Here be spoilers!........................................Mia is the first sentient synth, created by David Elster, as surrogate mother for his son Leo Elster. In her own words, she was made to love him. She doesn't love only Leo, however; she also loves her synth siblings (Fred, Niska and Max) and Sophie Hawkins and the other two Hawkins children Toby and Mathilda. She also shows compassion for both Laura and Joe Hawkins, and for the fifth, estranged sentient synth Beatrice/Karen Voss. As such she is the synthetic embodiment of Aphrodite Urania, goddess of higher forms of love, ie. altruistic maternal and compassionate love, as opposed to romantic/sexual love.At the time of the main story line she has been kidnapped from Leo and the rest of her synth family, and her Mia persona root code has been replaced by a standard domestic synth persona. The Mia persona, however, still exists, in hiding, and occasionally manifests herself.In this form she is bought by Joe Hawkins for his family, for which he is struggling to properly care. She is given the name Anita. As Anita/Mia she inadvertantly destabilises the Hawkins family for several reasons: 1. Laura Hawkins is opposed to having a synth at all, and sees the highly competent and beautiful Anita as a threat to her (Laura's) role as mother and wife. 2. Laura and her eldest daughter Mathilda (Mattie) become aware that Anita is far more sophisticated and human-like than regular synths. In particular, Anita/Mia shows great emotional intelligence, can appreciate beauty, and can feel fear. Very occasionally the Mia persona takes over for a short period. Laura and Mattie initially find all this greatly disturbing, especially when Mia temporarily takes control of Anita and talks to them like a person and not a synth. 3. Joe enables Anita's adult 18 mode, and takes sexual advantage of her. When he is found out he is kicked out by Laura.Anita is almost being sent back for recycling twice. First by Laura, who is freaked out by this weird synth who she thinks wants to steal her children. This is stopped by her son Toby Hawkins, who almost gets himself killed, but is saved by Anita. Later Joe tries to get Anita recycled to cover up his infidelity, but he is frustrated in this by Mattie, who kidnaps Anita by stealing the family car.Mia is ultimately reunited with Leo, who with Mattie's assistance is able to recover and permanently restablish the Mia persona.Mia feels guilty for having been the instrument of the breakup of Laura and Joe's marriage, and tries to make amends for this, even though it was not her fault (it was really with Anita that Joe was unfaithful, and besides which, Joe was in control as Anita's primary user). Partly to this end, Mia suggests to Laura that she should tell Joe the truth about Tom (Laura's long dead little brother), whether or not she decides to forgive Joe for his infidelity, realising that Laura needs to fully relieve herself of this burden of guilt. Laura eventually does so, and is it happens, their marriage is repaired, apparently at least in part as a result of Laura's confession about Tom.Mia and the other synths and Leo are all captured by Professor Eric Hobb. He wants to get the program to create sentient synths, but only to create sentient but obedient synth slaves, rather than sentient synths with free will. Thinking that he has that code, he instructs his technicians to have all the synths other than Fred (who he wants to keep as a docile trophy) destroyed . At the last minute he is blackmailed by Laura, with the technical assistance of Mattie, and the practical assistance of Toby and D.S. Pete Drummond, into releasing Mia, all the other sentient synths, and Leo.When Leo and all the sentient synths including Beatrice are mentally linked to run the sentience creation program in order to resurrect Max, Beatrice tries to use the program to destroy them all. Mia realises what Beatrice is doing, and successfully appeals to Beatrice's humanity to instead allow them all to live. Having resurrected Max, Mia, Leo and Max go into hiding togther, but separately from their siblings Niska and Fred. Niska wants her independence and goes her own way. Fred has been hacked and compromised by Professor Hobb, and so he (Fred) has to be left turned off and hidden. Show less «