CHAPTER 135: DOCTOR IN A BOX [2]: POWER ON

"Come in," Lillian answered after hearing the knock on her door, knowing exactly who it was.

Opening the door, Liam and Lizzy walked into the office where both Ethan and Lillian sat in waiting.

Ethan was seated near the window, the skyline behind him painted in the faint orange glow of late afternoon.

Lillian sat opposite him at the meeting table, tablet in hand, scrolling through a few data sheets before looking up with a calm smile.

"Right on time," she said, gesturing toward the empty seats across from her. "Have a seat, both of you."

The two moved towards them, placed the the small case on the table at sat between them and waited.

Liam placed the case gently on the table before sitting. "You two look way too calm for people about to witness a medical revolution," he joked lightly, but his grin immediately faded when he saw the look Lizzy gave him.

Now, wasn’t the time.

Ethan just chuckled as he responded, "wouldn’t be the first time."

The casual way in which he said that surprised the siblings, but then again they recalled that he was involved in the creation of Sentinel, a revolutionary cyber security software so they couldn’t deny his words.

Speaking of which, "is OmniTech not joining us?" Lizzy asked.

"Well, he’s busy so I’ll be his representative," Ethan replied with a smile.

"Are you guys that close?" Liam leaned forward and whispered.

"You could say that," Ethan replied, his tone sounded almost amused, as if he found the question itself entertaining.

Lillian, without looking up from her tablet, added, "Let’s just say he trusts Ethan more than anyone else in this company."

That made Liam sit back, curiosity flickering in his eyes. "Must be nice to have that kind of trust from the boss."

Ethan just chuckled in reply but before anything else could be said, Lillian cut in, "about the product."

"Right," Lizzy took over, "our team completed it earlier today and everything is working as intended."

Lillian nodded slightly, eyes moving to Ethan. "Everything’s synced with Athena?"

"Fully," Lizzy confirmed. "We ran the final diagnostic through this morning, everything seems ready."

Ethan leaned back in his chair, hands steepled together. "Then let’s see it."

With a soft exhale, Liam unlocked the case revealing what lay within.

Inside the case sat an obsidian-black wrist device, its design minimalist yet impossibly advanced. It resembled a smartwatch, but larger by a few millimeters, with smooth curved edges and a faint blue light could be seen from beneath its tempered glass surface.

Its band wasn’t made of ordinary material, it shimmered faintly like liquid metal, seamlessly adjusting its shape to the contours of whoever wore it.

Lillian finally put her tablet down, giving the device a long, assessing look. "And this... is the Doctor in a Box?"

Liam grimaced a little. "Temporary name. We’re open to suggestions."

Lillian leaned forward, eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity. "It’s a lot smaller than I expected."

"It had to be," Lizzy replied. "Accessibility was the whole point. We wanted something any patient could use, whether they were in a hospital or a remote village with no doctor within miles."

"I see," Lillian nodded in understanding.

The vision had always been made clear to her since the beginning, but she always expected the prototype to be a lot bigger than the final product.

But she guess she might’ve understimate the team Ethan gathered.

"It also looks... deceptively simple," she said. "But I know it’s anything but that."

Lizzy smiled faintly, the pride in her voice unmistakable. "That’s exactly what we were going for. Familiar enough to feel comfortable, but sophisticated enough to make every other health tracker on the market look like a toy."

Ethan leaned closer, his blue eyes giving a subtle glow as ONI scanned the device. "Power source?"

"Self-sustaining," Liam answered immediately. "It runs on kinetic and bioelectric energy. No charging port and it definitely needs no. It adapts to the user’s energy output."

"And the interface?" Lillian asked.

Lizzy reached into the case, carefully lifting the watch. "Interactive touch panel, responsive to neural feedback. Once it synchronizes with the user’s vitals, it creates a low-level neural link through skin contact. That’s how it achieves real-time data flow."

"English," Lillian said, her eyes twitching.

"My bad," Lizzy said with a small smile, they always forgot that Lillian didn’t speak tech, after all, she just was a business student and she only had important surface level knowledge about tech, nothing too deep.

"What I mean is," Lizzy continued, holding the device in both hands as if it were something sacred, "once you wear it, it learns your body.... your pulse, temperature, hormone levels, oxygen saturation, everything. Within seconds, it builds a complete personal health profile and begins monitoring for abnormalities."

"I’m guessing that data is what Athena uses to predict the diseases the patient might suffer from?" Lillian said.

"Exactly," Lizzy nodded.

They then went silent and turned to Ethan waiting for him to say something. He remained quiet for a while before picking the device up.

Looking at it before him right now made him realize exactly how much of a technological marvel they had designed.

Yes, he had made things more advanced, namely Athena and ONI, but this was the first he hadn’t created alone.

This was one he had trusted with his team, only guiding them when needed and filling in the blanks they faced.... Well, except the liquid metal, that was entirely him, but they had successfully replicated it hadn’t they.

If he had to give what he felt right now a name, it would be Pride. He was proud of what his team had achieved.

He studied the obsidian device in silence for a long moment, the soft reflection of its faint blue glow dancing in his eyes.

ONI had verified that it was completely stable and would work as intended so without saying a word, Ethan slipped it onto his wrist.

The band shifted instantly, like a living thing, tightening and reshaping itself around his arm until it fit perfectly, almost as though it had been created specifically for him.

"Adaptive morphing alloy," Liam murmured, his voice filled with awe even though he already knew what would happen. "Still gets me every time."

The moment the device was comfortably strapped around his wrist, it powered on and Ethan immediately felt a strange sensation where the device touched his skin.

But it barely lasted a second before it disappeared and the screen turned on and the first thing that came up was the results from its power on scan.

[Scan Complete.]

[Vitals: Stable.]

[Stress Index: 41%. Moderate fatigue detected.]

[Recommendation: Rest — 6 hours minimum.]

....

The room was silent for a while before Ethan broke it, "guess it works as intended."

****

[Please read the author thoughts]