Well, after my first handful of customers, business really picked up.  I guess I had underestimated the word-of-mouth effect in this town.  I started getting phone calls all the time.  “Can you really do this?”  “Do you do that?”  “Can you give me a such-and-such?”  That sort of thing.  After the first month or so, I stopped giving so many discounts since I was only ever giving them to drum up business, but that didn’t stop people from coming.
     With all the business I had been doing, I hadn’t had time for anything else, particularly a social life.  This was not much of a change, of course.  During college, I could usually be found in my room, either on my computer or studying.  It seemed, though, that the other tenants of the building would have none of my solitude.
     When I first saw Marcus and Minerva, the proprietors of the Freaks & Geeks bookstore next door, I thought that they seemed completely typical for a couple of people that make their living selling comic books and gaming supplies.  Marcus had short black spiky hair, several piercings in his ears, eyebrows, and other flaps of face skin, and lots of black clothing.  Minerva had a similar taste in clothing, but with rather more flesh showing, and her piercings extended beyond Marcus’s to the nose and navel.  She also had hair down to her waist that changed color every couple of days or so.  So much about them screamed “I am a huge Goth!  Screw you, world!” that I tended to shy away from social contact even more than usual.  So when they walked into the shop one day towards the end of business hours, I was unsure how to react.  I decided to fall back on the traditional customer service pleasantries.
     “Good evening.  Welcome to the Cyber Shop.  How may I help you?”
     Minerva was the first to break the ice.  “Hi, I’m Minerva, and this is my S.O., Marcus.  We run Freaks & Geeks next door.”  We shook hands, now properly introduced.
     “Yeah, I’ve seen you guys open up in the mornings.  Looks like a nice place you’ve got.”
     “Ah, it’s all right, I guess,” said Marcus.  “Needs a lot of work, though.  Stuff is starting to fall apart, though.”
     “Did you talk to the manager?”
“Yeah, but he said that maintenance isn’t his job and we should talk to the owner, but that’s easier said than done.”
     “What do you mean?”
     “Well,” said Minerva, “it seems that the building was just bought by some rich bitch a month or two ago, and I guess he’s too high and mighty to worry about keeping the building in working order.”
     I knew I had been forgetting something.  This was awkward.  “Well, I guess you can clog the guy’s machine with message until he breaks, right?”
     “Yeah, it’s about to come to that,” said Marcus.
     “Well, what can I do for you folks this evening?”
     “Well,” said Minerva, “we heard that you do some more extreme body modification than the usual piercings, so I was thinking, maybe a ring of gems around my waist to start with.  Can you do a piercing like that, all the way through the belly?”
     “Sure, no problem.”
     “And I was thinking about something to do with my eyes,” said Marcus.  “I’ve worn costume contacts before, like red or snake eyes, and I had hoped that you could do something like that, but permanently.  Again, to start with.”
     “That’s certainly a new one, but it shouldn’t be a problem.  What do you mean, to start with?”
     “If these turn out well, we’ll probably come back for more since we’re in the neighborhood,” said Marcus.  “You might have noticed that we’re into this sort of thing.”
     “Yeah, I ha a funny feeling.  Well, I guarantee my product 100%, so if you ever change your mind about it, it can be completely undone at no charge.  Plus, no money changes hands until after the work is done and you are satisfied.”
     “Really?” said Minerva.  “There’s nothing that to heal over afterwards?”
     “Really.  I don’t use traditional piercing techniques.  My methods don’t leave a mark after they’ve been undone, so they’re all completely reversible.  Now, the work you’ve got in mind doesn’t seem like it would take me long, so are you sure there isn’t anything you’d like me to throw in on top of that?”
     “Well, damn,” said Minerva.  “I don’t know, Marcus, did you have any other ideas?”
     “I thought the eye thing would be harder than that.  Do you have a catalog or something?”
     “Not really, since I can do just about anything that anyone might want.  The sky is just about the limit.”
     “Ooh, I’ve got an idea,” said Minerva.  “What can you do with hair?”
     “What do you have in mind?”
     “Can you do something that would let me change the color without having to dye it all over again?”
     “Yeah, I can probably come up with something.  How about you, Marcus?”
     “Shit, I don’t know.”
