd probably being enjoying himself more as well, were Limpet to have been partnered up with Chiton for this mission.
After all, why not stick the annoyance with someone who deserved it?
* * *
He flew alone. Just like he did almost everything. None wished to be partnered with him on the search, important though it was. He had known this in advance, and had spared them the trouble by merely flying off on his own.
No one had raised an objection.
While the others had taken routes to the flatter areas surrounding the village, Chiton knew better. The odds that the children would be there . . . They'd disappeared during a game of hide and seek, and would therefore look to the rougher terrain. Simple logic and nothing more. He would have shared it, but no one had thought to ask.
Elders did not understand the heads of children. Chiton liked to think that he did, being barely out of childhood himself. He even still played those Earthling card games, though by all rights he should have grown out of them by now.
And turned to playing golf, apparently. Bah.
Thus only being a young adult, and still engaging in activities that surrounded him with the very young, he was all the better to understand their mindset. But how many people listened to those his age, anyway? He had a few decades more to live before any number of people would consider his musings reasonable.
So yes, he was on his own most of the time. By circumstance and his own choice. The other Nameks were afraid of him. The ever-silent one. The one who coldly observed from a distance, evidently gathering information for some form of trouble. He was actually halfway surprised that nobody had expected him of wrongdoing at the news of the missing children. It sounded like something that they would do.
How a race such as his that preferred to have its villages spread wide, all but cut off from each other could not understand that a person wanted his own privacy was something that was beyond him. Even through all of his silent observations, he was never able to come up with a reason.
Nimbly, he weaved through a small copse of trees, eyes scanning for any sign of bands of pink flesh or various colours of clothing. No luck. He wove around rock pillars, stopped to peer into caves, all to no avail. Very strange, indeed. He would have figured to have found at least one of them by now.
He was not worried. Worrying was not in his nature, a waste of time that could be used for logical thought. That he'd as of yet found nothing, was a mild annoyance and nothing more.
As a final resort, he opted to use a trick that he had learned while they had all spent two years on that strange planet Earth (or whatever it was called). He paused in midair, and closed his eyes, casting out his senses. It really was a simple trick once one got the knack of it.
Nothing pushed back against his senses in the near vicinity, and so he cast them out further, straining. He was still rather ill-practiced at this technique.
Finally, he felt something. While he was not a good judge of such things yet - though he hoped to be in the future - he had the distinct impression that it did not belong to either of the objects of his search. For the first few weeks that he had practiced this ki sensing business, he had discovered that all of his people had a distinctive aura. Sedate, but with a violence lying far deeper below the surface. It did rest a little higher in warrior class Nameks, though. Which was hardly a surprising discovery.
The aura he was sensing was far too powerful to be one of the native animals. Thus with his own people also completely ruled out, that must mean that it was some kind of alien force. How positively fascinating.
He altered the direction of his flight towards the strange aura. Most would have rationalized this action as a strong possibility that this aura was the cause of the children's disappearances, but Chiton was not one given to fooling himself in such a manner. He was just plain curious, and unashamed to admit it.
The sky was a greenish haze around his vision, blurring by him at a high rate of speed. Clouds were insubstantial to him, and indeed he did not notice if he passed through any on his way. All his attention was focused on that unfamiliar aura, that unfamiliar presence that had sparked his interest so.
A speck came into view ahead of him, gradually growing into the shape of some bipedal being. The being turned as if detecting his presence, and he took in its features. Flat black eyes, purple and orange skin . . . A rather interesting looking creature, if a bit ugly.
All these details were taken in the space of a second. It was all the time that Chiton had before the being raised its hand and fired.
CHAPTER FIVE: Missed the Mark
A small space. Such a small space.
It was simply unnatural to his mind, or the mind of any Namek in full possession of his faculties. Accustomed to a world of flat plains and no visible boundaries, the prospect of a cramped enclosed area was a frightening one, indeed. While this was certainly not the most frightened that Dende had been in his life, he had to admit that it would make the top ten in his list.
He'd been in enclosed spaces before. Back on Earth, he'd had to live in them for quite some time. The Earthlings, for some reason he could not fathom, seemed to like closed-off places, and bunching many people together. How did they stand it? Despite all his time spent there, he had never gotten used to it. He simply could not.
