Department of Construction

## The Department of Construction

The **Department of Construction** was a department of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids. Headed by Foreman-964, it oversaw building work in the Cupid Homeworld, and had a particular obsession with building ever larger and more numerous warehouses, far in excess of the Cupids' actual need for such buildings.

## History

On April 29th, 2019, (PROSE: *The Faction of the Fooling Fish*) work was set to begin on the construction of the Department's largest warehouse yet, which would be “the biggest one yet, six stories tall and with twelve rooms on each floor”. They had earmarked a location on the Mainland Cloud that was currently occupied by the Cupid Post Office's officially-disused West Wing, obtaining permission from the Department of Permits to raze it. However, work was delayed by the Department of Architecture's blueprints failing to arrive, much to the ire of Head Construction Cupid Foreman-964. This was actually because Philatel-426, head of the Department of Postal Services, had discovered their plans and intercepted the mailbag containing the blueprints, as he was secretly using the West Wing to store his private stamp collection.

This was ultimately discovered by the Blue Feather, who blackmailed Philatel into letting them take over the West Wing as their new HQ. In turn, the Department of Construction were offered the Blue Feather's old, much less comfortable HQ to demolish and build over, which suited them, as they found the location even better. (PROSE: *Acquaintanceship-982 and the Missing Mail Mystery*) This truce did not last long, however, with Philatel commenting negatively on a later warehouse plan, which made the headlines of Issue 1020 of *The Cupid Courier*. This new mega-warehouse was projected to contain 32 rooms, each as large as a regular warehouse. (PROSE: *New Warehouse To Be Constructed In The Homeworld*)

Around the time when the Cupid Suggestion Box was active, the Department of Construction had, for some time, been building “three or four warehouses per week”, which Foreman thought insufficient, and he used the Box to petition the Council to authorise him to kick the pace up a notch, as well as to allow him to finally raze the Post Office's West Wing. The Council denied both requests. (PROSE: *The Cupid Suggestion Box*)

Issue #1034 of *The Cupid Courier* included a classified ad for a recruitment drive for the Department of Construction, authored by Foreman. It specified “No stamp collectors allowed” in retaliation for Philatel's own classified ad in the same issue, which promised shipping discounts to Cupids who donated stamps to Philatel's collection, specifying that the offer did not apply to Foreman. (PROSE: *Conspiracy-1263 Publicly Accuses the Gang of the Green Gorillas*)

By the time of the Rabbit Invasion, Foreman-964 had been banned from participating in the Cupid Parliament's debates despite his status as a Prefect because of his inability to talk about anything else than the need to build warehouses and-or raze the Post Office, no matter the order of the day. However, on that day at least — the ninth of a protracted argument about whose responsibility it was to change the ink in Stenographer-123's typewriter — he had snuck back into the building, hiding under his old desk until Taskmaster-523, who suspected the truth, lured him out by loudly professing a belief that the job ought to be given to the Department of Construction. Leaping out from under the desk, Foreman tackled Taskmaster. He then also tackled Optimist-411, who attempted to cool things down, only to be tackled in turn by Philatel-426, who, without a trace of irony, shouted that he should stop tackling people as he did so. Before long, however, the fight was broken up by the appearance of the magic rabbits produced by the Hat, which drew a “shriek” from Foreman. The Cupids all evacuated to the Euclidean Plane until the Department of Problem-Solving solved the issue and called them all back three days later. (PROSE: *Magic Trick*)

After the destruction of the Cupid Parliament, Foreman and his Department were commissioned by the Council of Elders to build a new Cupid Parliament building. Asked to comment on this by Journalist-649 for Issue #1056 of *The Cupid Courier*, Foreman noted his satisfaction at the Council finally being in need of his help. He also made it plain that he had no intention of honouring their request that the new building *not* be a warehouse. (PROSE: *The Cupid Parliament Destroyed?*)

Later, having been banned from making any more warehouses for the time being, Foreman set about blowing up and remodeling every one of the *existing* warehouses in the Homeworld. As his team got to one in which Marksmanship-522 had elected to take a nap, they dislodged him, forcing to try other possible hideaways to get some peace and quiet. After some misadventures outside the Homeworld, Marksmanship returned to the Homeworld just in time to find that the Construction Cupids were on their lunch break, and got back to bed in his own house, where the disturbance that had been at work there and had forced him to take refuge in the warehouse earlier had similarly abated. When he was startled by a shrunken Salamandyr which had followed him home, Marksmanship chucked it out of his window and it happened to fall directly onto the lunching Foreman, who was terrified of amphibians and ended up calling off all construction work for the day while he recovered, further guaranteeing Marksmanship his peace for the rest of the day. (PROSE: *Peace and Quiet*)

Even after the end of the Rifts Crisis, Foreman evidenced that he still coveted the Post Office's location. (PROSE: *Rifts Crisis Officially Over!*)