After gaming for a few hours at Marcus and Minerva’s place, I discovered that my memories of Dungeons and Dragons from college remained accurate.  Specifically, I remembered how effective a night of D&D can be at getting a person acquainted with other like-minded people.  One of the other players was Marcus’s sister Felicity, a cute blond girl who also worked in Freaks & Geeks.  To see the two of them together, I would never have guessed they were related, but as soon as she opened her mouth, all doubt left my mind.  The other two players were James and Christina, an engaged couple who had a law practice together and also had an apartment in the building.  Before the game, we all introduced ourselves.  Those who hadn’t heard of the Cyber Shop were told, and those who had were given details.  Marcus and Minerva were the only ones who appeared to enjoy body modification, but all of them seemed interested in my work.  Apparently, the two M’s had shown the others what work they had gotten done, with the possible exception of Minerva’s separable waist, and all of them looked as though they would not be averse to getting similar work done on themselves.  It almost seemed like my little parlor could become the focus for a new cross-culture body modification craze.  
     The next day, James and Christine were my first customers.  It had seemed the night before that I might see some patronage from them at some point, but I certainly hadn’t expected anything so soon.
     “Good morning, Brian,” said Christine as they walked in.
     “Oh, hey, guys.  What can I do for you?”
     “Well,” said James, “Chris and I were up pretty late last night after the game, just talking about what you had said you do around here, and we were thinking about getting something done.”
     “We’d like to get something matching to commemorate our engagement,” said Christine.
     “Besides the rings?”
     “Oh, everyone does rings,” said Christine.  We only really did that for our parents’ sakes, so we could have something to show off at family reunions and such.  We’d rather have something more, well, more us.”
     “Tell, me, Brian,” said James.  “What do you think you could do in the area of wings?”
     Of all the things they could have asked for, that was pretty far down on the list of what I might have expected from them.  “Wings, huh?  Well, given time, I suppose I could come up with something.  Fortunately, all the design work I would have to do already exists in nature.  The real work would come in making such an ungainly body as ours aerodynamic.  And of course, a full-sized wing wouldn’t exactly be subtle, so you’d have a bit of explaining to do to your clients.”
     “Oh, no, no, we’re not interested in an actual functioning wing,” said James.  “Just something that looks cool.  We decided that last night, since we knew that whatever we had done needed to be concealable under our work clothes.”
     “Oh.  That simplifies things a lot.  Yes, I should definitely be able to give you guys something wing-shaped that looks cool.  Did you have any specific ideas for what sort of looks you wanted?”
     “Yeah, we decided that last night, too,” said Christine.  “James said that he wanted something like a basic bird wing, and I’d like to try something more like a butterfly wing.”
     “Ah, well, it’s a good thing you didn’t want them functional.  The bird wing might have been doable, but I don’t think a butterfly wing would have scaled up properly.  All right, let’s go in back, and I’ll get your measurements.”  They followed me into the scanning room, and we set up an appointment for a few days later.  After they left to go back to their practice, I started looking up pictures of birds and butterflies to get an idea of the proportions I needed.
     When they came back to the shop, they were wearing their lawyer suits.  “Ah, good,” I said, “you’re dressed for work.  We’ll be able to make sure the wings fit under your suits now.  If you’ll follow me back to the workroom, we’ll get your new wings fitted.”  We went back into the scanning room, where I had both sets of wings waiting for them.  “All right, James, you first.  Take your shirt off.”
He stripped off his jacket, shirt, and tie, and laid them over the back of a chair as I held up the pair of large bird wings I had made.  He turned to face away from me, and I applied a layer of the telekinesis cream to a small area between his shoulder blades.  When the cream had fully blended into his back, I pressed two thin spikes on the wings into James’s back, which held them firmly to his body, still folded into a compact package that would easily fit under a shirt.
     “All right, James, I’m assuming that you’ve never had wings before, so I’ll help you figure out how to manipulate them.  Christine, please hold onto James’s wrists so he can’t move his arms.”  She took holds of his hands.  “Okay, James, now close your eyes.  This is going to be a visualization exercise.  I need you to imagine that your arms are not restrained.”  He closed his eyes and took a series of slow breaths.  He appeared to be deep in thought.  “Now, James, extend your arms out to your sides.”  Slowly, the wings unfolded from James’s back until they extended outward to a wingspan of about ten feet.  Before James could open his eyes, I grabbed a mirror and held it in front of him.  “Open your eyes, James.”
