There is a hole in the world.

You'd expect a hole in the world to be at the North Pole, or the magnetic North Pole, or maybe on the Equator, or the International Date Line. Someplace meaningful, someplace where the skin of the world might be expected to pucker.

But it's technically not the Earth that the hole is in. It's reality itself, and who the hell knows why reality would decide to spring a hole on a tiny planet at the far edge of an insignificant galaxy? So honestly, you suppose, it could be anywhere. You still can't help visualizing it as a place where the plastic wrap of existence, wrapped around the Earth, has managed to not quite meet itself completely in a small pucker of non-reality, but most people say that analogy doesn't make sense to anyone but you.

In fact, the hole is in Iowa.

Why Iowa? Why not? Maybe it needed to be someplace flat, but in the middle of a huge land mass. Who knows? It's in Iowa, and ever since the government certified that it was, in fact, completely safe, and had their spooks running all over it for who knows how longer, it's finally been declassified and opened to the public. Kind of like the Internet, if the Internet were a combination of an airport and the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. Like the roadside attractions that used to be found all over the US highways, those weird pieces of Americana from your grandparents' day, before the interstates came and made it much easier to glide over the land you were traveling through without stopping or looking around (though honestly you always found those places creepy, overrated, or both... maybe they were more special in the days when there was nothing to do but watch 3 channels of television and listen to bad music on the radio.) In the early days, when everyone wanted to try it, the hotels within a three hour drive of the facility would be jam-packed, every day, and people would stand on lines for 16 hours, or camp there overnight, for a chance to get in and see another world.

Nowadays, there's a Best Western and a Sheraton and three separate kinds of Marriott-franchised hotels and a Holiday Inn Express, and that's just counting the ones you've been to and not the motels, all within a ten minute drive of the facility. And mostly, except on weekends, they're kind of empty. The novelty has worn off. People are no longer nearly so desperate to see the other side of a hole in the world, now that they know what's there.

And nowadays, even when there are a lot of people, everyone's bought their ticket off the Internet, in advance, so no intolerably long lines. You can't blow up a hole in reality with a shoe, or a liquid explosive in a thermos, so there's no ridiculous security nonsense to hold the lines up. They do check you for weapons, of course, but it's no more intrusive than a visit to a courthouse. And then you sit and wait, in a well-fitted lounge that actually has comfy chairs, because back when the lines were really long they made enough money to afford comfy chairs, until your number is called.

You walk with the others whose numbers are in the same range as yours through a door, into a very large, concrete room, rather like an airplane hangar. There's nothing inside. They built the huge room around a hole in the world when they didn't know what they were dealing with, if the hole might expand, or suck people inside, or explode, so they contained it in a gigantic building that's almost empty. The floor slopes down. You're not sure why. Is the hole technically below sea level, or was this entire building made artificially higher than it needed to be because some bureaucrat thought the hole would be safer if it was at the bottom of a slope? Probably you could Google it, if you cared.

There's ten people in the line with you, and you're right around the middle. Good enough. All of you walk down the slope, to the archway.

The arch is in what looks like the middle of nowhere, a place where ordinarily no one would ever put an arch. It is also mobile. That, you did Google. If the hole ever moves, the arch can be jacked up onto wheels and rolled to its new position. If you're going to have a random hole in the world in the middle of an empty airplane hangar, you need something to indicate where it is. The arch is covered with those almost-clear flaps of plastic you find in garages and workshops sometimes, to contain dust or pretend to contain noise, so you can't see the other side. It doesn't really matter; you've been through it before. You know there's nothing to see, really, until you see it.

One by one � or occasionally in twos � people walk up to the agents at either side of the arch and present their tickets.� The agents punch in some codes into the keypad that's next to the arch, and wave the people on. Then the people step through the plastic curtain. Normally a person would be visible on the other side of a plastic curtain like this � the flaps aren't really clear, they're too thick to be transparent, but they let light through, and shapes. You'd normally see the person's shape on the other side, but you can't. Once they walk through the curtain, they're gone.