     “Well, I tell you what.  I’ll see what I can come up with for you, and you can decide when you come back for your work if you’d like to give it a shot. How about that?  Oh, wait, there is one catch.  Since the hair isn’t living tissue, I can’t reverse whatever I might do to it afterwards.  How much do you trust me?”
     “I trust you enough.  I can wear a hat if I have to.”
     “Excellent.  Can you follow me to the back room so I can take your measurements, please?”  I led them back and scanned them both in.  After I had their dimensions in the computer, I led them back to the front of the shop.  “All right, so that’s one set of abdomen piercings, one changing eyes, and two hair alterations.  I think I can have this ready for you in two days.  What do you say to same time, day after tomorrow?”
     “I’m free,” said Marcus.
     “No plans,” said Minerva.  “See you then, Brian.”
     “Later, guys.”  They walked out the door.
     Well, what do you know.  They’re normal people on the inside after all.  Maybe this socializing thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.  Their work was going to be a bit of a challenge, though.  I headed back to the computer room and set to work on something that would impress the two piercing aficionados next door.  I also made myself a note to start looking for more maintenance personnel.
     Two days later at the end of the day, Marcus and Minerva came back for their appointment.  
     “Evening, guys.  Did you ever get your beef with the boss straightened out?”
     “Yeah, we got a letter in our mailbox saying that our grievances were being addressed, and this morning we had a guy come in and start fixing shit.  I guess he got the message.”
     “Good to hear.  All right, I’ve got your hardware in the back, if you’ll follow me.”  I led them back towards the room with the chair.  “Marcus, have a seat, please.”  
He took a seat in the old chair, and I cranked it so that he was reclined at about my waist height.  I then walked over to the desk and took out a new ceramic knife I had crafted for the occasion.  It had a narrower blade than my tanto for more detailed work.  “All right, Marcus, close your eyes, please.  Minerva, I’ll warn you right now, this is going to look pretty weird, so don’t freak out.”
     “Don’t worry, I’m a big girl.”
     “All the same, you might want to take a seat.  Marcus, make sure you keep your hands away from your face.”  I raised the blade to Marcus’s face and make the first cut, all the way across his face just below his eyes.  The blade cut into the bridge of his nose and sliced about an inch and a half down.  I repeated the cut just above his eyes, and then I slid the blade sideways between the two cuts and lifted a small slab of Marcus’s face free of his head, with his closed eyes sitting right in the middle.  
I took a look over at Minerva, and she looked like she was about to scream.  
     “Marcus, how you doing?  Any pain at all?”
     “No, none.  Feels kinda weird, though.”
     “All right, you’re going to feel the area around your eyes go numb for a minute.  When the anesthetic has set in, I’ll finish up.”  I took his eyes into the storage room and laid them in one of the smaller drawers.  I then came back into the room with the two M’s and took Marcus’s new eyes from the desk drawer.  “Okay, now you’re going to feel a little pressure,” I said as I applied a layer of the cream and inserted a small socket into the slot in Marcus’s head where his eyes had been.  After I inserted the new eyes, I stood back.  “All right, Marcus, open up.”
     Prosthetic eyes had been a new thing for me, but I think I rose to the challenge nicely.  Marcus opened his eyes and blinked a few times to make sure that his eyelids were responding properly.  “How’s that working for you, Marcus?  Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”
     “Two, and they’re behind my girlfriend’s head.  Cute.”
     “Hey!” Minerva said as she gave me a light elbow to the ribs.
     “All right, Minerva, it’s your turn.  Hop on up.”  Minerva took her seat as Marcus examined his face in a mirror.  “Okay, Minerva, if you though what I did with Marcus was weird, you’re going to love this.”  I cranked the chair back to an upright position.
     “What do you mean, what you did with me?  What’d I miss, Min?”
     “Actually, it was kind of cool,” said Minerva.  “He actually cut out a chunk of your face and put in a new chunk.”
     “What?”
     “Hey, don’t act all surprised,” I said.  “You’ve heard about what I’ve done for other people, right?  What were you expecting me to do?  Now, on to you, Minerva.  This is not going to be a normal piercing.”
     “I figured that.”
