The Other Side

“No! I’m telling you, Martin, it’s right there, in the middle of the ice!”

Martin studied Brett, who was normally calm and collected but was now full of fire and talking nonsense at a very high pitch.

“What you're telling me is insane, man. It makes zero sense.”

“I’m not saying it makes sense, Martin, I’m saying I saw the fucking thing—the whole place—with my own eyes!” He took a breath, trying to calm himself. “You gotta hear me out, brother.”

Martin stared back at Brett, debating whether to give up or to give in; ultimately, he decided on the latter, if for nothing else because he was a good friend and that’s what good friends did. “Fine. We’ll have a beer, and you can tell me again. Here, let me close the door, we’ll get comfortable. Tell me everything, then, from the very start. Okay?” He closed the door to his trailer and turned on a lamp. Although the sun was still out, Martin was the type of man who had blackout curtains that always hung closed.

He grabbed two beers out of a thirty-year-old refrigerator with a huge chrome handle and returned to the living room, setting them on the table. He sat on the couch across from Brett, who had plopped down in an ancient brown recliner half-devoured by cats’ claws. “No one followed you here, right?”

Brett rolled his eyes. “Jesus, man, this again? No. Of course not.”

Martin dead-eyed Brett for several long moments, sitting statue still. “You wearing a wire?”

“Oh, for…” Brett stood up and lifted his shirt. Then he unbuttoned his jeans and mooned Martin. “Happy, motherfucker?”

“You never know. I’m sorry. Sit. Tell me about what’s in the ice.”

“It’s not, it’s not in the ice, man, it’s under it, or, or through it. I don’t know which.”

“Right. Yes, sorry. I remember you saying that.”

“So I was exploring, right? Out there doing my thing. Antarctica. Way, way out there. I come across this… camp, or something. Looked like scientists. You know, everyone in white with bubble faces and shit. So I watch for a while from behind a drift. The more I saw, the less I liked. These weren’t regular scientists, you know? They were like, super scientists or something. Maybe military.”

“That’s not unheard of. We see those pictures all the time.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, but not like this. Remember the movie E.T.? Yeah, it felt more like that. Like, something was wrong but it could be set right, you know? Something was way out of whack and, I dunno, the whole thing didn’t feel right.”

“So what did you do?” Martin sat back and lit a Marlboro.

“I waited until nightfall and went snooping.”

“Let me guess, big mistake?” Martin was chuckling.

“No, man! It was like a ghost town! Nobody home. I don’t think they get much company and their security protocols lapsed pretty hard, you know? I mean, I was out there out there, bro. You dig? Ain't nobody for two hundred miles, and even then it’s just other nerds in bubble head things.”

“Gotcha. So you were just able to explore?”

“Yeah, man!” He rolled his eyes, exasperated. “You didn’t even listen the first time. I told you! I walked to this big red door that said keep the fuck out, but nicer, you know, and it just opened. Then there was a black door and when I opened that, whoosh! I was in the fuckin' Twilight Zone. Dr. Who type stuff, bro. No lie.”

“Like what?”

“It was a tunnel, kind of. I don’t know! It was all sorts of colors and looked real cartoony, like someone had drawn it and then made it move somehow. Reminded me of a thousand million chewed bubble gums, all mashed up into one head-trip of a kaleidoscope.”

“Where did it go? Anywhere?”

“Yeah, dude! That’s what I told you before! All the rest of it is out there! It’s not here, man, it’s there!”

“What is? What’s there?”

“Everything, bro. All of it. You can't even imagine. We've been lied to, bad. This shit isn't even real.”

“What isn't real?”

Frustrated, Brett waved his arms around the room. “This! This right here! You, me, everyone, we’re caught in the world’s biggest lie, and I have proof! Don’t you get it, man? See what I’m saying?”

Martin shook his head slowly. His dark, native features were partially-obscured by black, shoulder-length hair. “Not at all, bro. Just tell me what happened next. Help me understand.”

Brett took a breath and exhaled. “So I get out of this tunnel and I’m on this, this dock type thing, a boarding place for ships. Big ones. There was a guy there, walking around, like someone who might be checking for tickets, right? But he was just looking at the people, and knowing which ships they should go on.”

“What does he see when he looks?”

“I don’t know! He had this glass thing he’d put to his eye, and then he’d say like you're purple, over there, the one with all the people standing on deck, or oh, green, you've got to get to that one over there, with the steam coming out of the stacks. But the thing was, all the ships looked exactly the same! At least, to me they did. Zero difference in any of 'em. But the people knew which ones, you know? They just walked right over to 'em and then walked right on board.”

“Jesus. That's weird.”