And then it's your turn. There's no disruptions. The last time you were here, a group of fourth graders on a field trip and their teacher tried to cut in front of you on the logic that the teacher's number was lower than yours, even though all of the kids were higher and it's policy that a group goes with the highest number in the group. This time it's smooth sailing, no arguments. The agents punch in the code for the destination you requested, and wave you on, and you step through the curtain.

Onto a beach.

Here's the thing. The hole in the world leads to another world. But it's no Narnia, no place of magic and secrets... as far as anyone can tell. There's one sun burning in the sky, the plants are green, the ocean is blue (sort of... actually in your opinion oceans are all kind of bluish-green, but this one is no different from the one on your world). The other side seems to be kind of identical to Earth as nearly as anyone can tell, with two important differences.

The first difference is that there are no people. Either humanity never evolved here, or killed itself off, or... something. No one knows. There hasn't been time to explore the entirety of the other world. A few destinations have been built up, because the arch allows the operators to control where in the new world you end up... sort of. Destinations that were mapped painstakingly by military grunts and government agents, where none of them knew whether the new random code being tested would drop them in the ocean, or the mouth of a live volcano, or on the side of a mountain. They can test to make sure that there's matter at the destination, so no one ever got dropped into the air, and they can test the density of the matter so there's never been anyone who got materialized into solid rock, or at the bottom of the ocean. But it turns out they can't tell the difference between the ocean surface and the land surface, and you can't see anything until you're all the way through. Try to stick your head through the hole in space and you can't. (On previous trips, you've tried.) It's like it's not there until your whole body is through it, and then you're there and your footing's on whatever's on the other side.

Your choice is rarely chosen. You see a few people in the distance, along the sides of the beach. It's not a perfectly combed beach like the touristy places at home � there's sharp rock, and sharper shells, embedded all over the sand, brought by the tides -- and there's nowhere to get a pretzel or an ice cream cone. You brought food for three days in your giant camping knapsack, and a tent, and some useful items like a solar-powered water distiller and a small camping stove. People far, far down the beach have apparently done the same. You see their tents.

This is the destination. It's marked by a slab of concrete, which seems out of place in this land that's otherwise pristine, barely despoiled by humanity. You step off of it and down the beach, away from the other humans, toward a promontory you're familiar with where the fishing is good. You breathe in the air, rich and salty with no taint of human activity; the wind blows off the ocean, inland, so if the distant campers set fires the smoke will never reach you.

Here is the other thing that makes the world different. It's like a drug.

Not because it's clean and pure, although it is. There are still places on Earth that are clean and pure. No. Something thrums in your veins, something buzzes in your head, something jumps up your heart rate and makes you feel like absolutely anything could happen. You are an alien here, and something in your primitive hindbrain knows it. Everything is simultaneously surreal and yet hyper-clear, and if the sun turned pink or rose in the west it seems like you could accept it.

It's probably the oxygen. There's more of it here. Extra oxygen gets people a little high, right? Maybe that's why you feel, when you come here, like you can do anything.

The moon � if that is in fact the moon, and a lot of reputable scientists say it's probably not � is huge, much, much larger in the sky than at home, and it's mostly greenish, and you don't think you've seen the same face of it twice. It doesn't wax and wane like the moon at home, which is apparently exactly the right size to disappear into the Earth's shadow. Here, whatever hangs in the sky is big enough that you can see the planet's shadow moving across it, never fully eclipsing it. If you can't see the moon it's because you're pointed in the wrong direction, not because it's covered in the earth's shadow. This makes the tides high and wild � the beach you're standing on is a thousand-foot walk from the water, and extends nearly a mile behind you, and during the times when the tide is at its most extreme, the water can go from where it is now all the way to the tree line a mile behind you. But the water's so briny you can almost float in it, so as wild as it is, it's less dangerous than it could be.

