EuroNet: The Sixth Zak Steepleman Novel: Zak Steepleman, #6

By Dave Bakers

Zak's wildest dreams came true. All the games he could wish for. Friends. And a secret world all his own. But now he must face up to responsibility because that same world threatens Earth.

And only Zak holds the key.

In EuroNet, Zak strives to overcome one of his pet hates . . . teamwork. But he must conquer it to get his hands on the EuroNet Cup.

And get out of the competition alive.

EuroNet: The Sixth Zak Steepleman Book

Reading order for Zak Steepleman:

The Cloaked Figure Series

Book #1 ~ Gamers Con

Book #2 ~ Inside Kids

Book #3 ~ Phantom Arcade

Book #4 ~ Echoes of the Undone

Book #5 ~ The Spread

The PORTALS Series

Book #6 ~ EuroNet

Book #7 ~ WorldNet

Book #8 ~ GalaxyNet

• Language: English
• Publisher: DIB Books
• Release date: Sep 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386769224

Dave Bakers

Wish you could transport into your favourite video game? So does Dave Bakers! In fact his character, Zak Steepleman, managed to find that button . . . you know, the one right at the back of your games console? Go on, take a look, he’ll wait . . . Dave keeps a foot in the real world with some of his short stories (‘Orphans,’ ‘The Fight,’ ‘Rhys’s Friend’), but just as often fails to do so (‘Zombies are Overrated and Boring’ and ‘Graveyard Club’) and don’t even get him started on Zak Steepleman. His website: www.davebakers.com

Book preview

1

The summer air smelled sweet. It had to be the blooming flowers, and the freshly cut grass, and somebody baking apple crumble for afternoon tea off in the distance. The summer sun beat down on my face, bringing warmth to the surface of my skin. It seemed to heat me up right from the bone. I could hear several lawnmowers rumbling along and supposed they were the cause of the freshly-cut grass smell.

I snagged the ring pull on my can of Brizzmere Buzz and brought the hissing liquid up to my lips. I can’t really explain just how refreshing it was to drink it down . . . to feel the fizz making its way down my gullet; shooting for my stomach. Giving me a much-needed kick after another whole damn day at school.

I glanced around.

Saw Mikey plodding a few paces behind.

As always, he walked with his head bowed down over his chest, staring at the tips of his well-scuffed school shoes. His white shirt was dangling out from beneath his jumper. And his rucksack kind of sagged down his lower back; its straps and zips all damaged in one way or another, if not actually shredded. If I’d been asked to draw the definition of ‘dejected’ — and during one particularly dull art class our teacher had asked us to crack open a dictionary and draw the first word we came across — then Mikey would’ve been it.

Over the past few weeks — months? — he’d grown his hair out so it now brushed his shoulder blades. He looked almost as if he wouldn’t be out of place in a rock band.

Almost.

Why he was so bummed out, I couldn’t rightly say.

The two of us didn’t tend to talk about emotions, and stuff.

We were too busy playing video games.

Like most other fifteen-year-old kids, I’d decided long ago that all those deep thoughts — real-world problems — were for when you left school behind.

And, until then, you could just get on with gaming.

Or whatever other thing you might use to make your childhood go by faster.

I tipped back the can of Brizzmere Buzz and then tossed it into a nearby rubbish bin hanging off a lamppost.

I turned back to Mikey. You coming round mine, or am I going round yours?

There wasn’t a mystery Option C.

Our routine was well-established.

During the week — today was a Thursday — we would go around one house or the other and get in a good gaming session before either one of our mums returned from work.

To be honest, I’d got to the point where I was just a bit more eager for us to go around Mikey’s house. His mum had a penchant for cooking brownies, while my mum continued to refuse to see the error of her ways in her attempts to make me tread the line with my ‘healthy’ diet . . . I reckon, by the time I’m thirty, I’m going to be going to therapy sessions five times a week to try and cure myself of my irrational fear of lettuce leaves.

There was, of course, one drawback to that plan.

Namely that my dad and Mikey’s mum had . . . you know . . .

