Bureau of Foreign Affairs, Grey, Outreach.
Terry Orange sat in a messy office stuffed with rows of computers, files were strewn across desks and paperwork overflowed from IN-trays. An abandoned dispatch cart sat next to the entrance filled with priority packages.
He had managed to tilt his chair back a good thirty degrees which allowed him to rest his feet on top of his desk, he lifted a mug of hot coffee off of the manual of international protocol it had been using for a coaster and took a deep sip.
There was no one else in the office. Of the thirty staff members that had been assigned to the evening shift for the office of international-communications Terry was the only one to remain since the Second Speaker’s cut backs had been put into effect.
There were still plenty of people in the building though. He could hear the whir of shredders that had been a constant soundtrack to the department for the last three days. He could also hear two mid-level Greys arguing in the hallway about covering themselves over their stationary expenses.
There was just too much noise: Even after he had muted all of the computers in the room; before each one had buzzed whenever it had received an ‘important’ statement that had been released to the world by the various and numerous governments of the planet. Now all he had to put up with from them was the annoying flashing from the monitors and the hum of their fans. He couldn’t legally turn them off though.
Amongst all this sat the communiqués from the various ODECON and Conglomerate states, lying unread and un-reviewed amidst the debris of a dying department. So despite the proximity of Sarrowquand to several of the key states and its past relationships with involved nations it remained blissfully and officially ignorant of the unfolding events. Settled on the periphery, for now.
