Chapter 5 Running Away 2.0, Family Hackers

# Chapter 5: Running Away 2.0, Family Hackers

Three days after the town square debacle, I made my decision. We needed distance—from Justin, from the media circus, from the suffocating attention that had transformed our quiet lives into a reality show we never auditioned for.

"Pack your warmest clothes," I whispered to the triplets at bedtime, checking the hallway to ensure Justin's security team wasn't listening. "Only essentials. One backpack each."

"Are we going on an adventure?" Leo asked, eyes bright with excitement.

"Something like that," I answered, forcing a smile.

"Is Daddy coming?" Luna questioned, always perceptive.

I hesitated. "This is just for us. A special trip."

Mia frowned. "But Daddy will miss us."

"It's only for a little while," I assured her, hating the lie even as I spoke it. "Our secret mission, okay?"

They nodded solemnly, little conspirators in my desperate plan.

At 3 AM, I woke them silently, grateful that Justin had finally been called back to New York for an emergency board meeting. His security team remained, but their night patrol was focused on the perimeter, not the service entrance I'd deliberately left unmonitored.

"Remember, quiet as mice," I whispered as we slipped down the back stairs of the bakery.

A car waited in the alley—not my recognizable sedan, but a nondescript rental I'd arranged under a false name. The children climbed in sleepily, clutching their backpacks and favorite stuffed animals.

"Mommy, is this like when spies have to escape?" Leo asked as I buckled him in.

My heart clenched. "Something like that, sweetheart."

We drove through the night, heading north along coastal roads I'd memorized—routes without toll cameras or traffic monitoring. I'd disabled our phones, leaving them behind to prevent tracking. The only electronic device I'd brought was a burner laptop with specialized security software—a remnant from my past life that Justin knew nothing about.

By dawn, we were boarding a private charter plane I'd arranged through an old contact—no passenger manifest, no questions asked. The pilot nodded at the significant cash payment and didn't look too closely at our documents.

"Where are we going?" Luna asked as the small plane took off.

"Somewhere very special," I told her. "Somewhere no one will find us for a while."

Sixteen hours and three transportation changes later, we arrived at our destination—the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where my college roommate Claire now worked as a senior research scientist. She'd promised us sanctuary in the most isolated place on Earth, no questions asked.

"This is the coolest place EVER!" Leo exclaimed as Claire showed us to our quarters—a small but comfortable set of rooms in the research facility's residential wing.

"Look at all the penguins!" Mia pressed her face against the window, watching the birds waddle across the icy landscape.

"Those are Emperor penguins," Claire explained. "They're the only creatures that can survive the Antarctic winter here."

"Can we pet them?" Leo asked eagerly.

Claire laughed. "They're wild animals, buddy. But you can observe them from the research blind tomorrow if the weather holds."

That first night, as the children finally slept, exhausted from our journey, Claire handed me a glass of whiskey and fixed me with a stern look.

"You want to tell me why you're running from Justin Sarratt? The Justin Sarratt whose face is plastered across every news outlet looking for his missing children?"

I nearly choked on my drink. "Already? We've only been gone twenty hours."

Claire pulled up a news site on her tablet. There it was—Justin at an emergency press conference, offering a $50 million reward for information leading to our safe return. His face was haggard, eyes hollow with fear.

"He's mobilized private search teams across three continents," Claire continued. "The FBI is involved. There's talk of kidnapping charges, Joan."

"I didn't kidnap them," I protested. "I'm their mother!"

"With shared custody, I'm guessing? Did you have permission to leave the country with them?"

I said nothing, guilt washing over me.

"What happened between you two?" Claire asked more gently. "The tabloids are having a field day with theories."

I told her everything—my brief affair with Justin five years ago, my discovery of the pregnancy after we'd parted ways, my decision to raise the children alone, and the chaos that had erupted when Justin found us.

"He was taking over our lives," I finished. "Making decisions without consulting me, changing everything. The children were becoming different people before my eyes."

Claire sighed. "So you brought them to the literal end of the Earth? That's a bit extreme, even for you."

"I just needed time to think, to plan our next steps without him steamrolling every decision."

"Well, you picked the right hideout," Claire admitted. "Even Justin Sarratt can't easily reach the South Pole. Our next supply drop isn't for two weeks, and we're currently in communication blackout due to solar flare activity."

The blackout proved both blessing and curse. For five days, we existed in peaceful isolation. The children thrived in the unusual environment, adopted by the research team who delighted in their curious minds and endless questions. They attended impromptu science lessons, learned about climate research, and spent hours observing the penguin colonies.

On the sixth day, Leo made a discovery.

"Mom! Look what I found in the storage room!" He dragged me excitedly to a forgotten corner of the facility, where several outdated servers hummed quietly. "Dr. Chen says they used to use these for data processing but now they're just backups. Can we use them?"

I recognized the gleam in his eye—the same look Justin got when facing an interesting technical challenge.

"Use them for what, exactly?"

"A project," he said vaguely. "With Mia and Luna."

I should have known better, but the children had been so well-behaved during our escape that I wanted to reward their resilience. "Just don't break anything, okay?"

That was my first mistake.

My second mistake was not checking on their "project" for the next two days, distracted by helping Claire with her research to earn our keep.

On the ninth day of our Antarctic exile, the communication blackout ended. Within hours, Claire rushed into our quarters, face pale.

"Joan, you need to see this."

