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Phineas awakened from a doze at his phone ringing from the bedside table. He scrambled for the remote to turn off the documentary--even for him, the hotel's TV system took a couple of tries to operate--then answered it. Without even looking at the caller ID, he set the phone upright and activated face-to-face mode.
"Hey Ferb."
A holographic Ferb materialized on the other side of the room, the image of his room at Camp David flickering translucently behind him. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed into his room, and his sharp formalwear made quite a contrast with Phineas's Space Adventure pajamas, even if his shirt collar was undone. Ferb waved hello and sat down on his own bed, the image of which achieved an almost perfect overlay with the unoccupied twin bed on the other side of Phineas's phone.
Ferb raised an eyebrow.
"No, no, you didn't wake me," said Phineas, sitting up straighter against the pillows. John from the Geology department was fond of calling holograms a ridiculous fad, but they sure did make talking to Ferb easier. He stifled a yawn. "Just watching some TV. How's the diplomatic life treating you?"
Ferb flashed a thumbs-up, and returned the questioning look to Phineas.
"Good! I'm good--busy busy busy! The ceremony, the reception, and now the lecture circuit... Even I'm getting a little bored with it. It seems like nobody wants to talk to me about anything but phineasandferbons."
"You know," said Ferb, with the familiar tolerant smile, "you really could have just called them Flynn particles."
"But that's so ordinary!" Phineas objected. "It's an extraordinary particle, it needed an extraordinary name. And what's more extraordinary than you and me? Maybe you're not in the lab with me, but that doesn't mean you're not important to my work. We'll always be a team."
"Of course we will," said Ferb simply.
There was a knock at Ferb's door, and a voice on the other side called, "Dinner in five, Mr. Ambassador!"
Ferb nodded, although the guy couldn't see him (or could he? it was a pretty high-security building), and retrieved his bow tie from the bedside table.
"Dang it," said Phineas. "We've hardly gotten to talk at all this week. But it sure was good to see you, Ferb."
Ferb smiled, echoing the sentiment.
"Oh, hey, that reminds me. I was talking to this guy Maruyama yesterday, and he says his team is developing the technology for haptic holography! Neat, huh? In a couple of years we could touch over the phone."
"I'd rather just have you here," said Ferb, finishing up the knot of his tie.
"Yeah, me too." He stood up and stepped up almost as far as his phone would register. On his end, Ferb did the same, positioning himself just behind the forward boundary of the area picked up by his scanner. Each carefully judging the boundary of his own hologram, they slowly maneuvered opposite hands into place so that, given another couple of millimeters, it looked like the palms would have touched.
Ferb said nothing, but he looked into Phineas's eyes.
Phineas smiled. "I love you too," he said. "I'll see you next Thursday, right?"
Ferb gave a thumbs-up with his other hand.
"I can't wait. Good night."
Still without moving the hand he had held up, Ferb reached for his phone and ended the call. He blinked out of existence all at once, back into the swing of life six hours away. Phineas flopped back into bed, switched off his phone at last, and, with nothing left to wait for but tomorrow morning, composed himself for sleep.