The night rain intensified outside, falling into the chilly, damp corners of the alley, where broken neon lights flickered with a ghostly glow.

The female mercenaries either stood guard by the shop's door or leaned against the alley walls to smoke.

The splashing rain couldn't disperse the smoke from their cigarettes. The glowing embers fell onto the heaps of garbage that hadn't been cleared for days, startling a stray cat that leaped away from the refuse.

"Where's my hand, bring it here!"

Commander Lorna urged her subordinates at the door once more, then turned back to see Devin still not fetching the wine, and urged him as well:

"What are you waiting for, open the wine! Afraid I'll skip on the bill? I just finished a deal today, I'm flush with cash."

Quickly, Heath saw a group of female mercenaries enter the izakaya, collectively carrying a hand.

It was a hand, complete from the arm to the fingers, but...

It was several sizes larger than Commander Lorna's left hand, even bigger than the hands of Landow's muscle men, its skin a dark red like a layer of scar tissue from burns, eerie and terrifying.

And on the fingers and back of the hand were still-wet droplets of blood, whose they were he couldn't tell.

"Uh..." Heath, catching the increasingly pungent scent of blood, struggled to maintain a facade of professional calm.

What kind of prosthetic was this? He couldn't tell what material it was made of; it looked like some metal but also like some kind of flesh.

Clearly very heavy, the prosthetic caused the women carrying it to flush with effort as they brought it to the bar.

Commander Lorna took off her black leather jacket, revealing a sleeveless white T-shirt underneath, and her empty right shoulder pointed toward the bloody hand.

Suddenly, a tangle of bloodline-like wires shot out from her right shoulder, and the humerus of the prosthetic did the same. The bloodlines on both sides writhed like tentacles, twisting and binding together.

Before Heath could get a clear look, the oversized blood hand was connected to her right shoulder, seamlessly integrated.

"Oof." Commander Lorna swung her new arm around in circles, the joints crackling with friction.

She deftly grabbed the bottle of aged Fenggu wine that Devin had just retrieved from the cabinet, popped the wooden cork with ease, and began to drink directly from the bottle, downing half of it in one gulp.

"Thirty years of Fenggu, that's the stuff."

Only then did she pour a full glass and push it towards Heath, "Here, kid, have a taste."

As she poured, a drop or two of the still-wet blood from her hand seemed to fall into the glass.

Heath's smile was on the verge of breaking, and he wasn't sure if his features might contort grotesquely if it did...

"Huh." Devin had been observing him all along, and the second gear's performance hadn't changed. Now you're afraid? Too late.

"Commander Lorna, let's settle the bill for that bottle now."

Devin sensed that things might get ugly soon, so it was best to secure the payment early.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"What's the hurry? Who dares to dine and dash on you, Devin?" Commander Lorna waved impatiently, "Male escort, what were you asking me just now?"

Heath was feeling dizzy again, the proximity to her prosthetic arm causing an odd palpitation.

The swirling orb in his mind had no effect; it was as if a force was assaulting and tearing at him... Even ghostly and bizarre visions flickered before his eyes.

That drink for testing talent from Devin was potent...

"Why aren't you talking?" Commander Lorna's eyes held a flicker of madness, just waiting for him to scream.

Devin quietly put away the valuable bar tools, preparing for the moment Heath would lose control.

"I was saying..." Heath struggled to steady himself. Alright, it was his narrow perspective, unprofessional.

From Landow's odd head, one could tell that medical and biological technologies were particularly advanced in this world.

Earth also had the field of bionic prosthetics, with technologies like neural control, smart sensing, and osseointegration implants rapidly advancing, though not yet as advanced and flashy as her arm.

"What does your dream life look like?" he asked gently, taking it slow, remembering that patients are ordinary people.

Commander Lorna took another sip of wine, not expecting the new male escort to hold up, her frustration finding no outlet, "I'm such a mess, I don't have any damn dreams, especially with this hand bothering me all the time."

Heath internally smiled; there it was!

Problems.

Problems are key in psychotherapy. Once the patient articulates a problem, the therapist can act. Without a problem, there's no need for therapy.

"What's wrong?" he asked, as if offhandedly.

"It's just unclear." Lorna lowered her head to drink sullenly, "This thing keeps having compatibility issues, feels like a virus invading my program, making my personality unstable."

Devin, still tidying up the bar, interjected, "Commander Lorna, you should see a doctor, not a male escort."

Heath analyzed internally. Although she expressed it in a convoluted way, he understood.

"Does it hurt intermittently? And does it feel like it's your original right hand that's hurting? Do you sometimes experience related hallucinations?"

Commander Lorna looked at him sharply, her head's wires and silicon strips dancing in disarray, "How do you know that?"

A shadow of doubt crossed Devin's plump face.

"Because you're not always wearing the prosthetic." Of course, Heath knew, her issue was clear as day: phantom limb pain.

Over 50% of amputees experience this symptom, and the pathology remains unclear; it's a medical mystery. The same seemed true in this world.

Who doesn't love health, which girl doesn't love beauty?

Losing a hand, being disabled, forced to use such a startling prosthetic arm, often receiving strange glances from the public.

How much mental pressure would that cause? It's normal for patients with psychological trauma, which in turn exacerbates phantom limb pain.

This is when a psychologist needs to step in.

So, he had encountered such patients before and knew of a cutting-edge therapy to alleviate phantom limb pain, with a high efficacy rate.

"I've got a 'rudimentary' treatment method." Heath looked around, "Is there a mirror here?"

A rudimentary method? Though everyone doubted its usefulness, Commander Lorna, curious to play along, urged Devin and her subordinates to find a mirror and an open wooden box as Heath directed.

They first made two holes on one side of the box, then inserted the mirror in the middle to divide it into two halves, one hole on each side.

Under Heath's guidance, Commander Lorna extended her hands through the holes on each side of the box.

A cloth was used to completely cover the right hand, leaving only the left side of the box visible.

In this way, her left hand was there, and due to the mirror image, it seemed as though her right hand was also intact.

"Start moving your left hand slowly, listen to me, make a fist, then relax..."

Heath continued his instructions; this was the mirror box therapy.

It induced a visual illusion that the amputated limb was still present, encouraging the coupling of sensory and motor pathways between the phantom limb, the prosthetic, and the real limb, thereby modulating brain sensory neurons.

"Just this?" Commander Lorna stopped without cooperating, her face skeptical and amused, "Really rudimentary, huh?"

The female mercenaries around the bar shook their heads and chuckled.

They knew it. A problem that stumped so many street cyborg doctors couldn't possibly be solved by a stray dog.

But Devin's doubts grew heavier. That second gear kid had managed to hold on until now, which was quite unexpected.

"Give it a try." Heath urged, repeating the motion of making and releasing a fist.

Many initially scoffed at the simple and cheap mirror box therapy, only to end up praising its effectiveness.

"It's free, after all." He added one more line.

To his knowledge, "It's free, after all" had a strange persuasive power for the majority of patients.

"I'll give it a shot." Commander Lorna chuckled, her gaze fixed on the mirror box, her left hand slowly making and releasing fists...

As everyone watched, her expression slowly changed, showing signs of surprise.