I

Since the world ended, humanity had found refuge in the Weave—a vast, digital sanctuary where eternity could be real, food was no longer a concern, and life could become anything you wanted. Or so they said. The truth was less perfect, of course. No matter how much the Weave tried to imitate paradise, it couldn’t escape the one thing that had always ruled humanity: money. Even here, people scrambled to own what they could while others struggled to get by with less.

I was no different.

I descended the stairs of my apartment building, the scuffed linoleum underfoot reminding me that even in a digital world, imperfections could be coded in. Outside, the sliding glass doors hissed open, and the artificial sunlight poured over the streets. The bus stop sat just a few steps away, a sleek silver bench where I joined a handful of others waiting for our morning commute.

The bus arrived in near silence, floating a few inches off the ground, its sides gleaming with dynamic ads for the latest ITEMs. I tapped my smartphone to the scanner as I climbed on board. Fifty-five bytes vanished from my account, and I suppressed a sigh. Not a huge sum, but enough to remind me that nothing in the Weave came free.

I took the first seat by the door, the synthetic leather cool beneath me. My phone buzzed faintly in my hand, a reminder of the novel I’d been reading. It was a relic of the Before—some wild tale about gods and monsters, written by someone who probably never imagined their work would survive an apocalypse. I lost myself in the story as the city of Amway blurred past the tinted windows.

Amway was all I’d ever known.

I was born here, in the Weave. They say people in the Before lived in a physical world, tethered to their fragile bodies. I couldn’t imagine it. Here, life was simple—clean and efficient. We didn’t have flesh or blood. We were data, and the Weave was our only world. No hunger, no disease, no death. But also no escape.

When my stop arrived, the bus hissed to a halt, and I stepped onto the street. Towering ahead was the Works Amway building, its logo spinning lazily above the entrance. I adjusted my suit jacket, checked my ID card, and crossed through the sliding doors.

The Works was the leading company in ITEM development. If you owned a smartphone, a pair of holo-glasses, or even the augmented sneakers currently trending among teens, chances were the Works had a hand in making it. My job? To test and analyze these creations before they reached the public.

It wasn’t glamorous.

“Good morning, Owen Hart. You are cleared,” the security guard said after a thorough scan of my ID and a quick pat-down.

“Good morning to you too,” I replied with a grin, stepping past him toward the elevators.

The ride up to my floor was smooth, the soft hum of the lift barely audible. When the doors opened, I made my way to my cubicle, a gray little corner decorated with a single fake plant and a digital frame displaying random scenic images. I set my briefcase down and powered on my workstation. The giant office clock on the wall ticked over to eight o’clock sharp.

Right on time.

I was an ITEM analyst—a fancy term for what was essentially a tester of any kind of Immaterial Tangible Emulation Module or ITEM for short. Blueprints for new ITEMs would arrive in my inbox, and my job was to run simulations, identify flaws, and send reports back to the engineers. It was grunt work, but it paid the bills—or, more accurately, kept my byte balance above zero.

As a Level 1, being an ITEM analyst was the best job I could hope for. Honestly, it was better than most. Level 1s were usually stuck with waste disposal, cleaning, or whatever odd jobs no one else wanted to do. It wasn’t glamorous, but the alternatives were worse.

I glanced at the setup in front of me: a standard PC and a Holo-Simulator. Nothing fancy, but functional enough to get the job done. My PC hummed faintly as I logged in, the screen filling with yesterday’s reports and emails from higher-ups. Today’s assignments were already waiting in my inbox.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The first task was a blueprint for a new ITEM—a pencil, of all things. Simple, but that was part of my job. Not everything that came through was a groundbreaking innovation; often times, it was just improving the basics.

I downloaded the blueprint and transferred it to the Holo-Simulator. The sleek device blinked to life, projecting the pencil into existence. It floated before me, shimmering faintly like all holograms did.

The pencil had a three-hour simulation duration. For the next three hours, my sole task was to use it, examine it, and log every detail. I pulled up a fresh sheet of simulated bond paper from the Holo-Simulator.

The pencil’s weight felt off—too light to be real. Of course, it wasn’t real. It was made entirely of holographic data. Still, the engineers were aiming for accuracy, so even minor discrepancies mattered.

