The soot-stained station master barely glanced at Ryan’s corporate badge, dismissing the modern laminated plastic with a gruff scoff that sounded remarkably like a middle manager rejecting a poorly formatted expense claim. Instead, with calloused, ink-stained fingers, he shoved a heavy, rough-cut sheet of official cardstock into Ryan’s chest—a mandatory colonial travel permit stamped with a series of severe vermilion seals. It was the sort of cumbersome, bureaucratic onboarding paperwork Ryan usually associated with a sudden corporate transfer to an overseas branch that nobody in the department actually wanted to visit.
"Identity verification," the official barked over the hissing roar of escaping steam, his sharp eyes narrowing as he gestured toward the idling iron-plated carriage. Ryan exhaled a long, tired sigh, the familiar weight of a corporate compliance audit settling squarely back onto his shoulders. With the practiced exhaustion of an events coordinator dealing with an overly rigid venue security guard, he unzipped his canvas messenger bag, pulled out a spare plastic ballpoint pen, and grimly began scanning the blank fields requiring his birth ward, employee ID, and routing hash, silently hoping this final administrative hurdle would clear him for a seat before the morning schedule completely dissolved.