     “No, it’s actually more than you’re thinking.  See, a normal piercing has the post that goes all the way through, right?  Well, since you wanted a ring of gems all the way around, I can’t use posts because they would overlap in the middle and skew the ring into a spiral.”
     “Okay, I’m following you so far.”
     “So I’m going to need to use a pretty radical process for this,” I said as I replaced the smaller blade and took out my tanto.
     “Whoa, where’s that gonna go?” she said.
     “Hang on to the arms of the chair,” I said.  “And relax.  If you’re all tense, it makes it more uncomfortable.  You can close your eyes if you want.”
     She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  Before she finished letting it out, I strode up to the chair and quickly sliced the blade through her midsection neatly cutting her navel in half, from which she had wisely removed the existing piercing beforehand.  She let out a little squeak as the blade passed through.
     “Hey, you didn’t give me time to prepare,” she said as she opened her eyes.
     “That was the idea.  Hey Marcus, you okay?”
     He just stared at me, then at Minerva’s waist, then back at me.  “Holy shit, Brian.  How did…Holy shit!”
     “Ooh, sounds exciting!  What’d I miss?” said Minerva.
     “Brace your elbows of the arms of the chair and I’ll show you.”  She did so, and I turned another crank on the chair.  The back and arms of the chair lifted up about a foot, and Minerva’s top half went with it.
     “Whoa!  Holy shit!” said Minerva.
     “Like I said, a pretty radical process.”
Marcus nervously approached the chair and laid a hand on the top surface of her waist.  The skin that had appeared there was very smooth.  Minerva squirmed all over the chair as he felt the new skin.
     “Whoa, weird!” she said.  “It feels like you’re tickling my…I don’t know what.”
     I know they were enjoying this new experience, but I still had more to show them.  “Um, Marcus?  May I?”
     “Oh, yeah, sure, right.”  He stood to the side as I brought over a pair of sockets with the gems attached.  I pressed the sockets into the center of each new surface, and I arranged the gems evenly around her waist.  Each socket had half of the total number of the gems, and her top half had a gem filling that half of her navel.  I cranked the chair back to its normal configuration, and the two rings of gems interlaced to form a single ring.  When the chair and Minerva were back to their normal shape, I locked the sockets together and stood back from the chair.  “There we are, finished.  You can get up now.”
     “Are you sure?” asked Minerva.
     “Totally.  You’re locked back together, so you won’t fall apart or anything.”  She nervously got up from the chair and stood before the mirror checking out her new jewelry.  She performed a little belly dance in front of the mirror, and the ring of gems undulated in kind.
     “All right, let’s talk about special features.  Marcus, your new eyes can change their color to whatever style you want, even the white part.  Just focus on your eyes and think about the new color, and they’ll change on their own.  Also, they are sensitive to a wider spectrum than normal eyes, so you can see in the dark.  Minerva, your gems can change color, too.  I wasn’t sure what kind of gemstone you wanted, so I just basically gave you all of them.”  I was really beginning to like those OLEDs.
     They both stood in front of the mirror trying it out.  Minerva changed her gems from black to red to rainbow-colored, while Marcus experimented with purple irises, completely black eyes all the way across, then settled on gold and green eyes with slitted pupils like a snake.
     “Cool,” they said in unison.
     “Also, Minerva, there’s a neat little trick I threw in for you.  Take a seat in front of the desk here, and then pull out on the gem in your navel.”  She did so, and the gem can out about half an inch from its housing on a little rod.  “All right, Marcus, now put your hands under her armpits and pull up.”  Marcus pulled, and her waist separated again.
     “Whoa, cool!” Marcus said as he held the top half of his girlfriend in his arms.  They both looked down at the chair, where her legs were still sitting.  Eager to try out this new development, Minerva tried to stand up, but as she couldn’t shift her weight the same way anymore, her legs just struggled against the floor.  She tried locking her ankles around the legs of the chair, and she was able to get off the seat and walk around.  Damn, but she learned quick.
     “Whoa, this is really weird,” Minerva said as she walked around the back room while her boyfriend had his arms wrapped around her.
     “Yeah, I thought you might enjoy the whole cut-in-half thing, so I threw in a little something extra.  I had a feeling you guys could have all sorts of fun with this.”
     “Yeah, I think so,” said Minerva.
     “So, satisfied?”
