Celd had a small office at the end of a fourth-floor hallway, which he shared with no one, though four other practices occupied the same building: a notary, a document archivist, a claim adjuster, a will reader. They shared a kitchen. They did not discuss their work.
His last appointment of the day arrived on time. A woman in her early thirties who sat across from him with a notification folded exactly once in her hand. She had held it that way since she sat down. Celd noticed this because people held notifications differently depending on what they believed was in them. The once-folded ones usually believed something good.
She introduced herself. She said her name was Sorn. She said she had received the notification three days ago and had waited because she wanted to be sure before she told anyone. She said she had been waiting a long time for something like this, and when it came she thought it was better to have a professional confirm it first. This was the professional thing to do. She said this last part to herself as much as to him.
He asked her to pass the notification across the desk. She did. He opened it.
In seventeen years, he had learned to read without expression. This was the foundation of the practice. The law required accurate translation; it did not require speed. Between the reading and the translation there was a pause, and in that pause the client could still hold whatever they had come in believing, because that expectation was the last thing they would hold exactly as it was before the work began.
The notification said, in the formal inverted language required by statute: Your contribution is of continuing and diminishing importance to this organization. You have been identified as a candidate for the advancement program. Your position carries significant development potential.
He read it twice. In the early years he had sometimes hoped he had misread, had gone back to check the language, had caught himself wanting to find an ambiguity that wasn't there. He no longer did this. The language was precise by design. That was the point of the law.
He folded the notification once, as she had folded it, and put it on the desk between them.
He said: I'll read this back to you now.