What made things even worse was the fact that the room he and Scargo were in gave the impression of being larger than it was. The dimensions of the room were not in doubt, but access to them was. A barrier, only visible when touched, kept them confined to a space much smaller than the actual size of the room. A trick of the eyes, and a rather cruel one at that. To tempt so much those seeking simple freedom . . . These were a vile people indeed.
Warily, Dende watched over the brim of his cup as the last of the white- clad strangers left the room. He was grateful for the water that they had provided, but he had little doubt that it was not brought for their own comfort. If that scientist wanted to run tests upon him and Scargo, she was likely to want them in prime physical shape.
He let out a breath as he and Scargo were rendered alone in the room once more. The room before them was clean, now: no scattered papers, no loose wires, no strange substances bubbling out of their containers. Normally, to see something so clean would be calming, reassuring, but in this case held only a promise of pain and fear.
"Dende," Scargo said quietly; neither of them had risked speaking while the room had been occupied. The younger boy's face was wrinkled with worry. "We've really gotta get out of here. What those people said was scary."
Dende would have to agree. While he didn't know what all the words meant - many of them were quite large and sounded technical - he understood enough to know that things did not bode well in their case. From what he'd heard, the scientist, Doctor Gneiss, was not one to be delicate with her test subjects.
"I know," he agreed, setting his cup aside. "But I haven't figured a way out of here yet."
Scargo looked up at him, expression filled with hope and trust. "But you will, right?"
"Um . . ." Dende paused. He appreciated Scargo's faith in him, even as he cursed it. Such pressure on his shoulders was overburdening. Still, he could not let him down by letting him know that, and thus smiled weakly. "Sure I will."
"I know." Scargo nodded. "You stood up to that monster that destroyed home. You can do anything."
The unabashed praise . . . Dende wished that he deserved it. He really did. But he wasn't anything special, or any braver than a normal person was. He'd only stood up to Frieza because he'd had no choice. He had been present when the monster arrived, and then saw no opening to escape. At least not when he would have taken one. Those times, either Kuririn or Gohan had been badly hurt, and leaving them like that when he had the power to help had never been an option.
Despite what Scargo believed, he was no hero. He was just someone who had gotten stuck in a bad situation.
"I'm sorry," Scargo spoke up after a moment.
Dende furrowed his forehead in puzzlement. "Sorry for what?"
"Well, I'm talking to you while you're trying to figure a way for us to get out of here. You probably can't think very well if I'm talking." Scargo scooted himself into a shadowy corner and bowed his head. "I'll just be quiet now."
"Scargo . . ." Dende tried, but gave up. Hero-worship condemned him again. He didn't need silence to think. Nor did he need to think much at all. That was something he did far too often, anyway.
But what else was there to do? Just sit there and wait until Doctor Gneiss returned and decided to start experimenting on them? It was certainly not an appealing option. But he'd get nothing accomplished if he just sat still and thought.
Carefully, Dende climbed to his feet, tossing his cup aside. His leg still wobbled underneath him, and felt quite strange with it being healed without but not within. It felt almost hollow, and while that did not bother him much while he sat, it almost made him ill when he stood.
Shaking his head to ignore the odd sensation, Dende reached out his finger again, tentatively. Bracing for the pain. As soon as the tip of his claw went too far, the barrier flashed into existence once more, a blinding red light. He jerked his hand backward, not in much pain since he was careful not to have let it touch his flesh, and frowned. This was going nowhere.
"You're never going to stop that, are you?" a familiar and unpleasant voice popped up. "Is all of your race so thick-headed or is it just the children?"
Much to his own surprise, Dende found himself tempted to make a sarcastic retort, which was very out of character for him. The enclosed space must have been getting to him.
Doctor Gneiss walked casually across the room, calling out over her shoulder, "Gab one of the little ones on your way through, Scree; it's about time that I was able to get started."
Another figure emerged from the doorway, short and pudgy with bright orange skin. Its mouth looked to be almost wider than its face, and its eyes bulged halfway out of its head in a manner that would have been comical if not for the gravity of the situation.
