Xenome is a novel of anticipation that takes pace in Paris in a near future. Society is organised by the genetics of people. There are four human species, from the lowest to the highest: Homo Operaris, Homo Obediensis, Homo Nexilis and Homo Aureus. The main character, Yann, isn’t of any of this species.

 

Yann wakes up from a coma at the Louvre. Everything is new to him, every sensation, feeling or thought is a new world to explore. He wanders alone for a while until he sumbles upon a man, Joseph, a cleaner. Joseph helps him to get out of the museum and along the weeks, they become fast friends. Yann discovers the hierarchy of society and understand Joseph is special, he is an unbridled Operaris. He takes some drugs to allow him to free himself of genetic intellectual limits. He teaches Yann the basics of life and how society works. In exchange, Yann helps him in his day to day life. Together, they try to understand from where come Yann. When he woke up, he had a picture by himself, a code inked on his skin, now erased.

 

Meanwhile, Inspector Christophe Rouseel is sent to the Louvre to investigate about a theft of artworks. He is well known for his efficiency and rightfulness. He is a Nexilis. Like each one of his species, he is always connected to an Internet social network called the “websoc”. This Websoc records every actions and words of everyone connected. As a high ranked officer, he can turn off the connection for a while. But always with his cases in mind.

The stolen pieces are from a new form of art called lifeart, which manipulates the genome of the living. The inspector asks for all video recordings of the night it happened.

 

Finally, Naya assists undercover to a Discdoping game, in order to steal the genes of one of the players. She is an active member of the Infatum, a resistance movement whose goal is to help those left behind by the system: the unbridle Operaris and Obediensis as the fallen nexilis. Naya is an Obediensis completely unbridled. She might be the only one but she paid the price the free herself of the drugs others have to take. She is now mutilated by scars on her head and face because of the multiple surgeries she had. The player she is after plays for Fabrice Grenet’s team, aka The Marquis, a powerful man in mafia. Her theft goes wrong. The Marquis led her straight to the police, in exchange of services.

 

The recordings Christophe Roussel asked for reveal two man running from the Louvre late the night of the theft. One of them is Joseph and the inspector learns he is an unbridled Operaris. Protocol is clear for this situation they have to dispose of the man. They find Yann with him at his plce, but as his identity and species are unknown, they bring him to the police station.

 

Arriving at the police station, Roussel finds Naya there. An old enmity links them both. Now he found her, he can test her genome. He discovers she is unbridled and has the opportunity to dispose of her. Trapping her, he understands she is completely free of her species limits.

When suddenly a bomb explodes. Naya escapes taking Yann with her and another man, Victor Seurn, a Discdoping player. The attack was led by the Marquis who wanted to take care of the player who knows to much of his business. A chase begins in Paris. The trio finally succeeds to lose the police and they disappear in a zone with no Websoc.

Disappointed, Roussel won’t stop there. He retrieved Yann’s picture of the code he had so he has a new lead to follow. He browses the Websoc, however soon after his chief orders him to stop his investigations. This is a special demand coming from TransTrad, the leading genetic company. The inspector’s only chance relies on Yann’s blood tests. And it reveals he is a Homo Sapiens.

Naya, Yann and Victor are met by Nox and a small team, also members of the Infatum. They have to cross Paris to get to their headquarters without drawing attention in the Websoc. False profiles are given to those connected. However good their caution, they are spotted by the police and Marquis’ men while in a train station. Among the group, some die and it seems to be from the network itself. Those left escape.

 

Inspector Roussel receives a private call from Armand Gasnier, an Aureus an CEO of the TransTrad. He isn’t subtle in his threat and wants to know where he found the code. Roussel talks in return of information. The code is about a molecule that stop some biological functions, but Armand GAsnier doesn’t tell him which. The inspector feels that the case is bigger than thought and adds TransTrad in his suspects.

At night, he enters TransTrad off Websoc to find confidential info to know more. He discovers that even the company doesn’t really know its function, but it’s linked to biologist Maelle Crassier.

 

At the Infatum, tests are run on Yann. The organization discovers too that he is a Homo Sapiens. They decide to find the Archivist, someone who can give them information about him, his identity and what he could represent for their cause.

 

Armand Gasnier understand the TransTrad was hacked. This only means someone that is able to disconnect itself from the Websoc for some time, otherwise, the attack would have been noticed. He first thinks about the inspector, then he has another thought. It could come from the man he hired to steal the artworks from the Louvre who would try to overrun him: the Marquis.

 

Inspector Roussel goes deeper in his investigation. Along the way he discovers that Maelle Crassier is a lifeartist and now dead. He understands that Yann is one of her pieces. She created a Homo Sapiens, an extinct species. To him, a non-reported biological artwork in flight is reason enough to obtain the means to stop him.

 

An operation is taking form at the Infatum to see the Archivist. A special care is given to security. The Archivist is an important figure but a clandestine one who is difficult to meet. She is shrouded in a layer of mystery. No one really knows who she is nor of what species. The meeting takes place in an abandoned subway station.

