My first week of business was pretty slow.  I was an engineer and not a marketer, so I really had no idea how to go about advertising.  I put an ad in the paper, and I sent out a mass mailing, but that was really all I knew about.  I did know enough about marketing to know that one of the best ways to promote a new product was to give out free samples, but I also didn’t want people doing anything like this on a pure whim.  I settled on a healthy discount.  I wasn’t charging nearly as much as I would have had I been using actual robotics, and with the discount, the price dropped to be comparable with a good-sized tattoo.  Hopefully, my initial prices were low enough that someone could afford to be a little adventurous.
     On my third day of business, I finally had my first customer.  She walked into the shop wearing jeans, a button-down blouse, and sneakers.
     “Welcome to the Cyber Shop.  Is there anything I can do for you this morning?” I greeted her.
     “Well, I’ve got kind of a weird request,” she said.
     “Try me.”
     “Well, I’ve been having problems with my feet.”
     “What sorts of problems?  Corns, fallen arches, that sort of thing?”
     “That and more.  Bone spurs, weak ankles, the list is endless.  Plus, my feet are a weird size, and I have trouble finding nice shoes that fit me.  These sneakers are the most comfortable pair I have, and I still have to wear special inserts with them.  Whenever I wear heels or anything to work, my feet are always killing me by the end of the day.”
     “So what you need, if I have this right, is to be able to comfortably wear shoes that would be appropriate for a formal occasion, not to mention correcting your orthopedic issues.”
     “That’s about it, yeah.”
     “All right, ma’am, I believe I can help you.  Follow me, please.”  I led her to the body scanner.  “Please remove your shoes and socks and step in here so I can take your measurements.”  She did so.  “All right, now the machine is going to measure your body dimensions so we can design the alterations on the computer.  Now, hold still for just a second…”  The scanner emitted a brief, high-pitched beep.  “And we’re done.  You can step out and put your shoes back on.”  She exited the machine and sat down in front of the computer, and I brought the wire-frame image of her body onto the screen.  I enlarged the image until her feet filled the screen.  “Now then, describe to me what you’d like your new feet to look like.
     “Well, for starters…”  She indicated certain features of her feet that she wanted changed, and I altered the image to reflect the changes.  She started with her arches, and she also changed the basic shape to be a little more slender.  “There.  That should do.”
     “Any other changes you want me to make?”
     “No.  This is perfect.  So now what?”
     “Well, the next thing we need to do is make a second appointment for you to come back in so we can finish our work.  Is tomorrow all right for you?”
     “How long do you need?”
     “It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.”
     “Then I can come in tomorrow on my lunch break, if that’s all right, say about 12:30?”
     “That should do fine.  I’ll definitely be ready for you by then.”
     “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”  We stood up and shook hands, and she left.  I opened the schematic I had used for my own leg prosthetics, deleted everything but the foot section, and laid the new schematic over my new client’s foot dimensions.  The computer automatically resized the schematic to fit her desired foot size.  I then set to work designing some special mechanisms that, with her specific requirements, I hoped my client would appreciate.
     The next day, she came back to the shop dressed in a suit jacket, skirt, and pumps.  I could tell by her gait that her feet were already sore.  Well, I figured I could do something about that.  
     “Good afternoon, ma’am,” I said.  “Are you ready for a change?”
     “More than ready.  Where do you want me?”
     “Same place we were yesterday.”
     I took her back to the design terminal, where her new feet sat waiting on the desk next to a pair of small discs.
     “Oh, hey, is that what my feet are going to look like?”
     “Those are your new feet.”
     “Great!  So how do you actually do this?  Does it hurt?”
     “It doesn’t hurt a bit; it’s actually quite soothing.  As for how I do it, it would be easiest to just show you.  Would you have a seat over here, please?”  I indicated an old-fashioned barber chair I had found.  She took her seat, and I jacked the chair up all the way.  I then took my specially treated tanto from behind the desk, brought it over to the chair, and sat on a low stool by her feet, taking her right leg gently in my hand.
     “Whoa, where’s that supposed to go?” she said.
     “This is how I’m going to give you your new feet.”  I placed the blade against her right leg just above the ankle.  “If you’re nervous, you can close your eyes.”
     “Oh God, you’re crazy!”  She closed her eyes and pushed against the arms of the chair, but I held her leg in place so she couldn’t jerk and ruin the work.  When she opened her eyes, I had laid the sword down and placed my hand on her shoulder.
     “Calm down, ma’am, it’s going to be okay,” I said.  “Look, I’d like to show you something.”  I held up my other hand in front of her, lightly grasping her right foot.  I had decided that it would be easier to sever her foot while her eyes were closed.