This new figure, Scree, waddled toward him, and Dende shrank back a little, involuntarily. Apparently not noticing or caring about the unfavourable reaction, Scree pressed a few spots on the wall - probably a control pad, Dende presumed. A brief flash of red sprang up, followed by an odd hum, as if the machinery around them was feeling sick.
The controls for the barrier . . .
"Ahh!" Dende could not stifle a yelp as Scree's hand shot out with unexpected speed to take his arm, and pulled him to his feet. Still unsteady and feeling a grinding pain in his shoulder, he struggled as mightily as he could to escape, but with no success. His assailant didn't even look annoyed.
"Come along now, little one," Scree said in an almost sympathetic tone. "No sense in keeping the doctor waiting. As you've likely seen, she can be the impatient type."
"Dende!" Scargo called out, rushing from the corner in a wave of worry. But before he could get far, Scree punched another few buttons and the younger Namek found himself caught in the barrier. He let out a strangled scream before falling backward.
"Scargo!" Dende tried more vigorously to escape, but was still denied.
"Now, now little one. Your young friend is quite all right. Best to worry about yourself now."
And Dende found himself being dragged across the room, to a door on the other side that he hadn't seen earlier. It lead to a smaller room, which was occupied by Doctor Gneiss and many other unsavoury looking things.
As he was pulled into that room, Dende caught a glimpse of Scargo regaining a sitting position and looking at him with fearful eyes. Dende wished that he could find some way to be reassuring. But right now he found himself following Scree's advice, worrying about himself.
The door whooshed shut.
* * *
Something bad had happened. He had known it would, had known it all along.
Whelk flew high above the grass topped buttes of the planet, eyes open for any sign of the missing children. It seemed that his preparation over the years might well end up paying off. He managed some smugness out of this fact, though a part of him wished that he had been just being paranoid like many of the others thought.
Others such as Limpet, who few along ten or so feet below him. While Limpet had always been a fairly skilled and powerful fighter in his own right, he had never seemed to deem it necessary to keep up training between potential battles. It was infuriating, to say the least. And quite the waste of a potentially fine fighting partner. So much potential, all put to ruin.
Still. He was helping now, so Whelk could not bring himself to resent the other Namek entirely. "Have you seen any sign of them yet?"
"Nope, I'm afraid not," Limpet called over the wind - softly, since their race was gifted with acute hearing.
Whelk cursed under his breath. Hours of searching and they'd gotten nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. It was frustrating, and a blow to his pride.
"We've likely been overreacting to all of this, you know," Limpet said, in an infuriatingly light tone. "It isn't as though children don't simply go wandering off for awhile. I know that I did it when I was a child."
Whelk snorted. "Absent minded even back then, were you?" he retorted, levelling his altitude with that of his companion. "Children may go running off from time to time, but I know these ones a bit. Scargo may lose track of time and forget to come back., but I've never seen that kind of behaviour out of Dende."
"If you say so," Limpet replied with a long-suffering sigh. "I was merely offering an opinion. It isn't as if I'm going to abandon the search."
Whelk didn't even bother dignifying this with a response. Why he'd had to end up paired with Limpet on the search . . . Oh, they got along just fine much of the time, despite the latter's silly tendency not to take things seriously; in turn, Limpet had always insisted that he was too uptight, and needed to relax every once in a while. Privately, Whelk had decided that silly game called golf had addled the other Namek's brain. It did that to a lot of brains actually, though he was not about to insult his village elder.
His eyes searched the ground below, his limited abilities to sense ki stretched out across the field of his vision. Nothing registered on either sense. But he could not shake off a grim sense of foreboding. Not so much that they would not find the children, but that it would be too late once they did.
Ruthlessly, he shoved that thought aside. Perhaps Limpet did have a point about telling him to lighten up. Not that he would ever concede that publicly. The children were fine, and would surely remain so once he found them.
Whatever threat had claimed the children - and he was sure that there must indeed be some kind of threat - was going to pay for disturbing his people's long fought-for and well-deserved peace.
"How much longer do you suppose we'll be at this?" Limpet's whining once again.
