Story code: ST-001790
Part 2: The Aggregate Report
The cold metal of the clasp snapped shut with a definitive, mechanical click. Sarah flinched as the heavy silicone band pinched the delicate skin of her inner wrist. Immediately, a piercing green light flared from the underside of the watch case, bleeding out around the edges as the biometric sensors bit into her flesh.
“Sync complete,” Chloe whispered. Her pale eyes were wide and unblinking behind her rimless glasses. She finally released Sarah’s arm, stepping back to smooth her own pristine white skirt. “The Apex tracker is now bound to your corporate identity. Any attempt to remove the device without authorization will trigger an immediate breach-of-contract notification to the executive board.”
Sarah stared at the dead black glass on her wrist. The watch felt immensely heavy, a dense weight dragging her arm down. “I understand,” she managed to say, forcing her voice to remain entirely flat.
“We review the daily aggregate reports every afternoon at four,” Chloe said, sliding the silver tablet back toward herself. “I am confident your data will reflect the high-performance executive we know you are, Sarah. Have a highly optimized day.”
Sarah practically fled the wellness suite. She kept her right hand buried deep in the pocket of her oversized wool blazer, shielding the blinking green glow of the sensor from the hallway security cameras. By the time she reached her corner office on the fourth floor, her heart was hammering violently against her ribs. She locked the heavy glass door, dropped the window blinds, and collapsed into her desk chair.
Her hands shook as she logged into the employee intranet. She bypassed the standard workflow portals and navigated to the newly installed Apex Health dashboard. A customized gauge appeared on her monitor, pulling a live stream of data directly from her wrist.
The numbers were a catastrophe.
Her basal body temperature hovered at a steady 99.2 degrees. The chart flagged it in a bright, warning yellow, noting it as highly elevated for a sedentary office environment. But the blood volume metric was far worse. The green photoplethysmography sensor was actively reading the vast, necessary expansion of her circulatory system-a biological mandate to sustain the five-month pregnancy hidden beneath her blazer. The blood volume index charted in glaring crimson, reading forty-five percent above the standard female baseline.
*It’s going to tell them,* Sarah thought, a wave of nausea rolling through her stomach. *By four o’clock, the algorithm is going to diagnose exactly what I am.*
She had twelve days until the Director of Operations announcement. If Chloe forwarded this dashboard to the executive board today, they wouldn’t even have to fire her. They would just cite undisclosed health risks, permanently sideline her to a non-essential advisory role, and hand her logistics division to someone without the impending liability of maternity leave.
She looked down at her wrist. The silicone band was tight, secured with a seamless magnetic locking mechanism that had no visible keyhole or release latch. She could not take it off. She could not break it without triggering an instant HR alert. She had to trick the sensor into reading less blood.
Sarah frantically rummaged through her top desk drawer, pushing aside highlighters, staple pullers, and charging cables. She found a thick, heavy-duty rubber band-the kind the mailroom used to bundle thick stacks of financial printouts.
Rolling up the heavy wool sleeve of her blazer, she exposed her forearm. She stretched the thick rubber band and snapped it around her arm, positioning it three inches above the Apex tracker. It wasn’t tight enough. She twisted it, doubled it over, and snapped it against her skin again. Then she did it a third time.
The thick rubber bit brutally into her flesh. It acted as a makeshift tourniquet, compressing the major veins in her forearm and severely restricting the blood flow down into her hand. Almost instantly, her fingertips began to tingle.
Sarah kept her eyes glued to the monitor. For an agonizing minute, nothing happened. Then, slowly, the crimson bar on the blood volume index began to recede. The restricted flow was starving the sensor of data. The bar dropped from forty-five percent above baseline to thirty, then twenty. When it settled firmly in the green zone, perfectly mimicking a normal, non-pregnant circulatory system, Sarah let out a ragged, desperate breath.
Her right hand was already turning a mottled, pale shade of purple. The pressure from the rubber band was excruciating, causing a deep, burning ache that radiated from her elbow down to her knuckles. She carefully rolled her wool sleeve back down, hiding both the watch and the tourniquet.
A sharp knock on the glass made her jump.
“Sarah? You in there?”
It was Marcus, the Vice President of Regional Strategy. The man whose signature was required on her promotion paperwork.
Sarah frantically hit a key to minimize the health dashboard, smoothed her blazer over her stomach, and called out, “Come in!”
Marcus pushed the door open, holding a sleek black travel mug. “Blinds down in the middle of the day? You aren’t burning out on me before the big announcement, are you?” He smiled, but his eyes were sharp, scanning her dimly lit desk.
“Just reviewing the overseas supply chain audits,” Sarah lied, forcing a bright, confident smile. She kept her right hand resting flat on her lap beneath the desk. It felt completely dead, like a block of ice attached to her wrist. “The glare from the window was making it hard to read the spreadsheets.”
“Good. I need you focused,” Marcus said, leaning his weight against the doorframe. “The board is meeting on Friday to finalize the reorganization. Your logistics division is the crown jewel. I just spoke with Chloe downstairs-she mentioned you had your biometric baseline recorded today.”
“I did,” Sarah said. The baby shifted, delivering a rolling, heavy kick against her lower ribs. She clenched her jaw, suppressing a wince. “The new tech is very impressive.”
“The board takes those metrics seriously,” Marcus warned, his tone dropping its casual veneer. “We need a Director who can handle the physical toll of this expansion. Chloe said she’d be monitoring your aggregate data closely this afternoon. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself, Sarah. No red flags.”
“No red flags,” Sarah echoed.
Marcus gave a curt nod and let the door swing shut behind him.
Sarah immediately reached for her left sleeve, desperate to release the rubber band. The burning in her forearm had escalated to a screaming, agonizing throb. She dug her left fingers under the heavy wool fabric, trying to hook the tight rubber to snap it off.
Before she could reach it, the Apex tracker on her right wrist vibrated violently.
It wasn’t a standard notification buzz. It was a sustained, aggressive drilling sensation that rattled against her radius bone. She ripped her sleeve back. The dead black glass of the watch face was now flashing a blinding, strobe-like red.
A harsh digital siren began to emit from the tiny speaker on the device, piercing the quiet of her office. Text scrolled across the glowing screen in heavy block letters:
*CRITICAL TISSUE ISCHEMIA DETECTED. PERIPHERAL OXYGEN SATURATION DROPPING. SEVERE CIRCULATORY BLOCKAGE.*
Sarah clawed frantically at the rubber band, but her right hand was too numb to assist, and the thick rubber was embedded deep in her swollen skin.
Her desk phone began to ring. The caller ID screen glowed with a single word: *WELLNESS*.