It started with a watch. One of those new-fangled everything super smart watches. It counted steps, measured my heart rate, played music, did emails, and even answered the phone, though I never used that function because it looked stupid to hold my wrist up to my mouth to talk and listen to the electronic voice. The damn thing even made me walk every so often, then it added jogging, and running, and soon I did local ‘Fun Run’ races, while it tracked my daily stress, sleep hours, and all those different stages, and even told me what to eat.

A small, round, bright red thing. I opted for the yellow strap.

The thing cost a fortune but paid for itself within a year through productivity gains, health gains, and all that good for you stuff that you want to do, but forgot due to lack of sleep, poor diet because you just needed some the calories to live as you forgot to eat breakfast again, and the stress from the stupid desk job that made you sit all day and have lunch at your desk. The job that gets outsourced, and within a year, no one remembers that you worked there. Life. The endless daily grind that rubbed your soul away.

But life changed. At first, in small ways. It made me move if I had sat too long. Tweaked my food choices. Added morning walks, then morning runs. Weekend hikes through the forest. Even sent reminders about friends’ birthdays and anniversaries, which allowed me to stay in touch better. The connections reminded me, on my worst days, that I had support and friends, love, and that I didn’t have to suffer alone.

A total miracle, a wonder of modern technology, until a hacker, or more likely, a kid on his phone, bored in class, with an AI, exploited a vulnerability in the watch’s security and changed the software. It took a week before the company noticed, and in that week, my exercise increased fivefold, my sleep fell to only a couple of hours, and the watch didn’t allow me to eat enough.

My heart failed. But the engineer doctors had created artificial hearts. Better ones than the original. More blood throughput. Better oxygen conversion. It even had an impurity filter. Engineering advances not only kept me alive, but they also improved my life. Removed twenty years from my physical self. My run pace increased, and the hikes grew longer. The heart helped me in every way. The sixth best thing to happen to me, up until that point, just behind my two children, one grandchild, and two wives.