"As long as it takes!" Whelk snapped, his patience wearing thin. "Why are you always asking such ridiculous and pointless questions?"
"There is no such thing as a pointless and ridiculous question," Limpet countered with a grin. One that faded when Whelk gave him a sharp look. "You're quite poor company today. Poorer than usual, in point of fact. I'm beginning to think that I would be having more fun paired up with Chiton."
With a soft harrumph, Whelk increased his flying speed, in as much an attempt to end the conversation as continue the search for the missing children. He'd probably being enjoying himself more as well, were Limpet to have been partnered up with Chiton for this mission.
After all, why not stick the annoyance with someone who deserved it?
* * *
He flew alone. Just like he did almost everything. None wished to be partnered with him on the search, important though it was. He had known this in advance, and had spared them the trouble by merely flying off on his own.
No one had raised an objection.
While the others had taken routes to the flatter areas surrounding the village, Chiton knew better. The odds that the children would be there . . . They'd disappeared during a game of hide and seek, and would therefore look to the rougher terrain. Simple logic and nothing more. He would have shared it, but no one had thought to ask.
Elders did not understand the heads of children. Chiton liked to think that he did, being barely out of childhood himself. He even still played those Earthling card games, though by all rights he should have grown out of them by now.
And turned to playing golf, apparently. Bah.
Thus only being a young adult, and still engaging in activities that surrounded him with the very young, he was all the better to understand their mindset. But how many people listened to those his age, anyway? He had a few decades more to live before any number of people would consider his musings reasonable.
So yes, he was on his own most of the time. By circumstance and his own choice. The other Nameks were afraid of him. The ever-silent one. The one who coldly observed from a distance, evidently gathering information for some form of trouble. He was actually halfway surprised that nobody had expected him of wrongdoing at the news of the missing children. It sounded like something that they would do.
How a race such as his that preferred to have its villages spread wide, all but cut off from each other could not understand that a person wanted his own privacy was something that was beyond him. Even through all of his silent observations, he was never able to come up with a reason.
Nimbly, he weaved through a small copse of trees, eyes scanning for any sign of bands of pink flesh or various colours of clothing. No luck. He wove around rock pillars, stopped to peer into caves, all to no avail. Very strange, indeed. He would have figured to have found at least one of them by now.
He was not worried. Worrying was not in his nature, a waste of time that could be used for logical thought. That he'd as of yet found nothing, was a mild annoyance and nothing more.
As a final resort, he opted to use a trick that he had learned while they had all spent two years on that strange planet Earth (or whatever it was called). He paused in midair, and closed his eyes, casting out his senses. It really was a simple trick once one got the knack of it.
Nothing pushed back against his senses in the near vicinity, and so he cast them out further, straining. He was still rather ill-practiced at this technique.
Finally, he felt something. While he was not a good judge of such things yet - though he hoped to be in the future - he had the distinct impression that it did not belong to either of the objects of his search. For the first few weeks that he had practiced this ki sensing business, he had discovered that all of his people had a distinctive aura. Sedate, but with a violence lying far deeper below the surface. It did rest a little higher in warrior class Nameks, though. Which was hardly a surprising discovery.
The aura he was sensing was far too powerful to be one of the native animals. Thus with his own people also completely ruled out, that must mean that it was some kind of alien force. How positively fascinating.
He altered the direction of his flight towards the strange aura. Most would have rationalized this action as a strong possibility that this aura was the cause of the children's disappearances, but Chiton was not one given to fooling himself in such a manner. He was just plain curious, and unashamed to admit it.
The sky was a greenish haze around his vision, blurring by him at a high rate of speed. Clouds were insubstantial to him, and indeed he did not notice if he passed through any on his way. All his attention was focused on that unfamiliar aura, that unfamiliar presence that had sparked his interest so.
A speck came into view ahead of him, gradually growing into the shape of some bipedal being. The being turned as if detecting his presence, and he took in its features. Flat black eyes, purple and orange skin . . . A rather interesting looking creature, if a bit ugly.
All these details were taken in the space of a second. It was all the time that Chiton had before the being raised its hand and fired.