loadBefore is more likely than other loads, as it is how repeatable-read is
implemented and the vast majority of accesses are scoped to a transaction.
So put it first in 3-branches "if" choosing between load/loadBefore/loadSerial
code paths.
next_serial is likely to not be found, because application will likely
operate on up-to-date objects. So a test is more efficient than a
try..except. Inline this test in return statement to avoid defining a local.