Ben entertained his brothers and sisters with stories about the Nomolies, who "crawl up from the basement through special tunnels. And when you're not looking. . . Bam! They break through the wall and drag you away. They keep you as prisoner of war and eat you up, little by little, forever." Max's flashback showed a man kept inside a cell (X-2/0045D) who frightened the young X5s as they passed--the implication being that he and those like him were the inspiration for Ben's stories.

Max called Ben a Nomolie, implying that he was defective. The Nomolies continued to maintain power in Ben's imagination as he reacted strongly against Max's comment. Ben expressed fear both of the Nomolies and of what being defective meant at Manticore: "Don't leave me here. Don't let them take me. [. . .] Please. You know what they'll do to me. They'll put me down there with them. . . the Nomolies. Please."

These 'Nomolies' were, as Renfro later said, X2s. This class "imploded" and Manticore was forced to execute twenty-six of them. Four of them were left alive for observation, and they "will spend the rest of their miserable lives muzzled and restrained."

In Freak Nation, we learned that 'Nomolies' were living in Terminal City. The term was thus in use outside of Ben's unit, or was introduced to other classes by an X5 at some later date. In any case, this information means that either some of the four remaining X2s escaped the destruction of Manticore, or the word 'Nomolie' had a wider meaning than was stated in Pollo Loco.

Where to find X2: Pollo Loco, and they are very briefly mentioned in Freak Nation.