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away sooner than usual since I feel Dad’s eyes staring at us. Dominick’s back straightens to full attention. He notices the difference.
    “Sorry,” he announces, and I think it’s because of the hug. “It took me a little longer since I didn’t have another change of clothes. I had to wait for them to find mine.”
    “Nick, stop with the excuses,” Dad comments. “Guys like you in the military—always behind, always an excuse—didn’t last long.”
    Dominick cringes at the nickname. His father’s name was Nicholas. I’ve reminded my dad a million times.
    “Dad, not now. Please.” My medication kicks in faster since I haven’t had much food, filling my body with warmth and laziness.
    “He put you in danger,” Dad mutters, “and I’m the bad guy.”
    “He didn’t know we were gonna have a freaking hologram invasion,” I argue in exhaustion.
    “Enough,” Mom says. “Let’s go home. It’s been a long night.”
    Dad grunts his disapproval as we walk to the car. Mom rubs his lower back. Like taming a lion.
    Outside, the August morning air soothes my aching skin. I breathe in for an easy five counts, hold for two, and let it out in five more. The early sky holds the sun in one corner, the moon still visible in another. Neither look the same anymore.

Chapter 3
    Day 2: August—4,380 hours to decide
    NASA CLAIMS NO COMET THREAT DETECTED
    ABC 6, Boston 7 news, and every other news media outlet I flip through broadcast the same loop of information. Five hundred vertexes. The hologram’s message playing in different languages depending on the country. Maps of vertex sightings across the globe with clusters of them spotted in China, India, and the U.S. Some small countries without any sightings.
    They’re guessing that the placement of the vertexes is connected with population percentages. Officials are still asking everyone to stay away from the vertexes for their own safety. They have no way of knowing how many people may have been exposed before they set up perimeters and emergency medical protocols, but all tests show no ill readings as of this point.
    That means no radiation poisoning for me or Dominick. Give it two weeks, then I’ll believe it. Doctor’s orders.
    I grab my navy-blue journal with the hot-pink polka dots that Grandma Penelope sent me for Christmas last year. Not my style, but if there were ever a time to chronicle something, now would qualify. I scribble details about my ordeal last night and list all the facts I can glean from the news. My hand can’t write fast enough.
    President Lee appears in front of the White House for a press conference. She repeats again that “there is no credibility in the holographic message. No such comet has been located at the present time.”
    At the present time. So there’s still a possibility.
    NASA is all over the news explaining the importance of “planetary protection” and warning about “interplanetary contamination.” They are “deeply concerned” that the arrival of these vertexes may have “contaminated our biosphere with extraterrestrial bacteria.” The CDC is running every test imaginable at various sites, but so far “nothing of interest” has been uncovered.
    Nothing of interest. They can’t be serious.
    Newscasters report live from various locations across the world, and despite the warnings, throngs of people have flocked to see the phenomena for themselves. How can they not? It’s a spectacle—something so extraordinary and overwhelming that you have to see it to believe it. Even though I saw the one in Quincy, I already want to see another one. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it.
    Why would the holograms come to rescue us from nothing? Did they get the date wrong? What are they hiding?
    Maybe it’s all a lie, and our very own scientists created the vertexes by accident. The holograms could be just an elaborate cover-up for their mistake. Weren’t they trying to make their own black