As the rhythmic, automated clicking of the phantom voicemail finally ceased, Ryan lowered his modern smartphone with the deliberate slowness of an employee ignoring an after-hours email from middle management. But before the device could even slip back into the pocket of his charcoal suit trousers, the foggy Meiji-era thoroughfare was disrupted once more. A breathless courier in tattered linen robes lunged out from the shadow of a paper-lanterned eave, thrusting a crumbling, yellowed Edo-period scroll directly into Ryan's chest with an intensity that suggested a catastrophic, career-ending deadline had just been breached.
Ryan caught the crumbling parchment with the practiced, deadpan reflexes of a marketing coordinator intercepting a botched vendor invoice five minutes before a major product launch. Staring down at the heavy, frayed paper, he noted the smudged vermilion wax of the shogunate seal with a quiet, bone-weary sigh that tasted faintly of morning green tea. With the same clinical exhaustion he usually brought to untangling impossible cross-departmental billing discrepancies, Ryan adjusted the heavy canvas strap of his messenger bag, half-tempted to pull out his plastic ballpoint pen and log a formal compliance dispute against the centuries-old audit right there in the damp, fog-choked street.