The High Five

In the Moon's Shadow

"What can I do?" Jess said. "His ashes are at home in the urn."

"Not all of them. Do you still have the Mars globe I gave you?" Aunt Jillian asked.

"It's right here." Jess gave it a shake and held it up to the phlex for her aunt to see.

"Remember when I told you that you would carry a part of your uncle along with you? It's true. That's not Martian dust in there."

* * *

Vivian checked her phlex for the hundredth time. No notifications in the past ten minutes since the CME started. None. Zilch. When was the last time that had happened?

Checking her phlex was as compulsory as breathing, the urge growing with each passing minute. The 99+ indicator on her social apps was a measure of vitality no less significant than a blood oxygen level. Whenever she cleared them, they would fill back up again in no time: all those upticks, scribes, twixts, tweeks, and re-tweeks. How could there be none? Even in space, she had never been cut off for more than a few minutes.

The longest blackout had been during the launch itself. An entire three minutes. The first thing she did when they reached orbit was check her phlex, which had already re-connected to the nearest sat link.

Cut off from the Vorld, Vivian felt alone in a way she hadn't since she was twelve years old. Face Day. Her first sesh using her real identity. Owing to child protective measures, viewers outside her immediate family would only have seen a face-morphed version of her up to then—the version her parents portrayed to the world. As a result, no one in the Vorld knew her real identity or that she had a deformity—and she intended to keep it that way.

She put on a new blouse and fluffed out the wild, red hair she usually wore back in a ponytail. She practiced for days, getting the camera crop-off just right, and trying on different expressions like hats. She spent hours perfecting the signature sign-off she would still be using more than a decade later. In that first sesh, her favorite stuffed animal, Polly-Glot, asked her questions like why it was important to believe in yourself. She felt like a cocoon opening up to release a new idea that would spread its wings and fly off into the world. But there was an emptiness too. Something was gone. But gone where? Had her idea died out there alone?

Then it happened. Her first uptick. Her idea was alive! It had landed in someone else's phlex and entered their brain to take flight in their imagination.

Another uptick. Then her first twixt. She remembered it word for word. You are a beautiful person inside and out! Happy Face Day! Keep being awesome.

From that moment, Vivian was hooked.

Looking back, she now understood how her parents were able to be such good Christians, never losing their tempers or caving to greed or sexual temptation. If asked, they would have said it was due to the power of the Holy Spirit and their desire to be like Jesus. But that wasn't all of it. It was the power of constant self-surveillance made possible by the omnipresence of the Vorld and phlexes. They lived every moment as an example to others. It was strangely egoistic. They saw themselves as the center of a human web, their church. It was up to them to anchor the threads and keep it from coming unraveled.

Vivian was not deeply religious, but she had fallen easily into the same pattern. She was now the center of a sprawling social web that dwarfed anything her parents had achieved. It wasn't just that others depended on her; those radiating tension lines were what held her fast. Without them, she would just be a disconnected point drifting aimlessly through space. Like now. Never before, not even during the spacewalk, had she been so aware of the vast expanse of emptiness that surrounded her. There was not another living soul in thousands and thousands of miles.

Except for the crew, she reminded herself. A social network of five.

When Vivian drifted into the mess, Jess, Bobby, and Tayen were already there.

* * *

Milo sat on the bench in the men's triad looking at the d-pic of his Kentucky college team. He wondered how they were all getting along down on the planet. There was Skinny Rich who had gotten married right after graduation, the first of the group to do so. He already had a son. "Mike the Spike" Mohammad Atta, who was an observant Muslim. Towering and full-bearded, he had a searing temper that no amount of praying could bring under control. Squeaky, the whitest of two white boys on the starting squad. Sandy-haired and freckled, he loved gospel hip-hop, which the rest of the team ribbed him endlessly for. James Myers, a dark-skinned boy from the burbs who was always ready with a famous quote. Amos Rubinstein, a foul-mothed Jew from the Bronx, and Tanner, who didn't talk or share much but was their best outside shooter. And Milo—the speed, the show, the playsetter. The cripple.

He pictured them down on Earth sitting around a foldout table eating fried chicken, playing poker, and giving each other shit. Reminiscing. Maybe they were still talking about crazy Milo and his fast break at the end of a lost cause. Damn nut job. Didn't he know when to call it fucking quits? Skinny Rich would motion to his wife to put the baby to bed. He shouldn't be hearing this kind of talk.

"He might as well learn his ABCs now," Amos would say. "A is for asshole. B is for bitch. C is for cunt. D is for damn whore. E is for..." he stumbled.

"Engina," Mohammed said.

"It's angina with an A," said Amos. "And it's not even a bad word. You're thinking of vagina."

"I bet he's never seen a vagina." Coming from Squeaky, it was even funnier.

"Stop all that dirty talk," Skinny's wife would say. "You're all a bunch of shitheads."

For them, the CME would be like a snowstorm or hurricane. Something they could board up for, fill the fridge with beers, and ride out. He missed them. If he could go back in time and avoid getting injured, go on to win a conference championship, maybe play a couple years in the NBA, and keep his teammates as lifelong friends, would he? A week ago, he wouldn't have hesitated. What had changed?

He went to his phlex settings and selected the option to set the d-pic for his home screen. What to? He thumbed through images until he landed on that idiotic shot when the High Five name had been chosen. He examined the faces of the crew caught in an unguarded moment. In the way they looked at each other, they were sharing more than a private joke. Trust. Respect. Pride. They were all in it together.

When he arrived at the mess, he found the rest of the team already gathered, playing poker. He took a seat at the table. "Deal me in."