CHAPTER SIX
The Apogee campus sat behind a wall of glass and landscaped lawn just off the toll road in Reston.
The building looked like it had been airlifted in from somewhere far more expensive, or maybe even from the future.
Rachel counted three separate fountains before they even reached the entrance, each one lit from below despite the bright, morning sunlight.
"I feel like I should take my shoes off," Novak said as they walked toward the doors. "This place is cleaner than my kitchen."
"Cleaner than your kitchen isn't a high bar," Rachel said.
“Touche.”
The lobby continued the theme that had started outside.
White stone floors reflected the light pouring in from a two-story wall of windows, and a curved reception desk sat beneath a suspended sculpture of interlocking rings that Rachel assumed was meant to evoke a heartbeat or a pulse trace, though it could just as easily have been decorative.
A young man behind the desk greeted them before they'd finished crossing the lobby, his headset already adjusting as he stood.
“Can I help you?”
"Agents Gift and Novak,” Rachel said. “We called ahead about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Yes! Nina's expecting you. I'll walk you up."
“And who, exactly, is Nina?” Novak asked.
“She’s our VP of Communications. I notified her as soon as you called.”
Rachel nodded, not liking that they’d given any kind of warning that they were coming at all.
The young man led them past a wall of monitors displaying live user statistics scrolling in soft blues and greens.
Numbers ticked upward and sideways with no apparent pattern Rachel could follow.
A glass-walled café occupied one corner of the ground floor, empty except for two employees hunched over laptops.
Behind them, the Apogee logo had been etched into the espresso machine sitting on the long rear counter.
"Does everybody here have a watch on?" Novak asked the young man as they waited for the elevator.
"Everyone. It's part of the onboarding." He said it with the kind of easy pride of someone reciting a company line he genuinely believed. He even showed his own wrist as he said it, showing his own Apogee watch. "We're all supposed to be walking advertisements."
The elevator opened onto the fourth floor, and the receptionist led them down a hallway lined with framed magazine covers, Apogee watches photographed on the wrists of actors and athletes Rachel vaguely recognized. They passed a small glassed-in display case lined with newer, sleeker models.
At the end of the hall, a woman stood waiting outside an open office door, already extending her hand before they'd reached her.
"Nina Oakley," she said. "Pleased to meet you."
She was in her early forties, dressed in a cream blazer that looked tailored rather than bought off a rack. Her handshake was firm, and her smile stayed fixed and professional even as her eyes moved quickly between Rachel and Novak, assessing them.
“Likewise,” Rachel said, offering a smile.
She ushered them into her office, which matched the rest of the building.
Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the wooded hills behind the campus, and a glass shelf along one wall displayed a timeline of Apogee devices.
It started with the bulky first-generation model and stretched all the way to the sleek current version.
A single orchid sat on the corner of her desk, and behind her chair hung a framed print of the company's mission statement in a clean sans-serif font: Know Your Body. Trust Your Data. Live Your Peak.
"Please, have a seat." Oakley gestured to a small seating area near the window, two low chairs facing a couch. "Can I get you coffee? Water?"
"We're fine," Rachel said. "Thank you."
They sat, and Oakley settled onto the couch across from them, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. Rachel thought it looked like a rehearsed posture, sort of the way someone would make sure to sit during a job interview.
"So…" Oakley's smile didn't waver. "Can I assume this is about Renata Pike?”
There was no emotion or sympathy to the question, which struck Rachel as heartless.
But she had worked with people like this on many occasions—people who never saw humans as worth much of anything if they didn't somehow contribute to the grander picture.
And in this case, the grander picture was Apogee.
“It is,” Novak said. “How did you know about that?”
“She’s one of our biggest social media spokespeople. I’ve had at least a dozen people send me her final posting. I did only just hear about her passing about two hours ago, though. I was very sad to hear about it.”
“Did you know about a man named Gerald Mott?” Rachel asked.
Oakley thought about this for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I don’t believe so.”
"We're looking into two deaths connected to your platform," Rachel said, cutting to the chase and, quite frankly, not liking Oakley’s attitude about the entire conversation.
"Renata Pike, and a man named Gerald Mott.
Both died on the same day their app indicated they'd reached what you call their optimal health peak. "
Something flickered behind Oakley's eyes, gone before it could settle into anything readable. "I’d not heard about Mott.”
Probably because he didn’t have hundreds of thousands of followers, Rachel thought, but did not say.
“How long ago did he die?” she asked.
“Several weeks ago.”
"Can you walk us through what ‘optimal health peak’ means?" Novak asked. “What is it, exactly?"
Oakley straightened slightly, and her voice shifted into something more confident, like she'd stepped onto familiar ground.
"It's the core of what we built the company around.
Most fitness trackers give you a snapshot.
Steps today, sleep last night, heart rate right now.
What we wanted to build was something predictive, not reactive.
Something that could tell a person not just where they are, but where they're headed. "
"And how do you predict that?" Rachel asked.
"The algorithm pulls from dozens of biometric inputs continuously.
" Oakley leaned forward, and her hands moved as she spoke, animated in a way that made Rachel think she genuinely believed in what she was describing.
"Resting heart rate variability, VO2 max estimates, updated weekly through a walking test built into the app.
Recovery windows after exertion—meaning how fast your body bounces back from strain.
Sleep architecture, not just duration but how much time you're spending in deep versus REM.
We even track micro-tremors in grip strength every morning, because early neuromuscular decline shows up there before almost anywhere else. "
"That's a lot of data," Novak said.
"It's an enormous amount of data. That's the whole point. And that’s why Apogee is perceived as the absolute best." Oakley's enthusiasm was unmistakable now.
"Most of what's out there measures fitness like it's a straight line, more steps is better, lower resting heart rate is better.
