Kathleen One, also known as K-1, was the first synthetic human (synth) designed and grown in a laboratory using completely synthesized DNA. For next eleven years Kathleen lived in the closed environment of the lab while assisting her protective creator in the design and creation of later series of synths used in space flight. Then one day her creator is inadvertently killed in a terrorist attack on the lab, and Kathleen is forced into the mysterious world of humans for the first time. Bereft of her beloved creator, she reluctantly begins a quixotic spiritual journey while aiding Robert One, a later-generation synth who had escaped from the lab. As Kathleen's flawed synth body sickens and would-be captors close in, she is haunted by one unsettled question: Do I have a soul? One day, quite unexpectedly, she receives an answer.