Sor had worked the continuity archive for sixteen years, which meant she had cross-referenced more than 4,000 active loops against topographic surveys, demolition records, death registrations, and weather events. Most notifications were routine: a building demolished, a tree removed, a spouse named in the loop had died. She sent a registered letter. The letter explained what had changed. She filed the copy. Most people wrote back to say they already knew.
The case of the ridge had been open for three weeks.
The loop was registered in 1993. The minute: 7:14 PM in late September, standing on a specific ridge in the uplands east of the town, looking at the valley below. Weather: clear, cooling. The record noted "complete placement in the world" as the emotional content, which was unusual phrasing but not unique. People described their loops in whatever language they had.
The ridge had come down in a landslide in November three years ago. This was in the survey records. Sor had identified it during a routine cross-reference. The physical location no longer existed in the form the loop contained.
She had looked up the looper: Wim, now seventy-one, living in the town below the former ridge. The loop entry log showed access every evening for thirty-one years, between 7:00 and 7:30 PM.
The protocol was clear. If an environment referenced in a registered loop had changed materially, Sor was to send notification. She had drafted the letter twice. Both versions were in her file. The first said: the ridge no longer exists in the form your loop contains. The second said: the ridge was removed by a natural event three years ago and the loop now contains a landscape that does not exist outside the loop.
She read the second draft again. The loop now contains a landscape that does not exist outside the loop.
She had been doing this work for sixteen years and had never considered this precise situation: not that the world had changed the loop, but that the loop had, without anyone intending it, become the only remaining version of something. She could not find language in the protocol for this. Which was why the letter was still unsent.
She picked up the pen. The date field at the top of the form was empty. She looked at the window. Outside, the light had the color of early evening. She checked the time. It was 7:14. She put the pen down.