But the human body doesn't work on a straight line.
Everyone has a ceiling… a point where cardiovascular capacity, muscular efficiency, and recovery all converge at their absolute best, and then, eventually, that curve starts to bend the other way.
What Apogee does is model that curve for each individual user and identify where that convergence point sits. We call it Peak Day."
"And you can predict this with accuracy?" Rachel said.
"We've had extraordinary success, yes. Our internal validation studies show accuracy within a narrow window for the vast majority of users who stay consistent with wearing the device.
" Oakley's smile widened slightly. Rachel hadn’t liked the woman from the get-go, but it was clear that she was very proud of what she had built here.
"It's the reason people get so invested,” Oakley went on.
“It's not just a number, it's a milestone.
Something to build toward. We've had users tell us it changed how they approached their entire health, because for the first time they had a concrete date instead of a vague idea of getting healthier someday. "
Rachel let a moment pass before she spoke again, wanting to make sure she had her own feelings in check. "Ms. Oakley, both of our victims died on their predicted peak day. Not near it. On it. I'd like to understand who has access to that information before it happens."
Oakley's posture shifted, almost imperceptibly, her hands settling back into her lap. "The prediction is generated and stored on the user's individual account."
"Yes, but who at Apogee can see it?"
"Our data science team has access to the aggregate model, obviously, since they built it and maintain it.” She suddenly sounded like she was reading from a script; there was something almost robotic about her voice as she went through all of this.
“But individual peak dates for specific users aren't something anyone here browses through.
That would be a significant privacy violation, and frankly it's not something we'd have a use for internally. "
"So somebody here could see Renata Pike's specific peak date, if they wanted to," Rachel said.
Oakley hesitated, and for the first time since they'd sat down, her polish cracked slightly at the edges.
"Technically, someone with the right database access could look up a specific account.
But that's heavily restricted, logged, and would require justification.
We take user privacy extremely seriously. "
"Is the peak date visible to anyone outside the company?" Novak asked. "Family members, friends, anyone the user might've told?"
"It's private by default." Oakley said it carefully now, choosing her words with more precision than before. "A user's peak date lives inside their own account. Nobody else can see it unless the user chooses to share it. And some do choose to share it.”
"And how would someone share it?" Rachel asked.
"There's a social feature built into the app.
Users can post their milestones, including their peak day, to a public feed if they opt in.
A lot of our influencer partners do, because it drives engagement.
It's part of what made someone like Renata such a valuable ambassador for us. She shared almost everything."
Rachel felt something settle into place, the pieces sliding closer together. "So unless a user posts it themselves, no one outside the company would know when a specific person's peak day was coming."
"That's correct." Oakley's smile had gone thinner, more effortful. "Which is why I have to say, I'm having a hard time understanding what you think happened here. I don’t mind answering your questions, of course, but I’m not sure why this has prompted an FBI investigation."
"We don’t know what happened," Rachel said. "That's why we're here."
"Gerald Mott," Novak said, making sure they stayed on point. "Did he post his peak day publicly?"
Oakley paused, and Rachel thought she saw the slightest little flicker of annoyance.
“Well, as I said, I don’t recall that name.
So, I'd have to check our system to confirm, but if he shared it and it appeared in the feed, that would be a matter of public record within the app itself. I can have someone pull that for you."
"We'd appreciate that," Rachel said. "Along with a list of everyone at your company who currently has database access to individual peak date predictions."
Oakley's expression tightened again, the professional warmth giving way to something more guarded. "That's a sensitive request. I'd need to loop in our legal team before I could give you something like that."
"Of course," Rachel said. "We understand there's a process and we truly do appreciate the privacy concerns. We'd just ask that it move quickly. Because as it stands, two people dead on the same day they hit their peak performance…honestly it doesn’t look good for Apogee."
"I'll make some calls today." Oakley stood, smoothing the front of her blazer, and the smile returned to her face, though it sat a little more carefully now than it had at the start.
"I want to be clear that Apogee takes this seriously.
If there's any possibility our technology is being misused to hurt people, that matters to us. Deeply."
"I appreciate that," Rachel said, standing as well. "One more question before we go.”
“Of course.”
“Who built the algorithm?"
"We have an eight-person model team," Oakley said. And maybe it was Rachel’s imagination, but it seemed that Oakley was glad to be speaking about another department.
She seemed pleased to be able to pass the ball to someone else.
"Our founder, Dr. Sloan, designed the original framework years ago, back when this was still a research project rather than a company.
Our lead engineer, Tessa Kline, has run the technical side of it for the last three years.
She's brilliant, honestly—one of the best people we have. "
"We'll want to speak with both of them," Rachel said.
"I'll set that up." Oakley walked them toward the door, her heels clicking softly against the polished floor. "Dr. Sloan travels quite a bit, but I think he’s here today; I’m honestly not too sure.
Tessa should be easier, though. She's almost always on-site.
You might be able to track her down right now, actually. "
"We'd appreciate anything you can arrange," Rachel said.
Oakley shook both their hands again at the elevator, her grip just as firm as before, though something in her eyes had gone more careful, more measuring.
"I hope you find whatever you're looking for, Agent Gift.
For what it's worth, I don't believe our technology had anything to do with what happened to those two people. "
"We'll let you know what we find," Rachel said.
The elevator doors closed, and Novak exhaled once they were alone inside the car, his shoulders dropping slightly.
"She's good," he said. "Real polished."
"Too polished," Rachel said. "Everything she said was accurate right up until I asked who could see a specific person's peak date. That's when she started picking her words instead of just talking."
"You think she's hiding something?"
"I think she knows exactly how tightly that information is supposed to be locked down," Rachel said, "and I think she's already worried about who got past it."