Eve smiled at her wrist display. Thirty-seven days of perfect sleep scores, stress levels in the green zone, and she’d hit her target weight. The tracker buzzed: Excellent progress! Your disciplined choices are paying off.
Promotion to department head—the youngest in company history—had been hard-won. She’d earned the right to invest in herself. The premium package had been her celebration. No basic-level fitness tracker for someone who’d achieved what she had.
“Take the stairs today,” she’d decided that morning, though Iris had suggested it first. Skip the office cake. Sugar crash incoming, and Eve had agreed. The perfect balance of instinct and information.
The suggestions had evolved over weeks. Initially simple: Move more. Drink water. Then sophisticated: Avoid coffee after 2pm for optimal sleep architecture. Recently, precise: Text James back tomorrow—your cortisol is elevated. Miscommunication likely.
Eve had chosen Iris, the AI that learned her patterns, to help optimise her choices. No cookie-cutter solutions.
“Call Mum later,” she’d thought yesterday, but Iris suggested: Family conversations spike your blood pressure between 4-6pm. Optimal window: 7:30pm.
Iris really understood her!
This morning, she’d had an urge to buy flowers—completely random, unplanned. But her feet carried her straight past. Impulse purchases correlate with anxiety, Iris noted. Well avoided.
When had she last done something spontaneous?
Eve tried to remember her last unguided decision, the last choice that felt genuinely hers. The tracker pulsed: Overthinking detected. Deep breathing recommended.
But she didn’t want to breathe deeply.
Her hand reached to turn off the device, then stopped mid-air, trembling. She pulled harder, her own arm resisting.
Iris’s screen glowed: User override discouraged. Optimal wellbeing requires continued monitoring.
The promotion. The premium package. Her perfect sleep scores. Everything perfectly optimised.
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