She stared at me goggle-eyed for a moment, and then lifted her right leg, which now ended above the ankle in a flat stump.  She looked at her severed foot and wiggled her toes, which behaved as they were supposed to.  
     “How the hell did you do that?”
     “Trade secret, sorry.”
     “Is it all right if I…?”  She extended her had towards her foot.
     “Oh, sure, go right ahead.”  I gave her foot back to her so she could examine it.  She held the detached piece in her hand, probably looking for strings or something.
     “What are you going to do with it now?”
     “The extra parts are kept in a secure storage facility here, where they are kept anesthetized so you won’t move them or feel anything through them.  However, they will remain alive and completely preserved in case you ever want them back.  If anything goes wrong with your new feet, you can get them repaired or get the old ones back at no charge, and in any case, no money changes hands unless you are satisfied with the changes in the first place.”
     She thought for a bit.  “All right, I might as well give this a try before I decide I don’t want it.  Continue.”  She sat back and took a deep breath, then sat forward again.  “By the way, it didn’t feel very soothing, you know.”
     “That’s probably because you were so tense.  Try to relax and allow yourself to enjoy it.”  She laid back and visibly began to relax.  This time, I took a little longer with the cut, and she certainly appeared to enjoy the second cut.  
     “Wow.  That felt great,” she said.  “Like a really fabulous foot massage.”
     “Good to hear.  That’s more like it.  Now I’ll just put these into storage and install the replacements.”  I took her feet into the storage room and inserted them into their own cubby holes.  As soon as I closed the clear plastic doors, the compartments filled with a gray fog of anesthetic, and the small lights by the doors changed from red to green.
     “Oooh,” I heard from the next room.  “That felt weird.”
     “Believe me, that was nothing,” I said as I came back into the room and fetched the discs and new feet from the desk, as well as the jar of telekinesis cream from a drawer.  I sat back down on the low stool, applied the cream over the cut surfaces, and pressed each disc into one of her leg stumps.  
     “Oh, man,” she said.  “You have good hands.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but that’s not really me.  That’s just what this process feels like.”  Once the discs were in place, I set the prosthetic feet in place and concentrated on the socket mechanisms.  Through my own telekinesis abilities, the sockets extended into each other and linked together.
     “All right, all done.  Give them a try, see how they feel.”
     She got up from the chair and slowly put her weight on her new feet, as if she expected them to break or something.  “Oh, that’s much more comfortable.  I won’t even need my inserts anymore.”  She went back over to the chair and reached for her pumps.
     “Hold on a moment,” I said.  “Before you put your shoes back on, there are a few things I need to tell you.  I built an extra feature into your feet that you didn’t request, but I think you’ll get a lot of use out of it.  Basically, with these feet, you’ll never need to buy another pair of shoes as long as you live.”
     “What?  What do you mean?”
     “Well, first of all, the skin has a layer of Organic Light-Emitting Diodes, or OLEDs, built into it, and there are servos in the feet that can change their shape, enabling you to change the color and shape of your feet to emulate most styles of shoes, including platforms to a limited degree.”
     “So how do I do that?”
     “All you have to do is visualize what kind of shoe you want, and you should be able to change your feet to match.  Try it out.”
     She took a seat and closed her eyes.  Slowly, her left foot changed shape and color until it looked like she was wearing one of the pumps she had brought with her, even though they were both still sitting on the floor.  
     She opened her eyes and took a look.  “Whoa, cool!”  She quickly looked toward her other foot, and she soon a new pair of matching shoes.  She stood up and tried them out, strutting around the room and posing.  It was all I could do not to giggle.  She closed her eyes again, and I saw her get slightly taller as her quasi-pumps changed into quasi-stilettos.  “Wow, this is awesome!  So I can turn these into any kind of shoe I want?”
     “Just about.  They can look like flip-flops if you want, but they won’t flop away from your feet like real ones, of course.”
     “Hey, that’s not a problem.  I’ve already got a pair of flip-flops anyway.  My God, I think you just saved me a couple hundred dollars on shoes.”
     “I though you might appreciate that.  So are you satisfied?”
     “I’m past satisfied.  What kind of extra charge am I going to see for the shoe thing, though?”
     “None at all.  I always enjoy an interesting challenge.”
     “Really? Great!”
     “All right, if you’re happy with your new feet, just follow me into the front room and we’ll finalize your purchase.”