     When he opened his eyes, he jumped backwards and almost knocked some stuff over.  “Whoa!  Sweet!”  The wings were bright white, with synthetic feathers that looked like eagle feathers.  He did some experimental flexing in the mirror, and I was pleased to see the wings respond in kind.  So far, everyone to whom I had given an unusual prosthetic had figured out how to use it right away.  It must be something about gamers and their agile imaginations.  
    “Is it my turn next?” asked Christine.
     “Yep.  Oh, what are you wearing under your shirt?”
     “I’ve got a sports bra on, don’t worry.  We figured we’d need to do something like that.”  She took off her jacket and shirt and tossed them onto the chair over James’s, revealing a sports bra with ties around her neck and lower back, leaving bare skin for the wings.  I repeated my actions with the cream and the visualization training, and before long, Chris was flexing her new butterfly wings.  They were made of a thin film of plastic stretched over a wire frame, and each wing consisted of two sections that hinged together and could fold up behind her.  
     “Ooh, I love them!  They look just like fairy wings!”
     “Yeah, I thought that was what you had in mind, since your D&D character is a fairy too.  Now, unless you’d like to try anything else, you can put your shirts back on and come to the front room so we can settle the bill.”
     “Oh, right,” said James.  “We do have to get back to the office at some point.”
     “Aw, nuts,” said Christine.  “And I was starting to have fun, too.”  They picked up their shirts and jackets, which I was glad to see fit just fine over their new wings.  They settled their tab in the front room, like the good lawyers they were, and trotted out of the building.  It looked like Christine was almost skipping.
     That evening, I was getting ready to close up when I got a phone call.  
     “This is the Cyber Shop.  How can I help you?”
     “This is the police department.”  Uh-oh.  This boded not well.  “We have a hostage situation at the local branch bank involving a pair of subjects who appear to be customers of yours, sir.”
     “Can you describe them to me?  What sort of modifications do they have?”
     “Both are male, about 6 feet tall, dark hair.  Their arms appear to be made of metal.”
     I thought back a couple of weeks.  I remembered two guys who had come into the shop and requested replacement arms with a metallic finish.  “I think I remember those guys, officer.  The right arms have dexterous hands and the left arms have simple claws with just one finger and thumb, right?”
     “That’s right, sir.  Is there anything you can tell us about these implants that we should know about?”
     “Actually, if you can stay on the line for 30 seconds, I should be able to help you out from here.  Hang on.”  I held the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I ran into the room where the replaced parts were kept.  Back when I was starting the business up, I realized that a person with a powerful enough replacement part could be capable of real violence if they had a mind to, so I designed a safety device into the bigger prostheses.  Built into the arms that were currently holding several bank clients hostage were tiny radio receivers powered by miniature batteries.  The batteries were kept charged by clockwork mechanisms that wound themselves whenever they were moved, like those kinetic wristwatches that never need winding.
     I looked through the storage room until I found the four cubbyholes that held the two criminals’ severed arms.  Next to each door was a red button protected by a plastic cover.  I flipped up the covers and pressed the four buttons simultaneously.  I then picked up the phone from my shoulder.  “Officer, are you still there?”
     “Yes, I’m here.”
     “It’s done.  The criminals should be safe to approach now.”
     Over the phone, I could hear orders being shouted, even before I had said anything.  From the tone, I could tell that the situation had been defused.  “The situation is under control, sir.  What did you do, anyway?”
     “I activated the safety devices built into the arms.  When I push a button here, it sends a radio signal that detaches and deactivates the prosthesis, rendering it useless and causing it to fall off harmlessly.  Whenever you feel it necessary, you can bring the perps down to the Cyber Shop and I’ll be able to put them back to normal.”
     “We’ll keep that in mind.  Thank you for your cooperation, sir.”
     “Any time, officer, no problem.”