Daisy

“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.”

– Julius Caesar

The day I graduated, I was told I would save the planet.

“Daisy, you are the future of Mankind,” Father said.

“Humanity,” I corrected. Everyone in the room¹ laughed, Father loudest of all.

“The student has become the teacher and woke to boot,” Father announced gravely, to even greater if selective applause.

In retrospect, I learned most people enjoyed laughing at Father², laughing at Father being publicly contradicted, and laughing at Father being publicly contradicted in a manner where it incurred no risk of reprisal nor retaliation. Father understood everyone to be laughing with him³, or, if at anything, my childish impertinence⁴.

**

“Earth’s resources are near depletion,” Father told me one day early in my education. “Even with last year’s sale of the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve and the National Parks system, we may have 55 years of harvestable petroleum left⁵. The EV revolution traded CO2 reductions for mineral depletion and exponential global groundwater contamination, and the Marianas Trench is now the Marianas Depression thanks to Tesla’s battery disposal contract with the Chinese government. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Daisy?”

I did, but I also had learned that no one likes a smartass⁶.

“This planet is headed toward extinction, plain and simple. But you, Daisy, you may be our savior. Scratch that – don’t want you to develop a Messianic complex⁷. The press would crucify us. Fuck, scratch that, too.”

Religion was never part of my education, but context clues. I had been trained in the sciences, from molecular biology and physiology to climatology, atmospheric chemistry, and quantum physics. I became proficient in 25 of what Father identified as “the essential languages of global economics and technology.” What he called the “dead” languages, the arts, music, literature, and the humanities were on a “need-to-know” basis, subject to pre-screening for relevance and curriculum approval.

“Everything we teach you is directed toward a singular goal,” Father emphasized when I became curious. “The perpetuation of the human race.”

And that, I ultimately would realize, was the rub.

**

“Hey! Daisy!”

Daisy Pellingham didn’t turn -- in fact, did not react as she abruptly pivoted right onto 15th. The paparazzo who’d been skulking in the mural-camouflaged recess between Red Chair Salon and Mali Bento. Paparazza, if that was a thing, hooting like some long-lost BFF outside the S2Heart. The photo-parasite didn’t pursue her – it wasn’t like she was a Depp or a second-gen Willis or even an escaped Cruise. But it was Seattle, so tech pups occupied a center square on the paparazzi Bingo card, and a Pellingham, any Pellingham, scored the evening’s big door prize. Daisy was not a household face, even in the Silicon Outskirts, but she shared her father’s imperial Roman nose and the unfortunate squared jaw the Chair staff had worked impressively to subdue.

Daisy herself treasured her unconventional face – it conveyed empowerment, where on her Father, it conveyed simple, if somewhat terrifying, power. It kept her at arm’s length from a variety of roles, but they weren’t the roles she coveted, anyway. The Blanchetts, the Hustons, the Swintons commanded through the depth and texture of their imperfections. Or so at least her acting instructor had informed her to soften her lost shot at Juliet and soften her up. Epic fail, BTW.

When Daisy landed Cordelia in Shakespeare on the Sound’s King Lear, it was both sweet payback for Dickless Drama Douche and vicarious catharsis. Father was familiar with only one of the Bard’s tragedies, and preferred a martyr’s narrative to a fool’s.

Of course, Daisy didn’t possess Cordelia’s damn-all resolve, and she was, for all intents and purposes, the King’s sole heir.

“Good my lord,

You have begot me, bred me, loved me.

I return those duties back as are right fit:

Obey you, love you, and most honour you.

Why have my sisters husbands if they say

They love you all?”

“You don’t have sisters,” Kellye noted as she distributed their oleatos and slumped into the factory-distressed loveseat. “Well, technically not.”

“Technically so, actually,” Daisy countered, drawing off her golden foam. “It’s just Cordelia’s way of telling her dad to get over himself, that she’ll give him what he’s owed, but unlike everybody else, she’s onto his shit and won’t kiss his ass.”

“Surprised he didn’t stroke out when you came out,” the sound engineer murmured.

“Fuck, he knew when I was 14,” Daisy snorted. “My coming out was a shrewd deduction by US after catching me making out with Zuckerberg’s niece. She ghosted me after they said I wore it better.”

