Like Mother, Like Daughter

By Ernesto Sanchez

My father was primitive. Barely half cybernetic, a second-generation cerebral implant. Not a being fit for the 22nd century. “Laina, why don’t we have lunch sometime. Please? It’s been years,” he used to say before the accident. I cut him off. Surgically removing the emotional pathways that caused me to miss him allowed me more time for intellectual pursuits.

My mother was hardly better; she swore off metallic enhancements entirely. Biochemical and nanomolecular enhancements have always proven insufficient. I cut her off. She failed to meet my expectations of transhuman progress. She still lives in an android assisted living center on Earth, somewhere. Bless her little human heart.

My maternal grandfather is the only one who survived the genetic engineering debacle of the 2090s. His generation of meat and bone was…unfit. My ancestors before that, far less so. 

But now, I’m dying. Both my main body and my saved consciousness are destroyed. The latter failed in a cascade failure in the backup consciousness core. I’m here in this relay station orbiting Jupiter. This station computed every possible failure across infinite scenarios.  And still, one infernal egg-sized piece of asteroid debris can ruin it all.

I have hours of oxygen left. Call it primeval instinct, but I contacted my only daughter on Mars. I had ensured she surpassed me. I forced her to get flagship implants, ignoring her trembling pleas. ‘You’ll thank me,’ I said as they strapped her down. 

My signal pings her implant; it’s active, receiving. She’s there, silent.

Tears run down my cheeks. They shouldn’t. I keep calling every few minutes, undeterred. How bad it hurts that I will never speak to her again.

She won’t answer, just like I never answered them. 

Ernesto Sanchez is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer specializing in hard science fiction that explores the intersection of technology, humanity, and the future. With a graduate background in information technology and project management, he brings technical depth and real-world insight to his imaginative storytelling. Originally from Los Angeles, Ernesto now lives with his wife and daughter in Washington State.