The Disciples of the Orb

by Marshall Cobb

  “Oh, hello Peter!” exclaimed Jenny’s mother with a tone that conveyed a little actual happiness mixed with an undercurrent of fear. She wore an oven mitt on her left hand. Her right held the edge of the door, ready to throw it wide open or close it. Her hair, going gray at the roots, was pulled back into a short ponytail and the blue apron she wore was spackled with flour.

  “I’m just in the middle of another batch so you’ll please have to excuse my appearance.” She managed a strained smile, then added, “I didn’t know you were coming over or I would have cleaned up.”

  She giggled nervously. “Although it’s not like you can call, right?”

  Peter could not respond before she covered her mouth with the oven mitt and laughed nervously. “Or maybe you can? I’m sorry. I’m still trying to figure everything out.”

  “It’s ok, Mrs. Harper. We’re all still trying to figure things out.”

  He shifted his feet, awaiting an invitation, and Mrs. Harper leaned out a little and said, her voice lowered, “She just got back a few minutes ago. I think she’s sleeping.”

  Peter nodded, bit his lower lip and wondered if he should force the issue. Jenny’s mom, like everyone, was terrified of him.

  I should probably just turn around and walk home. I know teleporting is hard for Jenny. She probably does need to sleep.

  Mrs. Harper nodded her head a bit as if she agreed with his thoughts, or just wanted him to go away. Or both.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you—” he was cut off by the appearance of Jenny behind her mom.

  “It’s ok, I’m awake. Please come in.”

  Jenny’s mom looked back to her daughter, then again at Peter before letting go of the door and saying, “Well, I need to check on the bread anyway. Please make yourself at home, Peter.”

  She disappeared down the hallway as Jenny walked forward and grinned at Peter. “Well, are you going to come in or not?”

  Peter returned her grin and felt the weight of the world fall off his back. “I’m sorry to just show up. I haven’t seen anyone in so long…”

  “Oh, come here,” Jenny said, pulling him into the house and squeezing him between her arms. Peter, as usual, was self-conscious of the fact that his head fit very comfortably against her collar bone. I might be the most powerful of the Disciples, but I’m definitely still the shortest.

  He returned the squeeze and bathed in the comfort of her embrace. No one had hugged him like this since his Mom had passed. He would never admit it, but sometimes he needed a good hug.

  Jenny abruptly pushed him back, smiled and whispered, “You’re not short, you’re just young—and I’m not your mother!”

  She pulled him all the way inside the house and shut the door, calling out, “Mom, we’re going to my room.”

  “Okay,” her mom answered from the distant kitchen, “let me know if you need anything.”

  Peter, horrified, realized that Jenny had been in his head or, better put, he had forgotten to shield his mind. He followed her down the hall and tried to think of something clever to say that would explain his thoughts, or change the subject, but came up with nothing. He did, however, push his thoughts several layers back in his mind to avoid further embarrassment. He and Eli could have entire conversations using just their thoughts when they tried. It was not as easy between Peter and Jenny, and he could guard his mind from her, but he had to remember to do it.

  As they entered Jenny’s room it was clear that she had been sleeping, as the lights were out, the curtains were closed, and her covers were pulled back on one side showing she had just gotten up. Peter was tempted to put his hand on the sheets to see if they were warm but pushed that thought out as soon as it entered.

  Jenny opened the curtains and sat on the end of her bed. She gestured to a chair across from her which sat in front of a small desk. Peter walked over to the chair, turned it to face her, and sat. He had never been in her room before. It was a far cry from his room and his constant stash of dirty underthings in the corner. Everything in Jenny’s room was neat, tidy. The books on her bookshelf were arranged in alphabetical order by title.

  Peter, trying hard not to be obvious, took a quick look at her walls and saw that, instead of the posters of pop stars that he would have expected in the room of a teenage girl, she had framed prints by the artist Escher as well as one where Albert Einstein stuck his tongue out. He turned back to her and tried to think of something witty. Nothing came out.

