"Fifty new cases doctor, most of which would have been unidentifiable until a month later."

In a bustling hospital ward, Dr. Jensen froze mid-stride.

"Fifty?" he repeated.

"Yes sir," the nurse said, holding a tablet. "All flagged within the last twelve hours. Mostly silent arrhythmias, early hypertension spikes, two possible pre-stroke indicators… all from patients wearing the VitaBand."

Jensen exhaled, long and slow.

This… was ridiculous.

"Show me."

The nurse handed over the tablet and Jensen scrolled through the logs. The data was clean, precise, and every alert had the same tiny signature at the bottom:

VitaBand – Early Warning Detected.

Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We would've missed all of these," he muttered.

"Yes sir," the nurse agreed. "The patients didn't even know they had issues. One of them came in for a sprained wrist."

They both looked toward the waiting area, where a woman sat nervously, still wearing her VitaBand. Her wrist was bandaged, but the device quietly blinked green.

The vitals on the screen showed a problem in her blood pressure pattern—something even she didn't know.

"Call cardiology," Jensen said. "She needs a full exam. And get neurology to check the two flagged stroke cases."

As the nurse hurried off, Jensen let out a breath.

This little wristband… In just a few days that the device had been launched, it was keeping a whole lot of hospitals busy, and it wasn't just hospitals.

***

Across the city,

A middle-aged father was sitting at the breakfast table when his VitaBand suddenly buzzed.

[WARNING: Heart Rhythm Abnormality Detected.

Seek medical attention.]

He blinked.

"Sarah?" he called out to his wife.

She appeared from the kitchen, confused.

"What's wrong?"

"This thing is saying I need a doctor."

They both stared at the band.

He didn't feel sick. Just a bit tired, maybe, probably bit stressed from work. It was nothing unusual.

But an hour later at the clinic, the doctor frowned at the scan in his hand.

"Sir… this caught early-stage atrial fibrillation."

"…What?"

"When the top chambers of your heart start beating out of rhythm" the doctor explained "like they're shaking instead of squeezing properly."

"You're lucky," he continued, "unchecked, this would've led to a major stroke in a few months, possibly sooner."

His wife squeezed his hand, trembling.

The man stared at his VitaBand and swallowed hard.

"...Thank you."

***

On a college campus,

A girl jogging paused when her VitaBand vibrated twice.

[Glucose Level Dangerously Low.]

She was confused at first. She wasn't diabetic, but the band kept warning her.

She went to the campus clinic just out of caution, she walked out pale-faced an hour later.

Early diabetes, the watch had caught it before symptoms even appeared.

Her doctor told her the Vitaband might have saved her from collapsing alone on a jogging trail.

***

Back at Caldwell Hospital,

Gabriel Caldwell stood in the observation room, staring at a board filled with names, alerts, recovered patients, and pre-stroke prevention cases.

Every single one had the same device listed under the 'intervention' column.

The Vitaband.

"People online are even calling it the MiracleBand," a nurse behind him informed.

"MiracleBand?" He repeated with a chuckle, "sounds like some kind of drug that gets you high."

The nurse aslo chuckled as they continued looking at the board, new solved cases that were only discovered thanks to Vitaband kept coming in by the second.

"OmniTech really did fulfill their promise," Gabriel said with a small smile on his face, "they really delivered something that works."

He shook his head, half-amused and completely astonished.

"When we partnered with them, I expected… well, I didn't know what I expected, a decent tracker? Maybe a fancy fitness band with a few medical features?" he said, "but it definitely wasn't this."

"At this rate," he took a small pause, "it feels like cheating."

"Well, it should be fine," The nurse said, "after all, the families are happy right?"

"I guess you're right," Gabriel said before picking up his phone, "anyway, that should be all for the day, I have a girlfriend waiting for me back at home."

With that he turned and left the nurse who just stood there a bit frozen before chuckling, the doctor had really changed ever since he started dating.

