Following the golden figure as it skulks about town, Violet discovers it has been living at the Pine Ridge Apartments. Violet sneaks inside and discovers several blueprints and vials of medication, suggesting that the golden figure is working to complete a machine and that they also seem to be very ill.

Soon after, New Tomorrow Industries CEO Alastair Applenight arrives in town to oversee the forthcoming final test of the Eightcelerator particle accelerator. Violet receives a coded message warning her of the danger of the test. Violet enlists the Model UN club at her school to try to disrupt the test but is unsuccessful. Finding another coded message in a town announcement, she and Officer Ron hurry to the Question Mark Motel and find Darby Cline, an employee of New Tomorrow, who explains Applenight’s plan to open a portal to the future and to turn everything in town into light. She suggests Applenight’s AI program modeled on his deceased sister, JULIA, may be the key to shutting down the test. Moments later, security guards from New Tomorrow arrive and disintegrate Darby. Officer Ron holds the two goons at gunpoint, but not before shooting himself in the foot.

Meanwhile, Officer Ron experiences several anomalies with Time in his own home as his daughter seems to move inexplicably farther and farther into the future. He realizes his son Gary’s latest machine, which sends messages to the future, may be responsible. He also encounters the mysterious golden figure at the town dump and decides to finally–after months of indecision–give Chief Holt his thirty days notice.

On the day before the particle accelerator test, Violet asks all the citizens in town to convince new Tomorrow’s AI JULIA to let go and to override the test. Eventually JULIA shuts down but Applenight intervenes in the final moment and initiates a manual override. The test proceeds and a blinding white engulfs the town, causing it to begin to be pulled into the future.

Just then, the escaped Experimental Crop Station specimen known as Q-eey appears and surrounds Violet and the entire town, protecting Question Mark and absorbing the beam of light. The town reappears two days later, and Violet realizes Q-eey has sacrificed itself to save everyone. In the midst of so much confusion, Violet also realizes it is the final weeks of high school and she is still unsure about her future. She learns head librarian Greta Twombley and her daughter Freddie are planning to move to Chicago and after her graduation, she says goodbye to her close friend, Iris, who is moving to Columbus to start over. As she is riding back home with her father, Violet glances out the window and sees the golden figure once more.

With only one week remaining, what final mysteries will Violet uncover about who the golden figure is and their plans to upset Time one final time?