“Oh, we haven't touched weird yet. So he gets to me, right, and he puts the glass thing up. Looks like the guy from Monopoly, before they canceled him or whatever. He says blues go to the Queen’s Vessel, over there, with the red stripe on its hull. And as soon as he said that, I saw the red stripe! And the people standing on deck of the first one. And steam coming out of the stacks of the other one!”

“A trick, maybe. Holographics?”

“No chance. Wait. Let me finish. So I go to the ship, yeah? The dude that directs people acts like he knew I was coming, tells me right this way and leads me down a corridor to a room. Really nice one, too, not this fuck-around junk we have here. Big boy stuff. Crazy elegant.”

“What do you mean, we have here?”

“I’m getting to that. Three days I was on that boat, and for three days I was treated like royalty, man, no joke. Free food, all you can eat; betting tables with enough credit to get started; a wet bar, fuckin' bands—you name it, this boat had it. But still, nobody had told me a thing about what the hell was going on! I had suddenly become a passenger on this crazy cruise, yanno? And all I was originally trying to do was geek out on the ice!”

“Yeah, man, I get it. So then what?” He lit another cigarette.

“We finally hit land. Big as New York, easy, and with more buildings. But, not like ours. Bigger, sleek. Crazy tall. I mean, clouds high, man. And the sky was pink. But not like, from a sunset; it was just pink. You get it? It was always pink.”

“Pink skies and Gilligan’s Island; I like it.”

“Bro, take this seriously. Come on.”

Martin held up his hands. “I am, I am. I’m sorry. Keep going.”

“We’ve been thought some shit together, some big shit. All I’m asking is for you to listen.”

Resolve set in on Martin’s face. “You're right. I’m listening.” After a pause, he continued. “You may be the one of us who drops everything to explore icy wastelands, but you've also never said anything like this before. I’m listening.”

“So here’s where it gets weird. They take me to this hotel, and it doesn’t cost money. They just ask what kind of room I wanted and when I wasn't sure, they showed me a bunch of pictures on some little movie thing, small thing, size of a potato chip, maybe. Sound and everything! I told them I wanted the Business Class because fuck it, right? And they walked me right to a room!

Things were fine for a few hours. I took a shower, I snacked on some complimentary fruit, I watched a little television—it’s like ours, pretty much, except the shows are very strange. Almost like they are just long advertisements with weak, porn-type plots and shit acting. But whatever, yanno? It was free!

About eleven that night, three fuckin' thugs broke into my room! They told me I wasn't supposed to be there and I would be coming with them, right now.”

“Shit, man, that’s rough,” Martin interjected. He was leaning in, now, elbows on his knees. “How the hell’d you get out of that?”

“Well, I thought about throwing hands, but these guys looked hard, you know? Something in the eyes. So I let 'em take me.”

“Were they cops? Did they arrest you?”

“I don’t think so. No rights read, no cuffs, no station. They took me to a house. Fancy bitch. Like four floors or something, most of 'em pure glass. Crazy views of a huge red ocean, stretched out as far as you can see. As far as you can imagine.”

“Whoa. That's intense.”

Brett laughed, remembering. “You fuckin' betcha, it was! If I’d been just a little weaker, I might have pissed myself, you know? So they sit me at this big shiny white table and ask all sorts of questions. I’m honest, and they seem okay with my answers. They apologized, said it was protocol and a bunch of other cover-your-ass bullshit, and put me on some super train that went so fast the world was a blur. They rode with me.”

Martin, who prided himself on being somewhat of a human lie detector—in his line of work, one almost had to be—was surprised to sense no deception on Brett's part. “Man, are you telling me this shit really happened? When? Just now, while you were gone for a couple weeks?”

“Yes! That’s what I’m telling you. Really really. Just listen. The train drops me off on some candy-painted platform and the men wait, eyes on their watches. After a few minutes, they nodded and a door, some kind of portal, just opened. Right the fuck in front of us! Like, it wasn't there and then it was, bro. I’m telling you. One of them said this is where we part ways, and that I’d receive instructions on the other side.”

“Yeah,” Martin said with a chuckle. “Other side of what?”

“Well, that’s exactly what I asked them! But noooooo, instead of answering and being cool they just shoved me through the glowing door thing and poof! I was off again, in a similar tunnel as before. Popped out in the same spot I’d gone in. You know me, man, I’m not good at artsy stuff like stories. I can't make this shit up!”

“You're right about that. Trust me, you have my full attention. So what the hell happened next?”

“So they are waiting for me, some bubble-head guards in white, and they take me to a warehouse thing, but it’s under the ice. Under the ice, man. Through a different tunnel but with no Star Trek stuff; it was just a concrete tunnel with lights hanging down every so often.

“Jesus. The fuck is going on out there?”

