Version 1.05.0

  Friday October 7th

  I woke up wrapped in my brown blanket, staring at ice blue walls, with absolutely no idea what to do with myself.

  No alarm. No commute. No Meridian presentation to obsess over. No Daniel to avoid. No coworkers to make small talk with in the break room while pretending I wasn't counting the minutes until I could get back to my desk. But the thing about workaholics is that they’re still workaholics when you take away the work. So, what was a suspended-but-probably-fired-senior-designer to do when there wasn’t a project to obsess over? Find a new obsession of course.

  I shuffled to the kitchen, where my dead coffee maker sat on the counter like a monument to my failures. The E7 was gone now, replaced by nothing at all, because I'd tried to fix it with my new abilities and had instead apparently fried its entire system. I made do with instant coffee from a packet I found in the back of my pantry. It tasted like regret.

  If I was going to have some kind of reality-altering superpower, the least I could do was be scientific about it. I grabbed a sheet of notebook paper from the junk drawer and my newly purple pen.

  At the top of the page, I wrote:

  Stats

  Current Level: 2 (I think? Voice said "level up" twice)

  Abilities:

  Code Vision: Can see the code of the universe.

  Color Shift beginner: Can adjust color of small or non-complex objects. (Successfully changed: pen, blanket, wall, book cover)

  What I can't do (yet?): Everything else Fix a coffee maker apparently (RIP Breville)

  Physical symptoms:

  Headaches (severe → moderate with practice)

  Nausea (severe → moderate) Nosebleeds (unpredictable)

  Vomiting (that one time, hopefully not again)

  Questions: Why me? What is the code? Who made it? Is reality actually a simulation or am I just insane? What triggers level ups? Is there a level cap? If I change something, does it stay changed forever? Can other people see what I've changed? Can anyone else see the code?

  I stared at the list. It was pathetically short. Two abilities. A bunch of questions. And the distinct possibility that I was having a prolonged psychotic break.

  Well. Only one way to find out more.

  I spent most of the day practicing. Small things. Safe things. I changed the color of a pillow from black to purple. I made a Post-it note shift from yellow to pale green. I turned a white mug pale blue, then back to white, then to a soft gray. Each change came easier than the last, the headaches diminishing from sharp stabs to dull throbs. My body was adapting. Learning.

  I tried to change the shape of the pen, to make it longer. The code resisted. I pushed harder. Nothing happened except a spike of pain behind my eyes and a trickle of blood from my nose.

  I added to my notes: Shape changes = not possible at Level 2? Need more practice or higher level?

  By mid-afternoon, I'd filled most of the page with observations. The margins were covered in scribbled theories and questions. I needed a proper journal for this. Something that felt official. Something that would make me feel less like I was losing my mind and more like I was conducting legitimate research.

  Tomorrow. I'd go shopping tomorrow. Buy a journal, maybe some other things. Start putting my life back together, or at least assembling the pieces into a new shape.

  I folded the notebook paper carefully and tucked it into my desk drawer. Then I made myself a sad frozen dinner, watched TV without really seeing it, and fell asleep on the couch wondering what the hell I was becoming.

  * * *

  Saturday October 8th

  I woke up with sunlight stabbing me in the eyes and a strange feeling that I couldn’t immediately identify. It took me a second to recognize it: anticipation. I actually wanted to get out of bed. I had something to do.

  I lay there for a while, staring at my ceiling, and tried to figure out how I felt about that. The ceiling stared back, offering no guidance. I rolled over and looked at the walls. They were a deep burgundy here in my bedroom. I'd done that. With my brain. Because apparently that was a thing I could do now. I thought about the notebook paper in my desk drawer, covered in questions I didn’t know how to answer.

  My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn't eaten anything substantial since Kate had force-fed me pizza Thursday. I should probably address that. I should probably address a lot of things. Like the fact that I'd been fired. And that I could see the code underlying reality. And that I'd changed the color of my walls and my blanket using nothing but concentrated will and a side of projectile vomiting.

  Normal Saturday stuff. Fuck it. If my life was going to be weird now I might as well lean into it.

