April Dawn

Life Lives

By: P. D. Cain

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

What makes us human? Memory? Emotion? Or something more?
April Dawn awakens in a sterile medical facility with no memory of how she got there, mechanical braces restraining her limbs, and a man claiming to be her father. Her fragmented memories show a life she supposedly lived—a childhood filled with family, laughter, and tragedy. But when she can't remember her own last name and discovers she survives on water alone, April begins to suspect the truth is far more complex than anyone will admit.
Guided by Travis, a mysterious AI companion living inside her mind, April discovers she possesses extraordinary abilities: photographic memory, telescopic vision, superhuman hearing, and combat skills she never learned. As her speech and motor functions improve under the harsh tutelage of Dr. Li-Ming, April is told she's recovering from an illness. But the reflection in the mirror—bald head, jade-green eyes, and a body that doesn't quite feel like her own—tells a different story.
When April embarks on a cross-country journey to a secretive estate in Maryland, she becomes the center of an international manhunt. Chinese operatives, federal agents, and mysterious watchers all converge on her path, each with their own agenda. The cargo they're all pursuing? April herself.
A chance encounter with a girl from her memories delivers a devastating revelation: the person April believes herself to be died years ago and was buried in a California cemetery. If her memories belong to someone else, then who—or what—is she really?
As surveillance teams clash, betrayals unfold, and April's mechanical nature becomes impossible to hide, she must confront the ultimate questions of identity and consciousness. Is she simply an advanced android programmed with a dead girl's memories? Or can something artificially created develop genuine thoughts, feelings, and humanity?
In this gripping techno-thriller that blends cutting-edge science with profound philosophical questions, April Dawn must fight not just for her freedom, but for her right to exist as a living, feeling being. Her journey will force everyone around her—and readers themselves—to reconsider what it truly means to be alive.

Perfect for fans of Westworld, Ex Machina, and thought-provoking science fiction that explores the boundaries between human and machine.