The Archivist tells the Infatum an important information that has the power to tilt things to their side. Biotechnological material is to be transferred. If the Infatum takes hold of it, it could help them free more people from their condition. Then, she explains to Yann from where he comes, that he is Maelle Crassier artwork and that he has the ability to modify his DNA on demand. This piece of news makes him go into choc. He has a kind of seizure under the pressure and the need for answer. Suddenly, the Websoc opens to him.

 

Yann’s connection makes him visible on the network. The police, ready to act, rushes to catch them. A lot of Infatum members and Archivist’s bodyguards die in the intervention. Yann and Naya escape but are cut from the rest of the surviving. Without any mean to go discreetly go back to the headquarters, they hide and try to focus on the information they obtained.

 

Meanwhile, Roussel is taken before a disciplinary commission. Whereas he only did his job, TransTrad CEO wants to make him fall for disobeying him and going after the Homo Sapiens, which he considers a propriety of his company. Christophe Roussel his destituted. He has nothing left. As he wanders in the streets of the city, he realises Armand Gasnier knows too much to be innocent. He tries to find Naya and Yann to tell them what he knows.

 

Armand Gasnier calls the Marquis. It was him who asked the thug to take care of the theft at the Louvre. However, as Gasnier in not sure Yann is the piece he is looking for, he asks the Marquis to keep stealing artworks. Because this is not a gene or an ability the CEO wants, but a message the artist would have hidden in the DNA of one of them. They end the call. The Marquis’ curiosity is piqued. He goes in his basement to question one of his prisoner, Paul Lindon, a man Maelle Crassier knew very well.

 

The encounter is tense between Naya, Yann and Roussel. He gives a digital notebook where all the info he got about Maelle Crassier is recorded. In exchange, he asks for help for his daughter. She is a victim of his unfair judgement too. Naya is sorry to inform him that the only one able to help him is the Marquis, his demand being highly illegal.

 

The notebook countains some letters from the artist Maelle Crassier where Yann and Naya leanr how society change to become what it is. They discover her growing friendship with the man who was her sponsor, Alexandre Devaux, too. A wealthy man with whom she entertained an epistolary relationship. They never met and everything came through Paul Lindon, his Nexilis butler. The writings show the artist’s doubts about Yann’s creation. She finally set a plan in motion and despite Devaux’s reluctance she will bear the embryo herself. She leaves an enigmatic message about a discovery she can’t let go and a code 17 3’ 2154. The only lead for Yann and Naya is to find Paul Lindon. They would be able to know whether he is still alive thanks to his Websoc profile, but for that, they have to go back to the Infatum.

 

At the Infatum, they find a depressed Nox. He is chocked by the loses they underwent. Looking for Paul Lindon, they are helped by Voctor Seurn, still on the run, that he is held captive at the Marquis’ place.

 

Christophe Roussel go to the Marquis’ place in order to arrange things for her daughter. The man can’t help him, however the Marquis is really interested in Roussel who investigated Armand Gasner. Under the threat, Roussel has no other choice than to reveal Yann’s secret, that he can modify his DNA.

 

Victor Seurn convinces the Marquis to take Yann in his team in exchange of the protection he can offer Yann against Armand Gasnier. Yann plays the game but it is only a diversion in order for Naya to infiltrate the Marquis’ place. Armand Gasnier send the police to the game and the whole stadium is evacuated. At the same time, the Marquis’ receives a call that informs him Lindon and Roussel escaped. Naya is wounded during their flight. After having found a place to rest, Paul Lindon tells Naya and Roussel that the Homo sapiens is Alexandre Devaux, the former sponsor of Maelle Crassier.

 

Yann is wounded too while fleeing from the field. He is helped by the Archivist who shows inhuman powers. She explains to him that she is a Psyborg, one of the last. They were robots in which a human conscience was placed. She is virually immortal and is now about 170. She tells him why TransTrad is so much interested in him, going a few years back to events that happened at the beginning of the 21st century. The technology she is from was engineered by Martin Devaux. With others they created a goup of immortal of which the Marquis was a member. At first, their goal was to expand the technology but they quickly realised they lost their humanity with each decade. No more feeling nor emotion in this artificial body. A war was declared between Psyborgs and humans, lead by Armand Gasnier’s father.

 

Naya tries to explain to Paul that Yann is not Alexandre Devaux, she tells him how he came to awareness. He is upset about the news. Alexandre Martin DEvaux was a consciousness in the Websoc, deprived of a body. He was after a way to find a one through Maelle Crassier’s creation. Paul has barely enough time to give them the key to decipher the code in Yann’s DNA before the Marquis finds them and kill him. Soon after, Naya dies of her wounds. Christophe Roussel joins the Infatum on his own.

 

In the coded message, Maelle hid the secret to genetic immortality, how their society was set in place and Yann’s abilities to change it.

 

Yann is destroyed by Naya’s death. He refuses to be a Messiah and the weight of it. He modifies his DNA to lose each one of his abilities, to become a normal human being. The Infatum has got everything it needs to bring the TransTrad down. Yann won’t be a part of this fight, leaves and disappears.