  I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen, where my dead coffee maker sat on the counter like an accusation.

  "I really need to get better at this," I muttered, opening the fridge. The contents were depressing: half a container of leftover Thai from two weeks ago that had probably achieved sentience, some questionable milk, and three different kinds of hot sauce. I closed the fridge.

  My bank account had $4,127.83 in checking and about $15,000 in savings. Not a lot, but enough to survive for a few months if I was careful. Or enough to completely transform my life if I wasn't.

  I thought about Kate's face when she'd noticed the walls. The way her eyes had gone wide before she'd smoothed her expression into something more neutral. "Did you paint?" she'd asked, and I'd deflected, changed the subject, pretended it was nothing.

  But it wasn't nothing. It was everything. I'd been boring for so long and I'd suppressed my style. But I could change reality. I could rewrite the code of the universe, or at least the small corner of it that included my sad apartment and my sadder blanket.

  And I was sitting here eating nothing for breakfast because I didn't want to spend money on groceries. Fuck that. I transferred money over from my savings, got dressed, grabbed my keys, and finally headed out.

  Time to go shopping.

  * * *

  The first stop was Target, because where else do you go when you want to impulse-buy your way through an existential crisis?

  I grabbed a cart and just... started walking. I grabbed new make-up. Walking through the aisle I grabbed everything one would need in a recreating-yourself-because-you-got-fired-and-then-discovered-superpowers-way. Fresh bold eyeshadow palettes, mascara, kiss me lipstick, and a few other things that caught my eye. I scoured the clothes section picking colored shirts out for my wardrobe.

  A very cute top in my size caught my eye. It was cut in a flattering way but the only issue was that it was in a neutral grey. I held the shirt savoring the feel of the cool soft fabric between my fingers. But I was looking for things that would draw attention to me rather than allow me to fade into the background. If I was going to find someone to take to Thanksgiving I probably should start soon.

  After making sure no one was around to see me I concentrated on the shirt. Looked for the familiar bit in the code I knew would change it and after pushing through the expected headache I held a deep red shirt between my fingers instead.

  I smiled to myself and worked my way over toward intimates. I picked out lingerie mostly because I hadn't refreshed in awhile and didn't want to embarrass myself should anything come to anything. You know, just in case.

  Moving over into homegoods I found throw pillows that weren't gray. Several plants that I would probably kill but at least they were alive right now. Curtains, actual curtains, in a deep emerald green that made me think of forests and magic and all the things my apartment had never been.

  In the electronics section, I paused in front of the laptops. My old one was fine. Functional. It got the job done. Mostly because the job was on the work computer that they'd confiscated when I packed my desk up. But it was also a reminder of Holloway. Of logging into work systems, of late nights on whatever project I was obsessing over, of everything I'd lost. And besides, if I was going to find a new job, I probably needed something with a bit more processing power than my ten-year-old MacBook.

  I grabbed a nice one. The new M chip kind. The kind I'd always looked at and thought "someday" about. Someday was apparently today.

  The cart was beyond getting full. I added a coffee maker, because obviously. A second pass through home goods had me picking up some art prints that actually appealed to me instead of the generic "modern art" I'd always thought I should like.

  And on my way to the register I stopped in the stationery aisle. There were planners and calendars and journals. Some had cute pictures, or clever phrases. A journal that said, "Definitely Not Evil Plans" in gold embossed font caught my eye. I plucked it from the shelf turning it over in my hands. The leather was soft, supple. The pages were thick and creamy. It felt like the kind of journal that belonged to someone who had their life together. Someone who knew what they were doing. But also someone who was funny. That's who I wanted to be.

  The total came to $4,847.62. I tapped my card without flinching. Luckily I'd transferred money over from my savings. The cashier gave me the look that retail workers give customers who are clearly going through something, but she didn't say anything. Bless her.

