Recluse Island

Chapter 53

May 2014

Zane was late.

He hoped Mary-Louise wouldn't be too mad but, in his defense, it was all Jack's fault!

After supper Zane had slipped Mary-Louise a note asking her to meet him at the Kuiper Belt at 8 p.m. As had become his habit he signed his name backwards just in case the note should fall into the wrong hands. The last thing he needed was any officials finding out about the Kuiper Belt which is why in the note he referred to it as Pluto's Home. Pluto was the largest thing in the Kuiper Belt or at least that was what Homer Sanbuster had told Zane's brother; Tucker when he showed him the hidden room back in 2005. Zane had been on his way to meet Mary-Louise when Jack cornered him on the Mulberry line wanting to talk about Hester Cruz. Lately Hester is all Jack wanted to talk about.

While Zane sympathized with Jack's dilemma it was all cut and dry to him. Either Hester gave up her Stormy Shore citizenship and agreed to spend the rest of her life in the Clinkirk Compound or they decided to remain just friends. The problem apparently (as Jack had gone into exhaustive detail forcing Zane to miss his stop three times) was that Jack knew Hester would give up her life above ground to be with him, but Jack wasn't sure he could live with that guilt.

"I would be the reason," Jack was now saying, "Which means she could always use it against me."

"Hester wouldn't do that." Zane assured him.

"You don't know that. She only works here, it's a lot different when you know you can't leave. And she'd have to give up her job too!" Jack had exclaimed from where he stood holding onto the pole in front of Zane's seat.

"Look, you don't have to decide anything now. Just get to know each other first and see if you even want to be together. You're putting the shore before the compound."

Jack shook his head at Zane, "That's the best analogy you can come up with."

The tram stopped to let passengers on, and Glenn Sanbuster and Olly Galloway came aboard.

"Look!" Zane exclaimed, "Its Glenn and Olly, hey over here!" Zane waved them over.

"What's up?" asked Glenn, sitting down across from Zane.

"Jack needs advice, maybe you can help."

"How would they be able to help?" asked Jack doubtfully.

"Glenn's with Andrea."

"No, we're just friends," Glenn hurriedly explained.

Considering Andrea was twelve and Glenn thirteen, Zane didn't really think anything other than friendship was going on between the two but he, like everyone else, could see the potential there. Glenn had never been very outgoing or focused on social events but since meeting Andrea he hadn't missed a Jumper, always defended her against Louie and made sure it was known he would do all he could to protect her.

"See!" said Zane exuberantly as the tram began moving again, "You're both in denial."

"I'm not in denial." Jack and Glenn said at the same time.

"I like Andrea," Olly interjected.

"Andrea lives here, it's not the same," said Jack.

"You know this is all your fault," said Zane standing up determined to get off at the next stop, "If you hadn't gotten that chemical burn, you wouldn't have had to go to the clinic, which means you wouldn't have met Hester, and we wouldn't be having this conversation right now!"