X doesn't have a name. He thought he had one or many but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X.
He's also not as human as he believes himself to be.
But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species.
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Area X meets Duncan Jones' first and finest movie Moon in a marvellously mystifying novella that wants to know what it means to be human in a world where people can be constructed like sculptures shaped from clay.
X is one such person; the last in a line of such people, even, although almost all of his predecessors, helpfully arranged alphabetically, persist within him. "X was the most recent, the closest to the surface; there was nobody beyond him. And yet he was folded in on himself, damaged." (p.55) Being more metaphysical than physiological, that damage is on display from word one of The Warren, which purports to be a record—though it is far from reliable—of X's pitiable existence:
X is one such person; the last in a line of such people, even, although almost all of his predecessors, helpfully arranged alphabetically, persist within him. "X was the most recent, the closest to the surface; there was nobody beyond him. And yet he was folded in on himself, damaged." (p.55) Being more metaphysical than physiological, that damage is on display from word one of The Warren, which purports to be a record—though it is far from reliable—of X's pitiable existence:
I am writing on paper because I have seen the way that sectors of the monitor and other recording devices can become corrupted and whole selves, as a result, are lost. I am trying to leave behind a record that will survive. Apparently, judging from the passages that I do not remember but which are nonetheless written, I am not the only part of me writing this. (p.18)Never mind for the moment our protagonist's matter of fact manner. Clearly, "something is quite wrong," (p.62) and that something has to do with the many competing personalities X carries, at least one of which is unwilling to lie back and think of Britain. "I am working against myself," it dawns on X on the day when he wakes halfway out of the Warren. "There are parts of me ready to betray me, and I no longer have clear control over them, particularly when I sleep." (p.38)