I pressed the pencil to the paper, the tip gliding smoothly across the surface. It worked. No glitches, no lag, no awkward pauses where the simulator failed to process the movement. I scribbled a few random words, testing how it responded to quick motions. Then, I tried sketching.

My drawings were as bad as expected—crudely drawn stick figures and uneven shapes that looked like a child’s first attempt at art. The pencil, however, performed perfectly. The lines were sharp, the shading smooth. It didn’t even need sharpening, staying at the same perfect point no matter how much I used it.

The hours crawled by as I doodled and scrawled on one piece of paper after another. The pencil was consistent. It wasn’t exciting work, but it was important. The Weave’s stability relied on ITEMS like these being flawless when they reached the public.

By the end of the test, I’d gone through more simulated paper than I cared to count. I flexed my fingers, stiff from three hours of writing and drawing.

Not a bad way to start the day.

If the simulation had real weight, I would’ve tested the pencil’s durability too. Maybe slammed it against a table or snapped it in half, just to see how much it could take before breaking. But that wasn’t an option—not here, not with holograms. Instead, I checked the clock. I had an hour left before my break, plenty of time to type up the report.

I started furiously typing on my PC. Writing about the pencil was easy—straightforward. No complications, no unexpected bugs or issues. It performed exactly as intended, even if it wasn’t particularly exciting.

When the clock finally struck noon, I saved my work and headed to the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was buzzing with life, people chatting and laughing, holographic trays piled high with food. Eating wasn’t a necessity in the Weave—it hadn’t been since the old world ended—but it had become a luxury. Maybe it was instinct, something ingrained in the human experience, passed down from the Before. Whatever it was, people still wanted to eat.

I wanted to eat too, though I felt out of place here.

The Levels were displayed above everyone’s heads: [Level 2] [Level 2] [Level 3] [Level 2] [Level 4] [Level 2]. There were plenty of Level 2s around, even a sprinkling of 3s and 4s. But me? I was the only Level 1 in the room.

Well, almost. The janitor—also a Level 1—was mopping near the corner. He glanced at me briefly before turning back to his work and disappearing down a hallway.

I joined the line at the vending machines. In the novels I read, vending machines were always seen as inferior to real food, a cheap alternative for the desperate. Here in the Weave, though, the vending machines were different. They could replicate culinary delicacy, down to the smallest detail. The advertisements said it was even better than the real thing. 

Not like people would know.

When it was my turn, I paid 355 bytes for curry and rice. It stung a little—that was five bus rides’ worth—but I could afford it. Working for the Works had its perks, even for someone at my level.

“Hey, Owen!” a familiar voice called. “Over here! Let’s eat together!”

Charlie waved at me from across the room, gesturing to an empty seat he’d saved.

Charlie was a nice guy—probably the only friend I had here. He was a Level 3, which made his kindness even more surprising. Most people in his position wouldn’t give someone like me the time of day. But Charlie wasn’t like most people.

He had blonde hair, sharp blue eyes, and an easy smile. Unlike me, he came from wealth. Born through Data Inheritance, Charlie actually had parents—real ones, not just random spawning like most of us. His dad, apparently, had forced him into this job as an ITEM analyst to “build character.”

For a Level 3, ITEM analysis was considered low-tier work. But for me, it was a lifeline.

I sat down across from him, setting my tray on the table.

“So,” Charlie said between bites of his sandwich, “anything new or exciting recently?”

I shrugged, poking at my curry with a spoon. “Nah. Same old, same old.”

He grinned. “Come on, there’s gotta be something. What’s your current project?”

“A pencil,” I said flatly. “Three hours of testing it on virtual paper. It worked. That’s about it.”

Charlie laughed. “A pencil, huh? You must be living the dream.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “Yeah, it’s the glamorous life of a Level 1.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short. You’re good at what you do.”

I gave him a small smile, but the words didn’t quite reach me. Charlie meant well, but there was always a gap between us—a gap I couldn’t cross. He was a Level 3, born into privilege. I was a Level 1, just scraping by.

Still, for a moment, it was nice to pretend we were the same.