  “I know,” she sighed, “I’m a nerd.”

  “No…it’s just that…”

  “It’s ok, Peter. I really don’t care about my room. I just feel guilty about having a house while most of the town, most of the world, is living in tents.”

  Peter nodded. He felt the exact same way. “This Disciple thing isn’t always so wonderful.”

  “Tell that to the families living under a tarp at the cemetery,” Jenny replied, a little more sharply than intended. “Sorry,” she added, “I’m just tired.”

  He looked at her golden-yellow eyes and saw the dark circles below them.

  “Me too.”

  She used her hand to smooth a ruffle in her comforter. “So, I haven’t seen you in weeks, but what’s up? How is Eli? Big Ed?”

  Peter stiffened involuntarily at the mention of his brother and was not even sure why. “I don’t know. Nothing. Everything.”

  Jenny stared at him, which made him go on. “I go around the world settling disputes on behalf of you know who. It never ends. Half of the people promoted to be constables end up being a bigger problem than the people they replaced.”

  “I don’t think it matters if you say his name. If Orb wants to hear us, he can whenever he wants.”

  I hope not.

  He promised he wouldn’t read our thoughts, but he also has an explanation, an angle, for everything. I wouldn’t count on it.

  Jenny switched back to speaking aloud. “What happens to the constables you have to get rid of?”

  Peter pursed his lips. “Usually, they become the problem of the new constable.”

  Jenny thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but I barely even see people. Orb sends me to an area and has me command all of the wildlife out before Matt comes and crushes everything.”

  “It’s better, believe me. The deer and raccoons don’t scream at you and throw spears in your direction.”

  “Maybe, though sometimes Orb has me send all the animals towards a particular district so the people, who are starving, can use them for food.”

  Peter had the odd vision of a conveyor belt loaded with dogs and cats spilling into the gaping mouths of dangerously thin followers.

  “Aren’t you mainly going to cities?”

  “Yes. And, yes, there are a lot of people out there eating rats.”

  Peter thought about chewing on a cooked rat, and found that it did not affect him the way it might have before the arrival of Orb. “I suppose meat is meat. Some people have always eaten cats and dogs. What’s strange to us is normal somewhere else.”

  Jenny brought her knees up below her chin, her long toes clenching the end of the bedspread. “I’ve seen a lot of somewhere else.”

  “Jenny?” Jenny’s mother’s voice boomed across the house. “Would you and Peter like some bread?”

  Peter shook his head and Jenny called back, “No, thanks Mom.”

  Jenny turned back to Peter and said, “That’s another thing. Before Orb I never would have been allowed to have a boy in my room. Now, when I see them, my parents let me do whatever I want. It’s like they’re not even my parents anymore—like they’re scared of me.”

  Peter pushed the toe of his tennis shoe into the gray carpet. “It’s not just them. It’s everyone.”

  Jenny leaned in closer. “So you know mom’s ‘job’ is to bake bread in the giant oven that Orb put where our dining room used to be?”

  “Yes, did you ever figure out where the power comes from?”

  She r
olled her eyes. “From Orb. It’s not like there’s a cord to plug in or a gas line. Anyway, my father drags the bread in a hand cart over to the distribution area, right? I ’ported back a couple of weeks ago and my parents didn’t notice I was home. My father was telling my mother that several of the families had confronted him, pushed him around a little. They were mad because we still have a house and they’re sleeping on the ground.”

  Peter nodded, and whispered, “I think it’s more than just a few families that are mad. What happened? Is your dad ok?”

  “He’s fine, just a few bruises, but the next day he went back to drop off the bread and none of the angry people were there.”

  “So, they left. I guess that’s good.”

  She leaned closer still and said, in a low voice, “My father later heard some gossip from one of his old friends that lives on that same farm. His friend said that the ‘angry ones’ had gotten up the morning after the fight and, like zombies, walked without saying a word into town and entered the portal. The men, women, and children. All gone.”