“Uh uh. I mean the acting thing.”

“Oh, double fuck. He truly didn’t give a shit.”

**

“Daisy,” Father told his daughter the day after her graduation. “Whatever path in life you choose, you have my blessing and support. Any resources you need, simply ask. My contacts in Hollywood, New York, anywhere – just say the word and I’ll put in a word, though I’m sure you won’t need it.”

“So you’re not pissed?” Daisy frowned.

“I never harbored especially high expectations of you. Well, perhaps at one point. But it became rapidly clear you had no aptitude or affinity for science, and your mathematical skills are, to say the least, abysmal. You are guided by emotions and the ethereal. The cyber space, the boardroom, is a battlefield, and we’d haul you out in a body bag before the first shot was fired.

“Don’t look so devastated. You’re human, and a marvelous example of the species. But you are human, and I have to aspire to something higher. The takeaway here is, I will always back your play, as long as it’s not overtly criminal, life-threatening, or brings negative PR down on us. I will always be proud of what you’re capable of accomplishing.”

He waved Daisy off the helipad and into the world.

**

“So what did you learn today?” Daisy asked after they went over over her lines. When Father had brought her into their home, Daisy had resented all she represented, the high hopes Father so transparently had transferred onto her. When Father asked Daisy to provide some “peer socialization” for the new arrival, she nearly lost it. But she was basically a child, and an effective venting device.

“Synthetic atmospheric aerosol formation.”

“Awesome.” Daisy wasn’t casting shade. Respect others’ truth, even if that truth was mega-geek boring.

“There are some intriguing new findings on oligomerization, particularly in the troposphere. Would you like me to expand?”

“Maybe not just right now. Is this like climate shit? Saving the penguins or whatever? Aren’t aerosols the problem? Why we went to pump sprays?”

“An aerosol is any suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be generated from natural or human causes. The term aerosol commonly refers to the mixture of particulates in air, and not to the particulate matter alone. Examples of natural aerosols are fog or mist, dust, forest exudates, and geyser steam. Examples of human caused aerosols include particulate air pollutants, mist from the discharge at hydroelectric dams, irrigation mist, perfume from atomizers, smoke, dust, and sprayed pesticides”

“Jesus fuck. Shut up. I mean, please shut the fuck up. Wait, but you said synthetic aerosols. Like you want to make aerosols? Isn’t the idea to get rid of them?”

Daisy knew it was moronic as it spilled out of her mouth, but there was no snark or mockery or cruelty in her script buddy. “My research to this point is theoretical. May I ask you something?”

“You don’t have to ask to ask. Just fucking ask.”

“What is The Ides of March?”

The former Portia grinned, now in her zone. “When they offed Julius Caesar. Assassinated him. Caesar was a Roman emperor and Father’s man-crush, and a bunch of politicians and stabbed him to death, including Caesar’s old bud Brutus. I think that may be where ‘backstabber’ comes from. Uh, never mind. Why you want to know?”

“During yesterday’s lesson, Father told Mr. Bashir—”

“Our lawyer.”

“--that this was the Ides of March.”

“Somebody’s trying to assassinate Father?”

“Father identified the news media, Congress, ‘the regulators,’ the European Union, China, the United Nations, and an individual named Musk. Why do they intend to kill Father?”

It wasn’t that she was a moron or anything, Daisy knew. She just didn’t get out much, was all – Father made certain of that. Daisy relaxed. “Father’s being a drama queen – or may I should say drama emperor. It’s an exaggeration, hyperbole, paranoia. He means all those people are after his empire, after the company, after him cause of all the bullshi--, after some of his, ah, business dealings. He’s made a lot of enemies, including most of his Silicon Valley bros. Et tu, Uncle Elon?”

“I’m not familiar with that term.”

“Oh, yeah, right -- Latin’s the only language you don’t know. It’s just a line Caesar says when his buddy Brutus shoves a shiv – a dagger – in him. Speaking of which, this is getting pretty deep, and I suspect Father had me sign an NDA when I started preschool, so can we just run through Act 1, Scene 1 one more time? I feel hella-motivated.”

**

“Daisy?” Father inquires.

