'23kpc' Chapter 41: A Summons Delivered

...and happily answered

[Not likely to be the entry door of the ISS Tascheter’s cabin PH00. (It is, however, an actual door in the real world — in the Old Town section of Eureka, California, if memory serves. It’s been adjusted slightly to suit the author’s immediate sensibilities and imagined “needs.”]

Reminders:
(1) The ‘23kpc’ Reader’s Guide
(2) The complete ‘23kpc’ story to date

Last week:

Secure in the spare cabin adjoining D&I’s “diplomatic suite,” our three would-be heroes — Guy, Missy, and Matty — learned something surprising about the late Tyler Morton’s (now Matty’s) Pooch, Gretl: it seems to have participated in and learned from Tyler’s instant-jumping “Muybridge” experiments. Furthermore, once Gretl met Guy and Missy’s Durwood — “met” in the sense of crossloaded with one another — Durwood has actually acquired the same skill: the two Pooches took turns jumping into and out of a closed bathroom.

While the three humans pondered the implications of all this, a vnote — a paper-thin digital display, keyed to a single recipient — was slipped under the cabin door. It was addressed to someone named “Mincy.” Guy and Missy immediately knew who that was… but had no idea how it could have been so addressed. It made no sense.

In short, they had another little mystery on their hands, a personal one — although we ourselves don’t even know what they mystery even is. And so we turn again this week to Guy’s narration…