The magistrate’s dark, unyielding gaze shifts entirely past Ryan's offering of plastic pens and crumpled schedules, locking instead onto the heavy cotton-weave fabric and metallic zippers of the canvas bag. With the crisp, humorless snap of a closed binder, the official declares that under the newly enacted Edo curfew ordinances, personal utility satchels of foreign manufacture must be surrendered immediately to the municipal inspection bureau for a full, mandatory quarantine audit. It is barely past noon, yet Ryan feels the crushing, familiar exhaustion of a man being told his department's entire quarterly budget has been frozen due to an obscure administrative technicality he had nothing to do with.
With the quiet, placid resignation of an events coordinator dealing with an unreasonable venue manager right before a major product launch, Ryan tightens his fingers around the reinforced strap. He offers the stern official a mild, diplomatic bow, treating the grand, anachronistic decree with the exact same deadpan compliance he usually reserves for building security officers demanding unwarranted access to his workspace. "If we could just cross-reference the itemized inventory list," Ryan murmurs, his tone entirely level, "I'm sure we can clear this administrative hold before my afternoon shift officially begins."