The Memory Certification Bureau had been operating for twenty years, and Bren had been an examiner for seventeen of them. He had certified four hundred and twelve cases. He knew the process well enough that the work moved in a rhythm he no longer noticed he was inside of.
The casefile on his desk that morning contained thirty-seven items: photographs, timestamps, cross-referenced testimonies, two voice notes, and one annotated calendar. The client believed she had imagined a conversation in her supervisor's office four years ago: that she had constructed it during a period of significant stress and then carried it as real. She had submitted everything she had. He reviewed it methodically. The event was confirmed. He wrote the certification, dated it, put it in the outbox.
He had told clients, when they asked, that confirmation was not the same as meaning. A thing certified as real was only that. What was done with it was the client's business.
His own file was in the bottom drawer of the cabinet behind his desk. He had submitted it himself, seventeen years ago, during training. In the early days of the Bureau, the founding committee had recommended that every examiner complete an initial self-review: eleven events he had documented, the eleven he had been most uncertain about in the year before qualifying. He had submitted them. The file had been created. He had not reviewed it.
He stood up and went to the cabinet. He put his hand on the drawer handle. He stood there. He could hear footsteps in the corridor, the sound of the printer running down the hall. The pull was worn smooth from use. His hand was on it.
He took his hand off.
He went back to the desk. There were fourteen cases remaining in the morning's batch. He picked up the next one.