Contact, An Excerpt from Chapter One

Kelly broke the silence, “No Way. This is by far the best trick you have ever pulled, Benny. You are a genius. That thing sounds like a cross between Yoda and The Terminator!”

“Kelly, I swear, I’m not doing anything.” Benny’s voice trembled.

“No way,” Kelly said. “No way. Okay I tell you what, let’s ask for a sign or something. Let’s make this ‘whatever it is’ prove that it’s for real. It should be able to make itself visible, or blow something up or something. Benny, I’m gonna find out how you are doing this.”

“If it can really hear us, then we shouldn’t have to ask,” Jonathan whispered.

With all of the time he had spent perfecting his communication systems, the DRAVUs, the language translation module, Zeetherious had not thought of having to prove his existence by doing something extraordinary. He had to think of something and it had to be convincing. If I can see them, he thought, it is only fair if they see me.

He connected his video camera output to a spare monitor. He then aimed the camera back towards himself so his image appeared in the center of the screen.

“Miss Taylor, please activate your hand-held device.”

Kelly turned on the PDA. “He’s so polite, Benny.” She looked over at Benny and began to giggle.

The three children huddled up to the display. Zeetherious sent the video signal from the camera to the PDA. As if by magic, the image of Zeetherious, sitting in his lab deep below the surface of Zinitheron, a planet thousands of miles away, was displayed on a three inch PDA display screen in a clubhouse in Novi, Michigan.

Kelly stopped giggling.

He watched the three children through his monitor as they stared at his strange image on the PDA. It was as if they were looking through a window that gave them a glimpse into another world. Indeed, Jonathan Mitchell, Kelly Taylor and Benny Bartholomew had entered another world. The world they once knew had been changed forever.

In but a few moments, he had transformed these three children into believers, believers that they did not know everything about everything, that there were still many things to be discovered and that indeed what many thought impossible, was possible.