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doesn’t understand.
    “I don’t trust it,” Dad preaches, ignoring Mom’s clarification. “Nobody gives something for nothing. Everyone has an agenda. It says we have a choice. Yeah, wait ‘til that thing starts collecting us against our will. Mark my words: it’s gonna get violent.”
    I nudge Dominick to follow me and escape for some alone time. On our way out of the room, I hear Dad say to Mom, “Those holograms sound like fucking communists.”
    His words are something I can understand; it’s language at its finest. And I know there are probably many other people out there uttering the same thing in their homes, trying to understand the impossible and putting a label on it.
    In my backyard, Dominick and I sit in our usual spots on the warped, tan-and-peach-striped patio furniture that Mom found on clearance. The ominous stars blink innocently in the sky, holding secrets in the universe I never even considered before yesterday. For years I’ve sat in the same spot plotting my escape by becoming a lawyer. To be seen as strong. Capable. Determined. I still want that, but I can’t escape the fact that a part of me wants to stay where I am. Change is harder than I thought it would be. How these vertex things fall into my life equation I have no clue.
    Dominick’s typing and scrolling frantically on his phone.Why did he come here if he just wants to stare at his phone?I bite my tongue. I understand the need for information with everything going on. I’ve been watching the news and texting with Rita for the past hour. She’s freaking out. I invited her to sleep over tonight since I canceled on her earlier, but her parents said no. They are strict Seventh-day Adventists, and their congregation is having an emergency meeting to warn against the holographic prophets.
    “Sorry,” Dominick apologizes while still typing. “I’m looking up the math involved with the vertexes. It’s awesome stuff, except it gets way too advanced for me.”
    “It’s okay. I don’t even understand what a parabola has to do with traveling through time and space.”
    “The basic principle is like this.” He walks over to a basketball in my driveway. “Watch.” He lets the ball bounce on its own. “Did you see that?”
    “See what?” I was too busy watching him look athletic. It’s not a normal look for him.
    “How it bounces. Watch again.”
    I watch. The ball bounces in a series of hills, slowly getting smaller the more it bounces.
    “Did you see it? It moves in a series of parabolas, like the drawing. Energy travels in parabolas all the time. It’s even how microwaves and satellites work.”
    While I still don’t completely understand what he’s telling me, I totally appreciate how adorable he looks when he’s inspired.
    “The fact that they can keep five hundred vertexes open for six months is crazy. Scientists asked the holograms how they harness enough energy to create a vertex and how they calculate the angle needed to reach a fixed coordinate.” Dominick notices my blank gaze. “How they control the bounce, so to speak. But the holograms said the technology is beyond our current level of understanding.”
    I love hearing him passionate about something. Even if that something scares me. I walk over and pull him by his shirt, pressing my lips against his.
    When we finally come up for air, he asks, “What were we talking about?”
    “The vertexes.” I grin.
    “Screw it. The vertexes can wait.”

Chapter 4
    Day 4: August—4,330 hours to decide
    SCIENTISTS DEBUNK HOLOGRAM HOAX; PRESIDENT LEE CALLS FOR BUSINESS AS USUAL
    Two days later, the same news stories play on the same loop. No new evidence has surfaced. Each day, holograms at five hundred vertex sites across the world have repeated the same recorded message. The only thing that changes is the amount of time they say we have left. Scientists have dismissed their prophecy as “pure fallacy.”
    All vertexes are currently under guard, and citizens are