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...it. When his colleagues in the office looked up from their work, they misinterpreted the slightly shocked look on Mitchell's face.
"Someone's in a bad mood," said Sue, who had been perusing a catalogue of demographic data.
And so, suddenly, Mitchell was angry.
"Why not?" he demanded in a loud voice. "Why aren't we all angry?"
"Hey, Richard, keep it down, mate," said George, the traffic analyst, his face apprehensive. Every time he looked up from his work, his expression was anxious.
But Richard Mitchell's voice grew even louder. "Why don't you lot stop pretending to be calm? You're all as mad as I am!"
He sat down, glared around the room, leant back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk.
Scared by his manner, his colleagues turned away and bent over their desks, making a weak effort to concentrate on their work.
Mitchell stared at them all: at George, fumbling through a book of journey tables, his eyes incessantly bobbing up to check the office around him; at Sue, browsing her data catalogue with a fussy look on her face, her glasses sliding down her nose; and Dave, the transport modeller, or rather at the back of his head, hunched forward as Dave peered into his screen.
Mitchell lifted a foot, placed it squarely on his monitor, and pushed it across the desk until, teetering on the edge, it overturned and fell to the floor, cables flying. The crash was enormous. The flailing cables pulled down the keyboard and mouse. Everyone jumped up from their desks and gaped at the wreckage.
"Richard, for chrissakes!" George said. His face turned pink; his eyes darted around the office, watching for an enemy.
Mitchell airily waved a hand. "Stuff the lot of them," he announced. "Let's all go to an early lunch, come back pissed, and trash the place!"
Sue looked horrified. "You're crazy, Richard!"
"You're dead right."
Mitchell noticed Dave turn back to his desk and, with a desperation that seemed to ooze through his back, stare into his screen. Mitchell pulled open a drawer, took out a small box of tissues, and threw it at Dave, now the sole worker in the office. The box bounced off Dave's head and clattered to the floor.
"Pay attention, Dave," Mitchell commanded in a stern voice.
The transport modeller swung around and faced Mitchell, his face pale with anger. His voice shook. "You might be able to indulge yourself; others can't! Why don't you keep your head down and let the rest of us get on with it?"
"Get on with it, then, why don't you?" Mitchell sneered. "It won't do you any good. They want to get rid of you, no matter how much effort you put in."
"It's not 'They'," George said. "It's that bastard Malfast, all by himself."
Mitchell nodded. "He's the Department now."
As they were talking, Dave turned back to his computer again.
George pointed at the wrecked computer below Mitchell's desk. In his fretful voice, he asked, "What are you going to do about that mess? We need to sort it out; they're looking for excuses to get at us."
"It was an accident--happened while I was starting to pack for the...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
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