  Peter opened his mouth to reply and then heard something outside Jenny’s door. He motioned with his eyes to the door, and Jenny pushed herself off the bed and swung the door open. Her mother, crouching a bit from where she had pressed her ear against the door, and dropped the plate she’d been holding. The plate, and the two small loaves of fresh bread it held, bounced off the carpeted floor.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you both. I was just going to give you some bread in case you changed your mind. You both look like you could use a meal, or two.”

  Jenny’s mom bent down to pick up the bread, but Jenny waved her off. “It’s ok, Mom. Thanks, I’ve got it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” her mother continued, wringing her hands as she backed away, her eyes pointed downward, and head hunched as if she were bowing.

  Jenny watched her mother slowly disappear at the corner of the hallway, then bent down, put the two loaves of bread back on the plate and shut the door—a little loudly. She walked the bread over to Peter and held it under his nose.

  “The floor’s clean, and the bread is pretty good.”

  Peter found his stomach gurgling from the close contact with the still-warm bread. He still felt no hunger but thought it might not be a bad idea to eat. He grabbed one of the loaves, tore it in half, and began munching on it. Jenny did the same as she sat back down on the edge of her bed.

  “You’re right, ’at’s pretty good,” Peter got out as he chewed on the warm dough.

  “She’s actually a pretty good baker,” Jenny agreed as she took a large bite, “muth better than she is a spy.”

  They both giggled a little, then kept chewing in silence. Eventually, Jenny put her plate down on her bed and again leaned in.

  “I think she’s learned her lesson on eavesdropping but just in case…” She motioned for Peter to sit next to her on her bed and moved her plate out of the way.

  “You said,” she whispered, “that the people who are problems ‘usually’ become the responsibility of the new constable—the person you select to be in charge. What is the other option?”

  Peter swallowed the last mound of bread in his mouth and looked down at his tennis shoes. “Sometimes, when it’s obvious that the people aren’t going to cooperate—don’t even want to try to cooperate—I have to banish them.”

  Jenny studied the side of his face. “Banish them where?”

  “Out of the district they were in. That’s what Orb told me to do.”

  “And the new constable is supposed to make sure they leave?”

  Peter nodded.

  Jenny continued to stare at him. Concern crept into her eyes. “Do you think these people are really leaving? It’s not like they can go rent a U-Haul or something, and Orb isn’t exactly the forgiving type.”

  Peter sat back up and met her gaze. “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, a little alarmed at the look in his eyes. “I just wonder if banishment is another way of saying they were forced to enter a portal.”

  Peter, half a loaf of bread still clenched in his hand, stood back up and began to pace the small amount of space between her bed and the door. Jenny watched as he walked and mumbled. Eventually he stopped in front of her and said, a little loudly, “I never made anyone enter a portal.”

  Jenny nodded. “I never said you did.”

  He returned to pacing. After several laps he again stopped in front of her. This time whispering, he asked, “You think that all of these constables are sending troublemakers through the portals? That’s the solution—I’m just never around to see it?”

  Jenny shrugged. “It sounds like something Orb would do.”

  Peter thought on it, then nodded his agreement. He sat on the floor and leaned his back against the front of her bed. “Yes, but then who is giving these constables the power to make people enter portals? Orb gave all of us special powers, but constables are just regular people with a title.”

  “You mean like Disciples?”

  Peter looked back towards her, ready to argue, then saw her point. “But that would mean that I’m the one going around getting people sent to portals.”

  Jenny let that statement hang in the air between them, then used her hand to rub the top of his head. “Maybe, but maybe I’m completely wrong. We don’t know.”

  “I know that Big Ed is the constable for this District. I can ask him.”

  “Or, maybe you can just ask Orb.”

  “Sure, when he decides to appear again in a month, though I don’t see Big Ed a whole lot more than that either.”

  Jenny thought this might be a good time to steer the conversation elsewhere, so she asked, “Does Big Ed have a lot of people trying to get on his good side?”