Let’s just say that it was weird to find my dad hanging around Mikey’s house.

And it was going to be weirder still when Dad eventually decided to move in.

For the time being I was happy to take the brownies and run.

Mikey glanced up at me. Yours, he said.

This was just about the first thing he’d said since we’d got out of school. I had a brief urge to ask him what was up. To ask him what was with the silence. But we ran out of road.

We had arrived outside my house.

I hesitated at the top of the garden path.

Something felt off . . . something nagged at me.

When I thought about it later, I realised what that something was.

The garden gate had been left open.

Now, if there’s anything to say about me and Mum — the two of us who live in our house — then it’s that we’re sticklers when it comes to certain details. And one of those details is always — without exception — leaving the garden gate shut.

It doesn’t matter if we’re headed in or going out, we always close it.

I remember even joking with Mum about this little habit of ours once; about how it acted as a sort of early-warning system given that the hinges hadn’t been oiled since we’d moved in . . . I almost thought to say that they hadn’t been oiled since Dad moved out, but that most definitely wouldn’t be the case either.

Dad was a long way from being any sort of a handyman.

Once Mikey had passed me by — stepped onto the garden path — I brought the gate shut, making certain that the latch fell neatly into its groove.

As I paced up to the front door, feeling for my key buried deep in my pocket, Mikey stopped dead on the step. Something about his motion, how he just halted instantaneously, sent a shudder down my spine. It caused my gut to clench tight.

What? I said. What’s the matter?

Mikey remained silent.

He turned around and glared.

And then I saw.

The front door had been busted open.

2

Not really knowing what else I was supposed to do, I sat about on the staircase, opposite the front door, until Mum got home. When she did, she reacted pretty much as I’d thought:

Bug-eyed glare at the damage.

Jaw latched open wide.

And then skittered, panicked glances about.

Of course I’d checked the house to make sure there wasn’t anybody around.

It was weird how there was no sign of any damage, or anything missing.

All the same, Mum called the police.

There was the damage to the front door after all.

Whoever had broken into the house had used a crowbar or something to force entry.

I sort of expected the police to come in running, sirens blaring, lights blazing.

It was kind of weird when a pretty sedate-looking police car drew up at the curb and a policeman and woman — both with grey hair and looking a touch on the chubby side — got out and made their way up the garden path.

They interviewed Mum, asking her about the break-in.

And then they asked me some questions.

Mikey had already gone home at that point, but they didn’t seem all that interested in what he might have to say . . . after all, the two of us had seen much the same thing.

Once the police had taken notes on the entire episode, I wondered if one of them would grab their radio and speak with the station; alert them that our neighbourhood could quite well be on the brink of a crime wave.

As before, though, there was little — if any — action.

The police promptly left, and me and Mum worked together to give the doorframe a temporary fix until she called in a professional.

When everything had died down, and Mum had cobbled together a pretty delicious pesto lasagne, I retired to my bedroom. Although I hadn’t admitted so much to the police, it went without saying that the first place I went off to go and check on finding the evidence of the break-in was my bedroom. More exactly, I checked on my games console — my Sirocco 3000. It was there. And in one piece. Thank God.

It was starting to seem ominous.

When I’d tucked myself into bed that night, after having played my way through the best part of Summoner's Apprentice, I slipped in under my duvet. To begin with, I couldn’t quite understand why I was having trouble sleeping; why I kept tossing and turning, unable to drift away. And then it struck me.

I was afraid.

I recalled the various documentaries — news reports — I’d seen down the years.

My mind kept drifting back to one of those oft-repeated phrases; the one which went along the lines that once a house had been robbed it was very likely that the robbers would return . . . As much as I tried to reason, to attempt to explain that — by definition — they hadn’t been robbers; they’d been, at best, trespassers; I couldn’t manage to convince myself.

Just as I always did when I couldn’t sleep, I flipped the Power switch on my Sirocco and fired up the Inside Kids server; where I could communicate with my clan.

As I watched the Loading screen spin away, I thought about how much I hated the word ‘clan’. It was one of those words which made gaming sound as if it was exclusively played by nerds who were stuck in some distant land.

