The Gideon Society, 1: The punch doesn't really take me by surprise. Irs happened before. Lots. Maybe not from a 2-meter wide invisible fist wielded by a skinny little guy with asthma, but in a lot of ways a punch is a punch. I stood up slowly, looking back at the cement wall where a slightly-indented silhouette of my body was forming out of the cloud of dust, and shook concrete powder out of my hair. "Got it out of your system?" I asked as I sat down again in the plastic chair that was the only furniture in the room. "Dont tell me to take a deal," the skinny guy whined. His legal name was Elsmore Dinning, but he never answered to that and, honestly, who would? Elsmore demanded to be called "Mr Punch," no period after the r. He'd once punched 13 holes in the walls of the Milwaukee Anthem newspaper building, one for each time they'd put a period after the r in a story about him. Punching is kind of his thing. And I'm his court-appointed lawyer.