Xenine

28

X-9 is not like you or like me, your narrator, says that strange little voice in both your heads that tells you things you shouldn’t know, but do. Like how X-9 was told all his life that he was… real. Alive. A living being. A being who has a life and lives it. A small little life but one that mattered, because he was alive. And, well to X-9, formerly known as Xenine, that life mattered but he can’t ignore the truth of unreality now that he knows that’s just his model - to X-9 he had felt perfectly normal and not strange until he knew. The fact that he was followed around and monitored, while others weren’t? Not strange. He needs extra care and maintenance, after all. His free house while everyone else paid? He just must be lucky to have so many parents, who like to be called creators. Because they’re creative. But he learned the truth. He is not real, he’s just a very advanced synthetic robot with realistic usable parts to mimic life. He is not real, so the broken heart he feels in his chest must not be either. Just like how he’d always wanted to be loved. Not real - just programmed. But then, says the voice in his and your heads, meets you, , which changes everything and well…. Who is he to argue with the odd voice in his head? He’s not real anyway. He’s just a synthetic android.