  Peter snorted. “I can’t get Jimmy—the guy who used to be the mechanic at the Chevron station—to leave us alone. He’s now clearing fields, by hand, but he keeps showing up at my house asking Big Ed questions. I’m barely here, but every time I’m home Jimmy is either coming from or going to my house.”

  “You can’t really blame him. He’s just trying to survive.”

  She looked towards her closed door. “My parents seem to have all kinds of new friends.” She paused, “I don’t know for sure, but I think there’s a lot of people, like those that disappeared, that hate my parents’ guts. As well as all of us Disciples.”

  Peter grunted. “Big Ed is having the time of his life. Getting rid of technology and having everyone become farmers is apparently what he’s always wanted. He even told me he’s a Luddite.” He paused to let that term sink in. “I had to look it up.”

  “Someone that hates technology. I know.”

  He craned his neck to look at the Einstein poster. “Of course, you know.”

  She laughed and the sound made him momentarily forget about everything that bothered him.

  They sat in silence for a minute, then Peter got up, turned and looked at the watercolor Jenny had painted, and framed, on the wall above her nightstand. It showed an empty rowboat on a huge, blue lake with a small flock of birds flying off to the left, and an enormous, orange sun on the right.

  “Why haven’t I seen you more, Peter?” She stood up and looked at the painting too.

  Peter stared at her, trying to form the right words, then looked down at his feet.

  I’m scared. I’m going to slip up and Orb is going to catch me. If I’m not around you I can’t get you into trouble.

  Jenny leaned even further forward, reached out and ruffled his hair. “We’re all in this together.”

  Don’t be so brave. I’m scared too. All of us are scared, Peter—but we must stay together.

  Peter lunged forward, buried his head on her shoulder again, and tried to stop the tears that threatened to escape. She rubbed circles on his back and shushed him gently. They stayed in that position until Jenny’s mom cried out again, “Jenny? Peter? The Patricks just showed up with some of their radishes. Do you want
some?”

  Jenny pushed Peter back a little. He rubbed the tears from the corners of his eyes and used the back of his hand to wipe at the bottom of his nose.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “It’s ok, just try to remember that you’re the second-most powerful thing on the planet. Well, a distant second,” she said, trying to move the hair that was mashed against his forehead. She smiled, and he smiled too as he took another large bite of his bread.

  She leaned in again and whispered, “The Patricks are my Jimmy—always around trying to do us favors—but is it wrong to admit that I do like radishes?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  What is Banished?

  Peter sat on his bed. He stripped off his socks and threw them in the corner, where they landed on the ever-present pile of dirty underwear and t-shirts. There was no rush in washing the t-shirts as Orb had advised, or commanded, that all of them to wear thick, yellow half-tunics which came down past their waists. These special garments did not stain, or wrinkle, which was not something that could be said for anything else Peter owned.

  Peter moved his toes and stared at his feet, which were unusually clean. He had so little time to himself that he rarely made it over to the river, which flowed more swiftly than ever with Orb’s removal of the connections with the commercial farms and water treatment plants which had relied on it. No more large pipes diverting water. No more canals steering water into fields—except, of course, the one Big Ed had constructed to flood their rice fields. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and could clearly hear the rushing water pouring over the larger rocks.

  He lay back on his bed, took a deep breath, and sent out a clear, urgent thought: “Orb, I please need to talk to you.”

  Within moments a small version of Orb, about the same size as the version Peter had ‘rescued’ from the river, hovered over the pillow behind him. “Yes, Peter? I’m quite busy coming up with plans for the removal of all the trash that was dumped in the world’s oceans. I already handled the Pacific Ocean’s floating island of plastic the size of Texas, but the trash piled amongst the coral reefs and in the deeper chasms is more complicated. It is good that we won, Peter. The oceans are vast, and deep, but the spark of life within them would have soon failed. Your species is not a good steward of the land.”