The Tracker Talks

A voice rang out from the speaker on her wrist,

“It’s been 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 4 hours and 34 minutes since your last run of desired distance”

The voice was female, and sounded like a digital assistant – Zoe was sure the voice was synthetic, and yet it didn’t have the same staccato pattern a computerised voice would normally have. It was slightly muffled by the shower, and the echo off the bathroom tiles caused it to sound especially harsh.

“Run today to earn a reward!”

Zoe blinked, pulling her wet red hair over her shoulder and clutching it to her bare chest protectively as she stared at her wrist.

How… how does it know that?

She didn’t know for sure when she last completed a 5-mile run… but the tracker seemed to. Which was impossible, because she hadn’t been wearing it then, she hadn’t logged the run anywhere… there was no way this thing could know when she last ran anywhere.

She looked down and noticed the light on the face was now off.

Experimentally she pressed the button again, causing the voice to return,

“It’s been 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 4 hours and 35 minutes since your last run of desired distance. Run today to earn a reward!”

“What the fuck…” Zoe asked to the empty room, her eyes scanning the tracker strap again for any way to remove it. Finding none – the girl shook her wrist in frustration.

Deciding it was better to try and solve this mystery when she wasn’t naked, **** and soaking wet – the red-head turned around to finish her shower. Doing her best to try to keep the mysterious activity tracker out of the direct flow of the water.

Stepping out to dry herself Zoe experimentally pressed the button again, just to see if it would say anything different – but again, the same phrase repeated back to her, only with the time continuing to increase. Pressing the button multiple times in a row didn't seem to do anything extra.

When she was finally back in her room, a white fluffy towel still wrapped around her naked body, Zoe started to contemplate what she as going to do next. Until now, she had had every intention of marching downstairs, finding a pair of scissors and cutting the strap from her wrist – she definitely didn’t like that apparently this thing was stuck to her...

But…

Zoe pressed the button again, her eyes glancing to her wardrobe as she listened to the voice,

“It’s been 1 month, 2 weeks, 5 days, 5 hours and 1 minute since your last run of desired distance. Run today to earn a reward!”

“Run today to earn a reward hmm?” she asked aloud, flexing her bare feet against the rug. Zoe didn't know what that meant - it was so vague and no matter how many times she pressed the button, it didn't give her any additional information. The only way to find out would be to run and see what happened...

She knew she shouldn’t, that she should remove whatever this weird magical tracker on her wrist was as soon as possible… but now she was curious…

She tried shaking her wrist up and down rhythmically a few times, to see if the led changed or if she could 'trick' it to start counting steps or something. But nothing changed, and when she pressed the button, she just got the same message.

goddamn it...

The thing didn’t seem to be connected to anything that she could see. She stepped to her phone, still charging by her bed side, and tried to search for the tracker in Bluetooth - but found nothing.

It didn’t seem to have any way to power it or connect to it, but was on, and there was no box or cable or anything for it in her room that she could see to go with it. It had somehow been imbued with information it shouldn’t have – about a run she took alone almost 2 months ago... and it was absolutely impossible for her to get it off of her wrist, she still didn’t know how it had gotten on her in the first place…

Whether it was magical or not, maybe completing a run would unlock it somehow if there was some seam in the rubber she just couldn’t find?