***

The real world wasn't the only place where news of OmniTech's VitaBand was spreading like wildfire.

In every corner of the internet, forums, blogs, health channels, tech subreddits, medical communities, everywhere you looked, the device had become the new obsession.

Fitness influencers posted clips of their readings, shocked at how accurate the stats were.

New comments appeared under a post about the tech every second.

[Harry: My dad would've died of a silent arrhythmia if not for the VitaBand, THANK YOU OmniTech!!]

[Random_jogger: Found out I'm pre-diabetic because of a random vibration. I didn't even know this could happen??]

[Mommy'sboi: A device just detected my mom's early stroke signs BEFORE she felt anything. This is insane.]

[DiperPee: Is this thing magic or what?]

***

Ethan looked at the results and data on his screen with a focused expression.

All his screen had been filled with nothing but data, graphs and online discussions.

{Public reception is overwhelmingly positive,} Athena reported, her avatar going through the massive set of incoming data, {medical communities are calling it a disruptive breakthrough.}

He just simply nodded as he looked at the data before him, the system notification had been going crazy as he was hit with a wave of dings that he had to ask the system to silence it.

He was getting so much SP, maybe the most he had gotten in a single day.

But he still wasn't smiling, well, rather than not wanting to smile, it was more like he was too focused on the data before him.

Everything was unveiling as he had expected, he was just waiting for a move... A move from Victor which he knew would come soon.

After all, the tracker had already been planted on Lillian, well, with her knowledge of course.

He had promised not to put her in danger, so he wouldn't,he was just going to use her as a way to clean Victor from the slate completely.

And to do that, he needed them to believe, Ethan Carter was the money hungry mole they had managed to buy.

"Is the device still active?" He asked.

{Yes,} Athena nodded, {they're still actively tracking her, but she's with Irina's men and they're safe.}

"I see," he muttered, placing a hand on his chin.

He wasn't worried about her safety...scratch that, he was a bit worried about her safety but he knew she'd be fine for now.

Though, the military grade tracking device was hard to reverse track, it was child's play for Athena.

Speaking of trackers, Ethan pulled a small USB drive from his drawer and brought it to the light.

It was the same device that Daniel had given to Lillian just a few weeks back.

He had claimed it was just to monitor their systems for Incase any attempt was made to breach OmniTech, but neither Lillian nor Ethan had never believed that excuse for a second.

And they were right.

The object was a quiet little parasite disguised as a 'security tool.'

A USB that, once plugged into any OmniTech system, would silently map out their internal infrastructure, install a hidden channel, and begin siphoning whatever it could reach, without raising alarms.

{Do you want me to run another sweep on it?} Athena asked.

"No," Ethan muttered, rolling the small device between his fingers. "I already stripped out everything useful."

He placed it back down.

"They thought they were being clever," he added with a small chuckle, "they really believed they were slipping this into our systems without us noticing."

{You did say letting them try was part of the plan,} Athena reminded.

"Mm."

He wasn't ready to explain the whole thing yet, not because he was having a hard time trusting.

But because the puzzle wasn't complete just yet.

He had flipped Daniel's little backdoor on its head the moment he'd discovered it, turning their attempt at infiltration into something else entirely.

But the real effect, the real strike, wouldn't be revealed until Ethan decided it was time.

Revealing anything too early would ruin the entire chain reaction he was building.

Besides…

Ethan's eyes narrowed slightly.

Daniel and Victor weren't the real threats.

They were pawns. Pieces moved by someone far more dangerous.

And the Collector was watching every single move, as far as he knew, this might just be a test.

One to verify if Ethan Carter was actually a mole that could be actually useful or not.

Which meant Ethan had to be the perfect mole.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded as he stared at the screen's glow.

{Their signal is still strong,} Athena reported, {they think Lillian is unprotected.}

"Good," he said softly, "let them think that."

Because the moment Victor and the Collector made their move…

Ethan would make his.

And unlike them, he didn't make plan on making any mistakes.