The trees, behind you, are tall, so very tall, and entangled with thick vines everywhere. You'd need a machete to make your way into the forest � or a chainsaw with a battery that can be charged off sunlight. They make those nowadays, but not within your budget and the charging station is unwieldy and large, a pyramid of solar panels encasing the battery, two feet tall. Not something you want to carry with you in a backpack. It's all right, though, you don't need to tackle the trees. Just being here, just breathing the air, just feeling the buzz of the energy that races through you, is enough.

This makes you unusual. Not unique � the number of people sitting in the lounge with you reminds you of that � but not typical.

This is why humanity hasn't started dumping huge swaths of its population into this world, why heavy industry hasn't come through and started strip-mining, why only three of the mapped destinations have anything resembling permanent settlements and they're tiny and very much tourist traps, populated almost entirely by workers who go home at night and travelers spending a weekend, like you are. This world feels wrong, and for most people, the wrongness doesn't excite them, fulfill them, make them feel as if they're Superman charging up under the light of a yellow sun... it terrifies them. People get paranoid. They jump at shadows. They eat the food of a different earth and then they throw it all up. They break out in hives. People with anxiety disorders have actually died here, suffering heart attacks or strokes in the midst of what should be a perfect paradise.

Most people are day trippers. They come here, they spend several hours, they leave. They don't camp. The ones who are desperate enough to work in the tourist traps are not mom and pop entrepreneurs; they're employees of huge, faceless corporations who are rich enough to afford to send a whole crew of people through in the morning and have them all come back in the evening, or sometimes two shifts' worth, because people can't sleep here. Unless they're like you (and you feel like you hardly need sleep while you're here, it's too exciting, too much of a thrill just to even be here that you barely feel like closing your eyes.) And apparently people like you are rare enough that no one has found any of them willing to man a kiosk that sells McDonalds.

A few, a rare few, have moved here. That's a little too rich for your blood, still. There's no human infrastructure over here, no emergency rooms, no place to order a pizza, no Internet. That's part of the thrill, of course, but you don't want to live that way. Not yet.

Once you reach the promontory, which is slightly higher ground and juts out over the ocean like a natural pier, you walk inland far enough that your tent probably won't be swept out to sea at high tide. (Probably. There are no almanacs for this place.) You hammer the tent into place, set down your gear, and get out your fishing rod. There's food for three days in your pack, but if you don't come home with two days' worth in reserve, you'll consider yourself to have failed at this, at least a little bit. What's the point to going to an alien world if you can't eat the food?

There are fish that are just like any you might find at home. There are fish that are so strange and alien you haven't dared to eat them when you catch them. And there are fish in many positions in the wide range between. The same's true for the plants, but you avoid eating any of them unless you're sure they're safe � you've got a testing kit, mash up a plant, mix tiny bits of it in with small amounts of different reagents and use different testing strips, and you can identify 100 different poisons, but there's no guarantee that this world won't have one that doesn't exist at home and can't be tested for. Generally you only eat the plants you know are good, and you take home samples. People are encouraged to bring in samples of plants that haven't been tested yet, when they come home; if the plant you found was unique, you get a discount voucher for your next trip, and you can pick up a brochure in the lounge that lists all the ones they've found and whether they're edible (or download it to your phone or netbook while you're in the lounge, so you can read it offline over here.)

Later, after you catch yourself a fish, or get tired of trying, you will take photographs � you've been to this promontory before, but your camera can catch the fish underwater, and there's strange birds in the sky and strange flowers near the tree line and the shells, oh, the variety of shells... plus there's always the moon. People never get tired of pictures of the sun setting over the ocean with the green alien monster moon in the sky. You've got a blog where you post pictures from your vacations and write about how you spent your time, and it's popular enough that the ad revenues and prints of your photographs just about pay for your vacations. You come over here once a month, sometimes twice. You're addicted, honestly, and you'd be better off if you saved the money, except, if you saved the money what would you blog about? And what would you save it for that could possibly be better than this?