There were two people online when I booted up the server.

Kate and Mikey.

I’d hardly got past the confirmation that I was logged in before Mikey left the server.

Leaving me there with Kate:

Me: Wats up?

Kate: Eugh, do you really have to spell that way?

Me: Wat way?

Kate: You know, like you dropped out of nursery school . . .

Me: Dunno wat ur talkin bout.

I allowed myself a self-satisfied smile while I waited for Kate to tap in her reply.

The Inside Kids server was our own private refuge . . . I say ‘refuge’ when the truth is that there’d been a whole host of intrusions since we’d been online.

But that’s a whole other story.

Actually, it’s a whole bunch of other stories.

Kate’s next message came through:

Kate: Heard from Mikey you had a break-in. Is everything okay?

Me: Yeh. No sweat.

Kate: So why aren’t you sleeping soundly in your bed — getting in your eight hours before school tomorrow?

I allowed myself a wry grin.

Me: 2mrw is Friday. No1 cares about Friday.

Kate: Seriously.

Me: Huh?

There was a long pause in the Chat window.

I pictured Kate in her house.

A couple of times when I’d been over to visit — I couldn’t go all that frequently because she lived on the other side of the country — I’d checked out her setup. She had a battered leather armchair which, according to the apocryphal story, she had acquired from a second-hand furniture shop which’d been going out of business. When I’d gone over there, Kate had gone on for hours about how she’d spoken with the woman who ran the shop, and how the woman had informed her that the chair had once belonged to a woman believed to be a witch.

The old woman had lived out in the woods, of course.

And — of course — the armchair was cursed . . .

What mattered most to me — being less svelte than most — was how when I sat down in it I felt comfortable. That’s always been my trouble with armchairs, particularly the ones of a blander kind; I tend to either sink too far, or break them in some way.

This one passed both tests.

Kate didn’t have her Sirocco in her bedroom, instead her dad had put together her setup in one of the many spare rooms in her house. In short she had a gaming room. If only I could convince my mum just how important something like that would be for me . . . although, then again, it’s not like we have space to burn as Kate has at her house.

I shifted my attention back to the Chat window:

Kate: I think you should take more care with your spelling and grammar. That stuff matters when you go into higher education. When you get a job.

I allowed this — most likely sage — advice to percolate about my brain.

And then my brain did what it always does when it can’t be bothered to think.

Me: Adsnjakdnskjandjsbagfjkdbgs. Andksnakldsdlaskds.

Kate: Yeah, that’s mature . . .

I took a cleansing breath, all the way down to my stomach. I cracked my knuckles and then decided it was time for me to do what Kate implicated.

That it was time for me to grow up . . . if only for a few moments.

Me: The people who broke into our house, they didn’t take anything.

Kate: Nothing at all?

Me: Nope. They just busted the front door in good.

Kate: *Well.

Me: Huh?

Kate: ‘They just busted the front door in well.’ Well. W-E-L-L. Adverb not an adjective.

Now Kate was really losing me, and I was risking another one of those brain farts which’d led to my previous outburst. But I forced myself to rein it in.

Me: I was just thinking about what every1 says. About how when u get burglars they keep coming back.

Kate: Who says that?

Me: I dunno, the police? Like because the burglars already no how 2 get into your house, like how they no the layout, they might come back for stuff they missed.

Kate: But you said they didn’t steal anything. Why’re you worried about them coming back to steal more of nothing?

This Chat was getting philosophical really quickly.

And I had little-to-no plans to study philosophy any time soon.

I paused for several moments, feeling my heart beating against my throat.

Finally I decided that I should just suck it up and ask the question.

Me: U chat with Mikey tonight?

There was a long pause.

I felt my chest tighten.

My heart fluttered up to my throat.

And my pulse throbbed in my eardrums.

I wondered if Kate was going to sign off . . . if she was going to pretend that she hadn’t read what I’d just written.

What I’d just tapped out with my controller.

She did reply, though.

Kate: Yeah, I chatted to Mikey.

