The docs weren’t ready to do the replacement on his real-world hand and install one. They said they were waiting for his bone-growth rate to slow a little. But it must be getting close. Last week they’d had him in for some preliminary work. His arm had almost immediately started to itch fiercely, and it still did. Psychosomatic, they’d told him when he called in, worried. Not an uncommon reaction, they said, nothing to worry about. He really couldn’t feel the nanobots laying the circuitry under his skin. No one could do that.