Visitors Read Online Free

machine.”
    Will and Sophie laughed.
    I went to my room, shut the door, and sat down at my computer. I crunched on my apple and logged on to the Internet.
    First I checked my e-mail. I don’t know why I bothered. Hardy anyone ever e-mailed me. That day was no different—zero messages.
    Then I started surfing the web, looking for new alien chat rooms. I thought I’d visited them all, but new ones popped up every day.
    People wrote about UFO sightings in the sky. They wrote about aliens landing in their backyard and about hearing aliens’ voices in their heads. They said they picked up signals from UFOs in the fillings in their teeth!
    Some people claimed to be aliens themselves. But I could usually tell they were fakes. There was always some detail that gave them away. Like the guy who said he’d flown to Earth from Jupiter on Santa’s sleigh.
    I had a feeling he was making that up.
    I kept hoping I’d find the jackpot—a chat room set up by real aliens. Where they could talk to each other, maybe from spaceship to spaceship. I’d know it if I saw it. I might not understand the language they spoke, but…
    There were more people than usual in the chat rooms that day. I started reading some of the messages.
    Zandor’s prediction is correct. I’ve been reading my star charts and watching the skies carefully. There is definite alien activity going on. We will see an invasion within one week—I’m sure of it. The major question is—where?
    —Professor George Grant
    I live in Toronto, Canada, and I’ve suddenly been plagued by swarms of mosquitoes. In January! It’s about twenty degrees here! I know that swarms of insects out of season is one of the signs of an alien invasion. What should I do? How should I defend myself if they come here?
    —Mary N.
    The messages in the chat room were wilder than usual. A lot of people seemed convinced that aliens were coming.
    Could Zandor be right?
    I thought about the space rock. If aliens have been here before, I thought, maybe they’ll come back. They might be coming to Bitter Lake within a week!
    I logged off the Internet and turned on my alien machine. I’d built a radio antenna the summer before and connected it to my computer.
    I programmed it to send a signal out into space twenty-four hours a day. It said, “Welcome…welcome…welcome…”
    I wasn’t sure if the aliens could understand my message. And I didn’t know how they would answer me if they did. Would a message appear on my e-mail? Would I hear their voices?
    I also had headphones connected to my computer. The antenna brought in signals from space. Maybe the aliens would try to talk to me through the antenna! If they did, I didn’t want to miss it.
    I wore those headphones as much as I could. I did my homework with them on. I watched TV while wearing them. Sometimes I even slept in them. I would have worn them all day long if I could have.
    But I’d been listening for months now. And so far, no aliens had contacted me. At least not in a way I could understand.
    But now…now, maybe, I would hear from them at last.
    I put the headphones on and listened. For a fewminutes, I heard nothing.
    Then something crackled through the headphones. My hand froze on the mouse. I sat perfectly still, listening.
    More crackling. It got louder.
    Was something coming through?
    It was faint at first. I strained to hear it.
    It was just static. But I thought I could hear a voice far, far away. Then it stopped.
    I listened harder, waiting.
    The static began to clear a little. The faraway sound grew louder.
    They were voices! Someone was talking!
    A little louder. Then a little clearer. As if they were coming closer!
    I began to make out a few words. The voice was high-pitched and weird.
    “We are receiving signals,” it said. “‘Welcome…welcome.’ Confirm Earth language.”
    Another high-pitched voice said, “Earth language confirmed. English. Now zooming in on location coordinates.”
    My heart pounded in my chest.