“That's exactly what I want to know. These new guys make me sign a bunch of papers, swearing I’ll never speak about what I've seen and that I’ll never return. If I do, the repercussions will be severe, they said.

So anyway, I sign their shit, like I care, and then I’m in a big black limousine. For hours, I’m in this limo. Far as I know, there are no roads out of where I was, but there we were, on 'em anyhow. We ended up at a tiny airport in the middle of some far-out jungle and a small white jet took us back to the states. They insisted on sending escorts to my house. Probably to verify I lived where I said I did, you know?”

“Bastards. Christ, this is like a movie!”

“It’s stranger than a movie, man, because it really happened! It’s happening right now!”

“So what is that other place? Do you know?”

“Not really. But since I got back, I've been doing a lot of internet searching. Public library. I’m not stupid. I believe I have a good idea.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“It’s money, but it isn’t. It’s power. Big power. See, the elite, they live out there, in those lands. And all the stuff in those lands? Funded by us. Taxpayers. Worker bees.” He motioned his hand back and forth between them and made a face. “Even criminals, like us. It all goes to them, eventually.”

“That makes no sense. Don’t you think the government would know about this shit by now? Have done something?”

Brett rolled his eyes. “You're still not getting it. They own the government. It’s theirs. They own the schools. The media. The work force. The mints. The gold. All of it. And they always have.”

Martin sat still, letting Brett’s words sink in. “So, what about religion?”

Brett shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know, man! I didn’t say I had the whole thing solved! I said the shit happened, to me. Happened, man. All of it. And that means someone is lying, big time. Right? I mean, they are lying to us, man. There’s something else out there, something better. Magical.”

“Okay. Let’s say there is. Let’s say this trip you had is one-hundred-percent legit; what the hell do we do about it?”

Brett smiled and sat back in the easy chair. He folded his hands across a Hawaiian-print shirt, the top three buttons undone to show a hairless chest. “Well, I was thinking… You have a small-craft pilot’s license, right?”

Martin slowly sat up straighter as he realized what his longtime friend was asking of him. “Oh, oh ho ho ho, wait a minute there, tiger. You aren't thinking of us flying to Antarctica, are you? No one can fly there, other than like, scientists.”

Brett let out a sigh. “I know. Nineteen-fifty-nine. The Antarctic Treaty. But it’s bullshit. I’m telling you. It’s so we don’t find out what’s been there the whole time. Real life, brother. A shot at the good stuff. And they're keeping it from us!”

Martin sat silent for a moment, his face tight. Then, slowly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I mean, something’s fucking wrong, right?” Brett nodded as if to say I told you so, and Martin was silent again. When he spoke once more, his face was serious. “Give me time. A couple days. Yeah? I have a lot to process, to think about. If what you say is true, everything is on the line, either way.”

“Right. You’ll see the same thing I do. And once you see it, you can't un-see it. All you need is the seed. You know that feeling we all have, deep down? That something isn't right, here, feeling? Yeah, well, this is it! The reason! We all live in a lie, a contrived reality. The presidents, the lawmakers, the money, the billionaires the jobs—all fake. Nothing real to it.”

Martin nodded. “Yeah, well, we already knew politics was a mess. But not like this.” He paused a moment as the picture Brett had painted became clearer in his mind. “So there are puppet masters.” He rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “We could be living better. Free. Maybe start a new life. Everyone could.”

“Now you're getting it. Just think about it, man. Who knows? We can take cameras and guns and whatever, you know? But mostly, you gotta experience this. Those tunnels… I don’t know. There was something in them, I think. There’s a clarity now that wasn't there before. A knowing that’s more like remembering. I can't explain it. You gotta see it, feel it. Call me in a day or two, say you're in.”

Martin smiled, shook his head. “You always ran a hard bargain, my friend. Two days. Maybe sooner. Let me get some things in order. See if it can be done.”

Eighty-eight hours and nine minutes later, near midnight, the men spotted Antarctica for the first time on their harrowing flight. They had encountered all manner of obstacles, including equipment failure and a storm the size of Los Angeles that nearly knocked them out of the sky.

An alert from the GPS unit told them they were close. “It’s right down there,” Brett yelled over the din of twin engines and nasty weather. “See the big black dot? That's the camp!”

Martin nodded and the small craft took a hard right and began its descent. The men never took their eyes off the window, off the camp that was a dot, as the tiny airplane swooped in lower and lower until surface detail could be seen on the ground.

“Over there!” Brett pointed toward an especially shadowy portion of the landscape.

Two minutes later, Martin softly set the plane down near the edge of the dark patch. He killed the engines and, for a few seconds that seemed to last much longer for the men, there was complete silence. Nothing. Like a memory from the womb.

Then the shouting began.