A dead father's radio, a dying mother's secret, and a signal that answers back.
Who drives the story
A seventeen-year-old record store kid in San Francisco whose father died in a car accident years ago. He chases a voice on a dead ham radio and ends up crossing a thousand miles by Greyhound for a girl he's never met.
A Roswell teenager whose mother is dying of cancer and whose SETI-scientist father vanished chasing a signal. She builds a radio to find him, finds Jesse instead, and inherits his unfinished work.
A former SETI scientist who disappeared claiming he would find proof of extraterrestrial life. He left notebooks, a bunker, and a lie that turns out to be protection.
Dying of cancer, she spends her last lucid moment clearing her husband's name. Her death is what turns Cate's search into a mission.
Jesse's skeptical best friend who dismisses the radio story as a prank—then helps them borrow a boat when it matters.
How they are connected
She builds a radio to find him, finds Jesse instead, and inherits his unfinished work.
Her death is what turns Cate's search into a mission.
Jesse's skeptical best friend who dismisses the radio story as a prank—then helps them borrow a boat when it matters.
Go deeper
Grief as a frequency · The cost of protection · Listening as an act of faith · First love across distance
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
Open the summary