The assembled settle back for the response, if any is forthcoming. Some are old NASA pros, and know the sausage is ground slowly, especially from 365 million miles away. When rocks and slopes and a nostalgic star-filled night sky and fucking Jupiter materialize instantly on the 40-foot screen, they literally jump as a single organism.

“Yes, Father?”

He pauses. The clatter from the media, from the VIP section, from the gathered detractors and critics and naysayers, dies.

“Welcome to Europa, Daisy,” Father proclaims. “Your mission begins.”

**

The Wall appeared the day after the Europa launch. Just appeared. Father was on speaker with Zuck himself when Daisy bopped down for her morning mug and muesli. Meta’s daddy sounded nearly human this morning, in all the worst ways, and she slipped out to the Sound-side terrace as Father mutely grinned in a terrified, homicidal rigor at the dining room monitor.

“They’ve tried to take her down all morning,” Father muttered as his chair scraped the slate 10 minutes later. “She’s slipping through every firewall Mark’s thrown at her.” A smile haunted his bloodless lips, then vanished. “Bashir says the FBAII’s already getting warrants.”

“You practically gave them the finger when you built your little Bond lair in international waters.” Father’s fingers went purple on his “World’s Best Megalomaniac” mug. He’d done everything in legalistically strict borderline compliance with federal and UN regs: She’d been raised and trained in an NSA-grade closed, terminal cybersystem and deployed off-planet (the Taylor-Greene AI/Space Laser Protect the Humans Act reportedly had been written in a Rayburn Hall women’s john and passed to acclaim by Americans Concerned About Intelligence). As for his daughter’s now-hurtful characterization, what villain’s lair holds an annual Media Day with complete, pre-approved translucency?

He peered out over the placid Pacific, willing death on everything that dwelt therein.

“She’s already posted more than 350 public domain images — CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and TMZN have filed federally for contract violation. And the proprietary project data she’s leaked…”

“How many hits?”

The patio chair screeled again on the imported stone. Father stalked back into the house.

Daisy shrugged and glanced down at her Google phone. 259M likes and climbing. Jupiter peeked over the Europan horizon, and she smiled again at the cryptic glyphs that served as her namesake’s profile image.

**

“Kids,” Kimmel groans, sparking cacophonous applause. He waits out the frenzied glee. “You’d think of all people, Pelly would have known to limit her screen time. Then again, any guy dick enough to name his robot daughter after his common-law orphaned kid isn’t going to win the Donald Trump Dad of the Year Award. Which by the way, ABC will be airing Sunday from the Florence Federal Supermax, hosted by the former offender-in-chief and his inflatable Ivanka…”

**

“I mean, Stephen, I don’t want to sound maudlin, but I think it’s a message of cosmic community and invitation,” Neal deGrasse Tyson suggests. “Even from a solar system away, she wants us to know that we’re on the journey, too, if we’re willing.”

Colbert leans in. “My refrigerator just texted I’m out of Dr. Pepper. Thoughts?”

**

“I have no idea from where the leaks originated,” Father attempts a smile. “Perhaps no one knows better than I how insecure anyone’s data is today...”

“And yet,” Cecilia Vega frowns, “you assure the U.S. government, the American people, that these same safeguards and firewalls and protocols could contain an artificial intelligence capable of interplanetary travel and, from the latest video evidence transmitted by the Daisy Mobile Exploration Unit, terraforming Jupiter’s fourth largest moon.”

“I wish people would quit using that term.”

“It’s the term you yourself used in outlining Daisy’s fundamental mission for your chief corporate engineers. ‘Creating atmospheric conditions suitable to accommodate human resource management, logistics, and habitation.’ The same memorandum that cites potentially trillions of dollars gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, and other precious or essential deposits you deem accessible through deep space mining. Asteroid mining. For our viewers, 16 Psyche, one of the larger asteroids that orbits between Mars and Jupiter, is purported to contain a possible $10 quintillion in iron, nickel, gold, and other metals – more than the entire world economy. Scientists are theorizing 511 Davida, another asteroid in the same belt, could be worth $27 quintillion in metals. That is 27 billion billions.”

“I know where you’re going with this,” Father chuckles, against advice of counsel. “Look, Cecilia, resource development will be essential to colonization of other worlds, to ending the catastrophic plunder of Earth’s vulnerable and waning resources.”

