On The Run With Mike And Gunn

Prologue

25 years ago, in an orphanage somewhere in northern Virginia...

Even at 10 years old the kid knew he was too big to be playing around so rough with the other kids congregating around the back fields of the place. That was his blessing and his curse, and only Michael Liebowitz could own the fullness and the double face of that paradox. A mind that was as complex as the cosmos, fitted into a tank of a body—that was Michael, the boy giant.

None of the other kids could comprehend the sheer force of what they were dealing with when they first grouped together in the back yard of the orphanage, centering their attack toward the one common enemy they all shared. Like ants clawing their way after God, these were mere mortals, with no depth of understanding of what exactly they were up against.

They would know soon enough.

"All right kid," shouted the ringleader of the mob. A snaggle-toothed little pimply-face, going by the newly christened name of Elmore Johnson because the adults who ran the orphanage couldn't find his birth certificate (or any other identifying documents from when he was brought in), he grinned from ear to ear as he pointed an overly long finger at the kid giant. "You know you can't be here anymore. We can't stand to have you hanging around. You're just too big; you eat too much and there's not enough food to split between half of us."

The boy giant looked Elmore dead in the eye, and stood there silently for several long moments. The more he stared, without so much as blinking or breathing visibly, the more Elmore in turn began shaking where he stood, at the front of his hoard.

Soft murmurings made their way through the crowd that stood behind their not-so-fearless leader. "Look at him," one voice whispered. "Watch how his eyes don't move," hushed another. And still another voice hummed, "Doesn't look like he's breathing at all..." Even as their leader and the boy giant who stood several yards away from him eyed each other in a solemn staring match, the hoard had already begun to lose its nerve, and in typical hive mind activity the other kids took several steps back so as to distance themselves from the faltering leader of the cause.

Elmer had begun to sweat as he stared down his foe; he frantically started to wipe the drops of water from his forehead as fought to raise his crackling voice back to its former authoritarian stature. "Just beat it kid, get lost. Go on, get out of here. Run away, join the circus, get hit by a train—we don't care what you do. We just don't want you here anymore, you freak."

As that last word was flung out into the air—freak, as in the chief freak of the backyard—the kid giant suddenly jumped to life. His eyes narrowed, and his fists clenched into solid blocks of unbridled power and rage. The air blowing out from the kid's nostrils was coming in so strongly that some of the members of the hoard would later swear that they saw the wind itself shake loose from out of his whole body.

Even at 10 years old, the kid knew he was too big to let this go on any further. But it was too late; what had been opened could not be closed again. Not without blood being spilled upon the tarnished ground.

The beatdown was so severe that it should have lasted only a few minutes. The boy giant moved so swiftly that it could hardly be said that he had moved at all, and once he reached Elmore he went straight to work. Fists came down hard, covering the lesser kid's back and face and body like chunks of hail covering the broad side of a barn roof in the middle of a storm. It was an unnatural act of aggression, the likes of which should not be in the possession of a 10 year old body—even one so monstrously big as this.

Half the hoard had dispersed the moment the first punch landed; the other half stayed and watched, partly in fascination and partly out of fear for their precious little world that was just now starting to come crumbling down. After several minutes went by, several minutes which should have been the sum total of the attack, some more murmurings were beginning to rumble through the crowd. "He's killing him!" "Already has him on the ground." "There's so much blood..."

Not one of the mob members stepped in to put a stop to it. Not one soul in the lot, and they would all feel guilty about it later but by then it would be too late.

One of the kids who ran from the fight went inside and got an adult to come out and see the hell that had been unleashed. Shortly thereafter, a team of guardians and teachers came pouring out of the orphanage building. They were led by the Vice Principle of the school program, Eric Carter. Perhaps the only one to ever take an interest in the boy giant, to spend hours after school, to share books and the occasional soft drink with the impossible loner—he stormed over to where the towering behemoth lorded over the pulpy waste of a body he'd just made quick work of and gently eased his protégé from off of the heap of a boy, now laying in his own blood.

"We've talked about this my son," Carter said, attempting to sooth away the fires still roaring wildly inside of the boy. "I can't have you reacting this way every time someone calls you a name."

It took the boy several moments to release himself from the bonds of rage for long enough to look up at his mentor, confidant, and perhaps his only friend in the world up to this point. A smile creeped back along the curve of his lips, and he winked and said, "I could see red within myself, even as I watched the red trickle down from his face."

Eric Carter just looked up at the sky, silently asking God for some direction on this one. "Why are you testing me so hard on this?" He asked his Maker, running through half the Catholic catechism in his head. "Your ways are mysterious, but all I'm asking for is one puzzle piece at a time."

But the skies clouded over as if to answer God's servant by shutting him out from the heavens. Soon enough it would rain over the orphanage and the fields; the blood on the ground will soon be washed away, leaving not one trace of the anger and the hate that had been built out among the frustrated souls today.

What may come tomorrow is anybody'sguess.