     “Are you kidding me?” said Marcus.  “Dude, this rocks!”  He set Minerva back together and pulled the gem out and in again to reattach the socket.  
     “So, would you like to talk about hair?”
     “Oh, shit, I totally forgot!” said Marcus.  “If what you came up with for that is half is cool as this, I’ll totally hit that shit up.”
     “All right, but you should know that I’ll have to shave both your heads bald for this, and I won’t be able to put it back if you don’t like what I’ve got for you.”
     “Brian,” said Minerva, “you just sliced me in half and cut out my boyfriend’s eyes.  I think I trust you.”
     “All right then, I’ll go get your new dos.”  I reached into the desk and grabbed a trimmer, then I went into the storage room and grabbed a Shop-Vac.  I proceeded to shave both of them completely bald, using the vacuum to suck up Marcus’s hair as I cut it off.  For Minerva, I just grabbed her long hair in one big chunk and cut off the whole thing, then I tossed the mane into a trash can beneath the desk.  While I fetched the wigs, I watched them feeling their scalps for the first time.  They seemed as bemused by the experience as when Minerva had been in half.  When I brought out the new hair, they looked a little skeptical.
     “Uh, Brian?” said Minerva.  “It looks just like what we had before.”
     “Oh, come on now.  I thought you trusted me.  Give me a chance here.”  I brought out the cream and applied the two wigs.  Both of them were black, even though Minerva’s hair had been a sort of neon green before.
     “All right, magic man,” said Marcus as they examined their new look in the mirror.  “What’s so special here?”
     “Well, Marcus, you might have noticed that yours feels a little stiffer than before.  What you’ve got there is actually a set of spines like a hedgehog, over which you have total muscular control.  You can slick it back, part it, or stick it straight up, just by flexing your scalp or whatever.”
     He tried it out, and soon his hair was waving all over the place.  He stuck the hair straight up and patted it with his hand, but he quickly pulled his hand away.
     “Oh, yeah, it’s kind of sharp too.”
     “Well, you might have mentioned that before.  It’s pretty sweet though.”
     “What about me?  What do I have?” asked Minerva.  She sounded like a kid at Christmas.
     “Minerva, you hair can change color just like your gems, and you also have the same kind of movement control and Marcus, so with practice you can braid it with no hands if you want.”
     “Really?  Neat!” she said as she practiced in front of the mirror.  Pretty soon, she was writhing her waist-length hair like Medusa.  She brought it up into Pippi Longstocking pigtails, and then she brought it up around Marcus’s shoulders and gave him a hair hug.
     “So, guys, what do you think?”
     “I think this kicks total ass!” said Minerva.
     “How about you, Marcus?”
     “This is awesome, dude!”
     “All right, if you’ll follow me to the front desk, we’ll settle up and be done.”
     “Oh, right, there’s money involved here,” said Marcus as he and Minerva came back to the front of the shop with me.  When I showed them the bill, Marcus pointed out the discount at the bottom.  “Why such a big discount?”
     “Well, I figured I owed it to you since I’ve been so lax about maintenance and all.  This is my first time owning a building.”
     “What?” said Marcus.  “You own the building?”
     “Did I say rich bitch?” said Minerva.
     “Hey, guys, it’s no problem.  I appreciate the feedback.  I’ll try to do better next time.”
     I could tell that I had severely thrown them.  “Okay, then, glad to hear it, I guess,” said Minerva.
     “Hey, Brian,” said Marcus, “you don’t play D&D, do you?”
     “Oh God,” I said, dredging up ancient history from college, “it’s been years.  Why, are you trying to sell me some of your stuff now?”
     “No, no, I run a game on the weekends, and I was wondering if you’d like to join.”
     “Yeah,” said Minerva, “it’d be a great way for you to meet some of the other geeks in the building.”
     “Yeah, sure, I’d enjoy that.  You’d have to refresh me on the rules, though.”
     “Hey, no problem,” said Marcus.  “Saturdays at 3, apartment 415?”
     “I’ll be there.  See you around.”
     “See you, Brian,” said Minerva as they headed back to their apartment for the night, presumably for some long hours of experimentation.  
     Well.  It’s amazing what a little socializing can do for a person.  I closed up the shop and headed up to my own apartment to start building myself a character.