I waited for some kind of embellishment, but it didn’t seem like there was one forthcoming. I guessed I was going to have to be a mite more insistent.

Me: And what’d he say.

Kate: Does it matter?

Me: Yeh, kinda.

There was an even longer pause right then, and I heard a stirring off in the house.

A bolt ran up my spine.

I turned and stared through the mounted-up gloom — mitigated only by the sickly white light of the TV screen — to my bedroom door.

It was like watching a horror movie in slow motion.

Slowly — so slowly — the doorknob turned.

Light from the corridor glinted into my bedroom.

And a face appeared in the crack.

Right then, I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was Mum.

When she spoke, her voice was at the level of a whisper, as if she might wake the neighbours. It’s late, Zak, you should get some rest.

I smiled back at her.

I’d realised over the course of the past year or so that I had something like a ‘winning smile’. Maybe it’s my doughy cheeks, or my dumb flippy-floppy hair, but people seem to respond in kinder tones when I smile.

Like they would to a more-intelligent-than-average Labrador . . .

Okay, Mum, I replied. Five minutes — I promise.

She arched an eyebrow, but ducked out of my bedroom, closing the door.

I listened to her footsteps crossing the landing, then waited for the click of her bedroom door closing. I turned back to the screen.

When I did, I saw Kate had replied:

Kate: Mikey got expelled.

3

Ididn’t say anything to anyone about what Kate had revealed to me.

That Mikey had been expelled.

To begin with, I was sure that it was a joke; that Kate was using something that was completely ridiculous to throw me off the scent . . . to shove my attention away from attempting to discover just what it was they had really been talking about.

However, if it was a joke, then it was an extremely well-thought-out one.

Because Mikey didn’t show up for school the next day.

Ordinarily, when I go to school, I stop by Mikey’s house so that we can walk together.

But that day when I rang the doorbell nobody answered.

His mum, I guess, had already gone to work.

And if Mikey was still home he didn’t come to the door.

I wondered if he was hiding in the house somewhere, waiting for the person at the door to go away. Was he ashamed of what had happened?

. . . What had happened?

I had no way of knowing.

Throughout the school day — but mostly through double maths, which was my last subject on the Friday afternoon — I puzzled out the mystery.

Now, let’s get one thing straight, Mikey has never been the most academically ‘able’ of kids; but that doesn’t mean he was any sort of tearaway, either.

In fact, Mikey could well have been the best-behaved kid I knew.

Throughout the years we’d shared a lot of classes together, and although now we were gearing up for some more serious exams we’d ended up apart — me in the higher-ability groups; Mikey in the lower-ability ones — I could still recall how he would sit beside me; quiet and scribbling away contentedly. The couple of times that he’d been called upon by the teacher to answer some question, his voice had wobbled so far out of control that I thought he might faint in front of me.

How Mikey had gone from that kid to getting himself expelled truly mystified me.

On my way back home from school, I took a detour and walked past Mikey’s house again. I dwindled outside in the road, and then peered over the hedges. I couldn’t see anybody present within . . . but that didn’t mean that Mikey wasn’t playing that game of hide-and-seek all over again; that he was attempting to avoid me.

Trying to avoid having to explain himself.

Deciding that I was better off leaving things as they were for the time being, I trekked off along the road, and headed back home.

Back in my room — and with a can of Brizzmere Buzz in hand — I sat down to the Inside Kids Chat server. Everyone was online; everyone except Mikey.

I looked down the list of names:

Chung.

James.

Kate.

Alan.

To be here in my bedroom now, and to be back among people I shared common interests with — or more exactly; a common interest with — almost made the battle to get through the week worthwhile. It almost put those endless hours of listening to teachers blab on, and on, and on, into some sort of perspective.

James: Zak, u arrived just in time.

Chung: We were just talking about EuroNet.

I thought about this.

EuroNet.

Of course I’d heard about the European, team-based gaming competition known as EuroNet. The competition itself would be taking place in about a month’s time in Berlin, Germany. Why it would be taking place exactly there, I really hadn’t a clue. And I didn’t have all that much of an urge to find out, either.

Although I love