(Five Years Later )
KATHLEEN
The irony wasn't lost on Kathleen as she stood before the Global Cybersecurity Summit, her pregnant belly barely contained by the sleek black dress Carl had insisted was "diplomatic." The woman who'd built her empire on the premise that *safe heaven existed* was now being honored for creating exactly that.
*"When I named my company SafeHeaven,"* she began, her fingers brushing the titanium bracelet Alina had forged from the remnants of Lionel's servers, *"it was a battle cry. A reminder that safety isn't given – it's built line by line, firewall by firewall."*
The holograms behind her came alive, displaying the transformation:
- **Then:** The scorched remains of her childhood foster home, the words "SafeHeaven" spray-painted across broken walls
- **Now:** A global network of Smart Shelters where foster kids slept behind Alina's fractal-encrypted doors, their biometric bracelets glowing cobalt blue
*"What changed?"* Kathleen smiled as the screens showed Sofia, now four, "hacking" her toy Tesla into the rose bushes. *"We proved heaven isn't a place – it's what happens when you arm the right people with the right tools."*
In the front row, Carl's proud smirk said everything. Their revolution had become something rarer – a legacy.
---
CARL
The penthouse security alarms blared at 3 AM. Again.
Carl found Sofia standing on a chair in the kitchen, chocolate-smeared fingers deep in the circuitry of their "unhackable" smart fridge. *"Mommy's code has bugs,"* she announced, as the fridge dispensed a rainbow of illegal juice boxes.
Kathleen appeared in the doorway, her sleep-mussed hair catching the emergency lights. *"She's not wrong."*
Carl scooped up their sticky insurgent, his phone buzzing with alerts from the SafeHeaven orphanage in Tokyo – where Alina's latest security patch had just neutralized a coordinated cyberattack. The notification glowed in the dark:
**THREAT CONTAINED**
**ALL SYSTEMS SECURE**
He pressed his lips to Kathleen's temple, tasting salt and sleep and victory. The woman who'd spent a lifetime expecting ambushes had built the closest thing to heaven this broken world would ever see – not because she believed in safety, but because she knew exactly how to fight for it.
Outside, Veloria glittered with a thousand threats. Inside, their daughters dreamed in code.
*"Bed,"* Carl murmured against Kathleen's mouth.
*"Which one of us is lying?"* she laughed, but let him lead her away anyway.