Apocalypse to Go Read Online Free

fail job if they did.”
    “The second possibility is that it opened itself. Do you think gates can expand themselves? Sort of like a leak in a packed earth dam, where the water keeps washing away the dirt once the leak gets started. The hole gets bigger and bigger.”
    “Maybe.” Michael sounded doubtful. “But why now?Dad must have made that other gate what? Thirty-five years ago?”
    “About, yeah.”
    “And it never spread in all that time.”
    “That’s true. Maybe it’s spreading now because you’ve found your talents. You’re another world-walker in this house. Do you think the gate has some kind of property that would sense that?”
    “Maybe. I might be sending out, like, vibes, and I was using the gate downstairs hella often for a while. But—I dunno.”
    We looked at each other in utter confusion.
    “It might have something do with Dad,” I said. “In that letter he smuggled out, Dad mentioned being paroled. He also said he was thinking about us a whole lot. Maybe he’s out, and that had an effect on the gate. This whole process takes place on some deep level of your mind, after all.”
    Michael’s eyes got very wide. “If that’s true,” he said, “we could go get him.”
    “We could—if only we knew exactly where he is and how to reach the place. And of course I might not be right about the parole. I’m just guessing. For all we know he’s still in Moorwood Prison, whatever world that’s on. I’m willing to bet it’s not on Interchange. That would be too convenient.”
    “Too dangerous, you mean, with all the rads.”
    “That, too, yeah. If he’s still in jail, we can’t even visit him. The authorities would want to know where we came from. You don’t want to end up in the cell next door for the same crime.”
    “Yeah, guess it would be the same, if I brought you along. Transporting someone across world borders. I keep forgetting it’s illegal. Well, it is there, anyway, wherever there is.”
    “Exactly.” It occurred to me that Austin Osman Spare14 had to know something about world-walking. “Now, look, I may be in a position to find out more about this situation. I don’t know yet if I can or not, but I’m going to try. Getting Dad home is high on my priority list these days.”
    “It would sure be easier to concentrate on stuff likeschool if I could, y’know, talk to him about world-walking.” Mike sounded sincere. “I just get seriously confused sometimes, trying to read my school stuff, and trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing with these gates.”
    “Yeah, I can see that. Unfortunately, I also have Agency work to do here. I can’t go haring off across the worlds until I know what I’m doing and have the time to do it in. Understand?”
    “Yeah, I do. Y’know, there are other gates in San Francisco, like the one that over-there police squad used to take Dad away. I’ve been thinking about making a map.”
    When I did a scan around this idea, I felt only a distant and faint chance for danger. “The Agency could use something like that. They’ll pay you for it.”
    “Cool!”
    Michael glanced back at the window. “We better get the stuff you wanted and go back downstairs,” he said. “This room’s starting to give me the creeps.”
    When I opened the trunk, I had to rummage through a lot of notebooks as well as shoe boxes full of things friends had sent me, like Christmas and birthday cards, the kind of paper junk that somehow you never want to throw out even though there’s no reason to keep it. I did find the material about Chaos magic about halfway down the layers, as well as an old college notebook from a class on Jung’s psychological theories. On impulse I grabbed that, too, and we left.
    As we walked down the hall toward the living room, I heard women’s voices, arguing. Aunt Eileen was one, and the other—
    “Oh, shit!” Michael said. “It’s Mom!”
    He turned and ran back to the stairs. The miserable little coward had gotten