She led me to the communications center, where the station manager waited with a grim expression.

"Mrs. Powers," he said formally, "we've received an urgent message from the US State Department regarding you and your children."

My stomach dropped. "What does it say?"

"It's not what they say that's the problem," Claire interjected. "It's what your children have been doing."

She pointed to a monitor showing an unusual network diagram—connections spanning from our location across multiple international servers.

"Your kids have been using our backup servers to hack into private financial systems," the manager explained. "Specifically, the personal accounts of Justin Sarratt."

"They've what?" I gasped.

"They've also been using our satellite uplink to send him messages," Claire added. "Video messages. With penguins."

As if on cue, my three little hackers appeared in the doorway, looking not nearly remorseful enough for children who had apparently committed international cybercrime.

"We were just talking to Daddy," Luna explained innocently.

"With penguins as servers," Leo added proudly. "They have really good thermal signatures for computing!"

"You used penguins as servers?" I repeated, not comprehending.

Mia rolled her eyes in that way only five-year-olds truly master. "Not as actual servers, Mom. We put small thermal reflectors on them so we could track their movement patterns, then used the data to create an untraceable routing system."

The station manager looked impressed despite himself. "That's... actually ingenious."

"What exactly did you say to your father?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"We told him where we are," Luna said simply. "And that you didn't kidnap us, you just needed thinking space."

"We also told him he needs to transfer 10 billion dollars," Leo added casually.

"You WHAT?" I nearly shouted.

"To a special account," Mia clarified. "For our college funds and penguin conservation. Otherwise, we said we'd adopt a penguin as our new dad."

I sank into a chair, overwhelmed. "You blackmailed your father with penguin adoption?"

"It's not blackmail," Luna protested. "It's negotiation. Daddy taught us that."

Of course he did.

The station manager cleared his throat. "There's more. Mr. Sarratt's private jet has requested emergency landing clearance at McMurdo Station. From there, he's arranged helicopter transport here. Estimated arrival: three hours."

"That's impossible," I whispered. "No private aircraft can just fly to Antarctica."

"Apparently they can if you own the aircraft manufacturer and make a substantial 'research donation' to three different countries' Antarctic programs," Claire remarked dryly.

Three hours. After all this planning, all this distance, I had just three hours before Justin caught up with us.

The children, far from sharing my distress, were ecstatic.

"Daddy's coming here?" Mia clapped her hands. "To the actual South Pole?"

"Can we show him the penguins?" Leo asked excitedly.

"Do you think he brought ice cream?" Luna wondered.

Their joy at the prospect of seeing their father made my chest ache. Had I been wrong to run? Had my fear of losing control made me blind to what the children truly needed?

Two hours and fifty-eight minutes later, we stood on the landing pad as a sleek black helicopter appeared on the horizon, somehow incongruous against the pristine white landscape. The children bounced with excitement, waving frantically as the aircraft descended.

The rotors had barely stopped when the door flew open and Justin jumped out, not waiting for the steps. He was dressed for Antarctic conditions but moved as if impervious to the cold, his focus entirely on the three small figures rushing toward him.

He fell to his knees in the snow, gathering all three children into his arms at once, holding them as if he might never let go. Even from a distance, I could see his shoulders shaking.

He was crying.

Justin Sarratt, the man who negotiated billion-dollar deals without blinking, was openly weeping as he clutched our children.

Something in my heart shifted, a wall crumbling that I hadn't realized I'd built.

When he finally looked up at me over the children's heads, I expected anger, accusations, threats of legal consequences. Instead, his eyes held only relief and something else—something that looked remarkably like understanding.

The children dragged him toward me, chattering about penguins and servers and their Antarctic adventures, seemingly oblivious to the emotional tempest between their parents.

"Joan," he said simply when he reached me.

"Justin," I replied, suddenly unable to remember all the speeches I'd prepared.

"You went to the literal end of the Earth to get away from me," he said softly, so the children couldn't hear. "That's... quite a statement."

"I needed space to think," I explained lamely.

"And penguins, apparently." A hint of his usual dry humor surfaced.

Before I could respond, the helicopter door opened again, and a small figure appeared in the entrance—a toddler, no more than two years old, bundled in expensive cold-weather gear, a pacifier clamped firmly in his mouth.

"Who is that?" I asked, confused.

Justin's expression was unreadable. "That," he said carefully, "is another conversation we need to have."

The toddler surveyed the scene with remarkable composure for one so young, then removed his pacifier and pointed directly at me.

"Mama?" he asked clearly.

My world tilted on its axis. "Justin, what—"

"Remember that uterine monitor you threw in the oven?" Justin interrupted, watching the toddler being helped down from the helicopter by what appeared to be a nanny. "Turns out it wasn't the only one we had in development."

The triplets had already surrounded the newcomer, examining him with fascinated expressions.

"Is he our brother?" Luna asked, looking back at us.

"In a manner of speaking," Justin replied cryptically. "Technically, he's number four."

"Number four?" I repeated faintly.

"Mom!" Leo called excitedly. "The baby looks just like us!"

Indeed, the toddler shared the same dark curls and striking eyes as the triplets—as Justin. The resemblance was unmistakable.

"I can explain," Justin began.

But the triplets had already formed a protective circle around their apparent sibling, their faces alight with delight.

"We hacked Mommy's birth control system!" they announced in perfect unison, their voices ringing across the Antarctic silence.