Maddy raises her Red Bull in a mock toast. "To not fucking it up."
"To barely not fucking it up," Jian corrects, but he's still smiling.
I look at the dashboard one more time, at the green lights that mean we built something real. Something that works. Something that's keeping a Fortune 500 company's AI interactions safe, right now, in this moment.
The future feels close enough to touch. Anthropic. OpenAI. The companies that actually matter, the ones that shape how the world thinks about AI safety. We're one degree of separation now. One introduction away.
"Next stop," I say, "the real leagues."
Maddy drains her Red Bull and crushes the can against her forehead, which is disgusting and impressive. Jian closes his laptop with a soft click.
Outside, the sun is starting to come up over the city. I never thought I'd see this many 4 AMs and survive, but here we are. Here I am, with these two lunatics, watching the numbers roll in and knowing we actually pulled it off.
The screen glows green. The coffee tastes like burnt ambition. And for the first time since we started this insane thing, I think we might actually make it.