     As we walked back to the front of the shop, I saw a guy about my age waiting for me.  His right pants leg was knotted off, and he had a crutch leaning against an adjoining chair.  Another crutch was strapped to what remained of his left arm.  A kindred spirit if I ever saw one.  
     I rang up the woman’s purchase and watched her bounce out of the shop and throw her now useless shoes into her car.  I then walked over to address my second client in as many days.  
     “Good afternoon, sir.”  I gave him my right hand.  He shook it.  Even though it was my fake hand, the guy had a hell of a grip.
     “Good afternoon.”
     “Now, let me guess.  You’re looking for a new arm and a leg, am I correct?”
     “You must be psychic.  Mike Pignato.”
     “Brian Fontaine.”
     “Now, before we start, there are one or two things I’d like to clear up.  It says in your ad that your prosthetics are fully functional and indistinguishable from the real thing.  Well, I gotta admit I find that a little hard to believe.”
     “It is 100% true.  I offer prosthetics that are more useful and convincing than any others.”
     “Do you have any examples that you can show me before I make a purchase?”
     “You just shook one.”
     He arched his eyebrows and looked at my right arm again.  “That’s a prosthetic?”
     “Sure is.  I’m not just the president of the Cyber Shop, I’m also a customer.”  I lifted my right hand and flexed the fingers and wrist so he could see what he was getting himself into.  
     “You’re kidding me.”
     “Feel for yourself.”  I leveled my right hand in front of him, and he felt with his own hand for the bones.  Apparently, he could tell that the joints were actually engineered hinges, because he looked up at me with really big eyes.  
     “Damn.  Do you do legs, too?”  I just leaned back and crossed my legs in front of him.  “No way.  You’re not telling me you got a fake leg, too.”
     “Two, actually.  Got pegged by a drunk driver.  What about you?”
     “Iraq.”
     “Ah.”  So not quite a kindred spirit, but damn close.  “Well, what do you say we get started?”
     “Absolutely.”  He rose up adeptly on his crutches and followed me to the back.  
     “All right, climb on into the scanner in there and I’ll get your measurements.  You’ll have to hold onto that handle on the side, since I’ll need you to leave your crutches out here.”
     “Oh, sure thing.”  He unstrapped the left crutch and hopped into the scanner.  Another beep, and I had his measurements in the computer.  I told him to hop out, and he picked his crutches up and sat opposite me by the computer.  
     “All right, so you’re looking for a simple arm and leg prosthesis.  Is there anything else you’d like me to build in?  I can be creative.”
     “What do you mean, like a tape deck?”
     “Why not?”
     “Well, damn.  I don’t want to go totally overboard on this, but I suppose you could make a place in the arm for my cell phone.”
     “Sure.  Do you have it on you?”
     He pulled a tiny little cell phone from his pants pocket and handed it to me.  I’ve never been able to figure out how people can even dial these damn little things, let alone keep from losing one.  I took a dial caliper from my desk and measured the phone, recording the dimensions in a file attached to Mike’s measurements.  “All right, so you need one right leg and one left arm with cell phone compartment.  I can have that ready for you by tomorrow afternoon.  When would you like to come in to pick them up?”
     “I’ve got tomorrow off, actually.  Any time is OK.  How about 2:00?”
     “Fine by me.  I’ll see you then, Mike.”
     “Looking forward to it, Brian.”
     The next day, Mike showed up a little early for his appointment, but I was ready for him anyway.  The new limbs really didn’t take me that long to make.  My own only took a few hours, after all.  Mike followed me into the back room again, and he sat down in the chair.  I brought out the discs and the cream and went to work.  Same deal as before, basically.  When I was done, Mike was standing on his own two feet and flexing his new arm.  
     “So, how strong are these?  Can I lift cars and stuff now?”
     “I actually don’t know.  I’ve never really done stress tests on these, but I can certainly lift heavier things now.  I wouldn’t try a car, but you could probably win an arm-wrestling contest with that thing.”
     “Sweet.  Well, I’m ready to finish up the paperwork.”
     “Excellent.  Let’s go back out front and we’ll take care of that for you.”  We went to the front desk, and I showed him the bill.
     “Wow, is that all?  I expected this to run me a lot more.”
     “Well, one advantage of being the owner is that I can set prices as I see fit.  In your case, I decided to give you an armed forces thanks-for-serving-our-country discount.”
     “Oh, thanks!  If only I could have gotten something like this from Bethesda.”
     “Well, my techniques aren’t exactly common knowledge among the medical community.  I’ll see you around, Mike.”
     “Later, Brian.”  He carried his crutches out with him and left them leaning against the door as he strolled down the sidewalk.