[Audiobook]

This isn't the first time

But this signal may be the last

Every country, in every corner of the world, has a different name for the sound, but most of them translate to, simply: the Drum

The world's brightest minds set out to decipher the Drum

Historians looked to the past, searching archives and ancient tomes, while futurists hope technology holds the key

Governments spend billions of dollars, companies spend trillions, all in an effort to understand what this sound could be, and what it's trying to communicate

But they fail at every turn

And then, in a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, a young man listens

His name is Lucas

The Drum, that beat, it speaks to Lucas, and reveals to him its secret

Hidden in the sound is a blueprint, from elsewhere

Across the universe, perhaps?

Lucas, wanting more from the life he was born into, a life without a future, he decides to follow these intergalactic instructions

But instructions for what?

Lucas doesn't know what he's building, just that he must build it

So he gets to work, using spare parts from around the house, synthetic materials he orders online, anything he can get his hands on, to cobble together… something

Stacking pieces atop each other, shapes evolve

A form becomes refined

Lucas has often felt like Dr. Frankenstein, a mad doctor, creating his own electronic gadgets, designing his own apps, an inventor with an artist's touch

Lucas always had a gift, but his parents and his classmates never saw it that way

They just thought of him as an outsider, kind and likable, but someone who never really fit into their world