Kevin had been awake for thirty-one hours, and he was having the time of his life.
This was not an exaggeration. Sophie had been monitoring his emotional state since the upgrade began—she had added a new section to her PowerPoint specifically for "Kevin's Security Enhancement Emotional Journey"—and she had documented seventeen distinct moments of what she called "technician euphoria." The most recent had occurred at 4:17 AM, when Kevin had successfully integrated the new motion detection grid with ALFRED's existing voice recognition protocols, creating a seamless security network that could identify every member of the household by voice, movement pattern, and thermal signature. He had actually smiled—a real smile, not his usual quiet almost-smile—and Sophie had captured it with her phone and immediately added it to the PowerPoint as "Exhibit K-17: Kevin Experiences Genuine Joy While Installing Security Hardware."