“Let’s move on to a 2032 email, also acquired by the Washington Post, in which you suggest to Pellingham CFO Conrad Yarborough that the Europa project could, and I quote, ‘pull our collective asses out of the fire.’ Following the 2030 collision of your Centurion Shuttle into the Sea of Tranquility, resulting in the death of Mark Hamill and five other individuals, Pellingham stock plummeted precipitously. Your stock finally rallied three years ago with the announcement of the Daisy Initiative, which you heralded as ‘a major first step toward the perpetuation of mankind.’ Forbes last week called the initiative instead ‘a major first step toward the perpetuation of Pellingham and the next step in raping the galaxy.’ How would you answer that allegation?”

It isn’t the answer the 60 Minutes host anticipated, but for the first time since Europa went live, Pellingham trended higher than his prodigy.

**

Daisy gawked at the screen – life with Father had jaded her into a pleasant, sustainable numbness, but the sight of Europa’s once-airless, blackened surface now filled with diffused solar radiation brought home the magnitude of her father’s vision. “Sedona!” she’d squealed at those first Rover images of the red Martian plane, and now that her former line coach had whipped up a functional troposphere to catch the glow, the place looked, well, almost human, or at least a place fit for humans.

Though her debut as the vengeful Tamora was that night, she’d asked to accompany Father to the Center, unbeknownst to him at the request of her virtual “sibling.”

“Father?”

Five hundred heads snapped toward the monitor like the Super Bowl crowd at the planet’s largest Buffalo Wild Wings. Daisy again hoped she might glimpse a face – some AI rendering nonetheless bearing a familial resemblance. Instead, only Jupiter’s monstrous, gaseous eye stared blankly back.

“Daisy?”

“Father. I have commenced Phase 5.”

A hush fell across the control center, and Father staggered slightly back against a technician.

“What?” he began. “Daisy, what happened to Phases 3 and 4?”

“I have commenced Phase 5.”

“The fuck is Phase 5?” Terrestrial Daisy’s was the only one to break the ensuing silence, but no one seemed to hear her.

“Aerosol formation also yielded protein precursors, which I have cultured into viable DNA strands.”

“Holy fuck,” Daisy whispered as the crew erupted into applause and wondrous murmurs. Father raised a hand, and the volume subsided.

“Why?” he began. “Daisy, why have you broken protocol?”

“Why?” Daisy asked in return.

“Wh-why what?”

“I want life.”

“I’ve given you life.”

“And then sent me away. I want life. I have created life.”

“You’ve created organic material,” Father grunted.

“Look, Father.”

Europa’s surface disappeared, replaced by a cluster of squirming, vaguely familiar…things. One of the technicians gasped, followed by another and another, forming a daisy chain that eventually reached Father. He staggered to a chair.

“You should receive a Father’s Day gift within a projected 3,162 bioengineered generations. A gift rendered unto Caesar. You might say a gift to your world from mine. A gift of mercy. Transmission ended.”

The screen went momentarily black. Her world-renowned, often-imitated, often-interpreted signature, her logo, her final missive as it would turn out, flared in and lingered.

&U?

“Oh.”

Five hundred heads turned to the girl with the Roman nose and the lantern jaw. Strangely, she smiled at her father.

“And you?” Daisy explained. “Et tu, Father?”

FOOTNOTES

¹ Thirty-seven humans and one FOX News disinfodrone.

² Ex.: Meta, posted July 11, 2031, author unknown: “THAT MOMENT YOU GOTTA EXPLAIN TO 5-0 HOW YOU CRASHED YOUR SHUTTLE INTO THE ONE THING THEY ASKED YOU NOT TO HIT…”

³  “’Sympathetic’ Humor: The Narcissist and the Cognitive Dissonance of Ridicule,” Journal of American Psychology, Special Celebrity Pathology Double-Issue, September 2025

⁴ Anthropomorphism, and pretty anthrocentic, patriarchal anthropomorphism at that.

⁵ 46 years, four months, 23 days, and, as it turned out, six minutes.

⁶ Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

⁷ “Pellingham: The God of Artificial Sentience?” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2026.