  I stopped at the grocery store and bought way too many frozen appetizers, bottles of wine, and various snacks and goodies that I almost never indulged in. Grabbing several containers of fresh fruit and a pack of bakery fresh bagels while I was at it. Did I have a toaster? I paused picturing my counter and decided that I did not have a toaster and headed over to the small appliance aisle. Here I grabbed a toaster, an air fryer, and a few odds and ends that I'd never gotten around to picking out for my apartment. Finally, I was smiling as I headed towards the checkout.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  * * *

  I made one more stop before heading home.

  The Dusty Page was wedged between a dry cleaner and a nail salon on a block I'd walked past a hundred times without really seeing. The sign was hand-painted, slightly faded, the kind of thing you'd miss if you were looking at your phone. Which I usually was. But today I was looking up. Today I was looking at everything.

  A bell jingled when I pushed the door open, and the smell hit me first. Old paper and coffee and something like cinnamon, warm and complicated and immediately comforting. The store was small but deep, stretching back further than the narrow storefront suggested. Shelves at odd angles created little alcoves and dead ends. A fat orange tabby cat was asleep on the checkout counter, one paw draped over the edge like he owned the place.

  "Don't mind Hemingway," said a voice from somewhere behind the shelves. "He's very busy doing nothing."

  The man who emerged was tall and slightly stooped, with white hair and wire-rimmed glasses sitting crooked on his nose. He wore a cardigan over a button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and had a pen tucked behind his ear. His face was a road map of laugh lines.

  "Can I help you find something, or are you the browsing type?" He said it like both options were equally valid.

  "Browsing, I think. Maybe a journal?"

  "Journals are in the back. Past the dragons, left at the mysteries." He smiled, and the laugh lines deepened into something genuinely warm. "I'm Art, by the way. If you need anything, just holler. Or don't. Browsing is an underrated art form."

  I wandered. The shelves were organized by someone with strong opinions and a loose relationship with the Dewey Decimal System. Hand-painted signs pointed to different sections in a familiar scrawl: "Dragons and Destiny This Way." "Heartbreak and Healing." "Books We Haven't Read But The Covers Are Pretty."

  I found the fantasy section and stopped. The Throne of Light series was there, all four books, spine out on the shelf with a handwritten index card tucked beneath them: If you only read one romantasy series this decade, make it this one. Trust me.

  "Ah, you found the good stuff."

  I turned. Art had materialized beside me the way bookstore owners do, silent and knowing.

  "You've read these?" I asked, holding up the first book.

  "Three times through." He adjusted his glasses, which immediately went crooked again. "My wife got me hooked. She was the fantasy reader. I was more of a Hemingway man, hence the cat. But Margaret insisted, and Margaret was always right about books." He paused, something flickering across his face. Quick and private. "She was right about most things."

  "I'm on book four," I said. "Audiobook. The narrator is incredible."

  "Oh, the narrator is a treasure. But you should read the physical copies too. There are details in the margins of book three that the audiobook misses entirely." He pulled the third book off the shelf, flipped to a specific page, and pointed. There, in tiny print along the bottom edge, was an author's note I'd never seen.

  "Huh," I said. "I had no idea."

  "That's what bookstores are for." He slid the book back into place. "Finding the things you didn't know you were missing."

  I didn't buy a journal that day. Nothing felt right. But I bought a used copy of a sci-fi novel with a gorgeous cover and a recommendation from Art ("Trust me, the first chapter will make you furious and the last chapter will make you cry"), and I left The Dusty Page with the strange, warm feeling of having found a place I'd want to come back to.

  * * *

  Back at my apartment, I stood in the middle of my living room surrounded by Target bags and tried to figure out where to start.

  The audiobook I'd been listening to was still queued up on my phone. I hit play and let the narrator's voice fill the silence as I started unpacking.

  "The Faerie King's hands were cold as ice as they wrapped around her throat. 'You thought you could escape me?' he whispered. 'You thought you could run?'"

  Damn, that guy is a fucknugget, I hope he gets what he deserves. I laughed as the plain and unpopular girl turned heroine struggled to get away and then fled to the arms of the very obvious not-villain whom she'd hated at the beginning of the tale. I loved these books. The trashier the better.

  I plugged my new toaster and coffee maker in ignoring the pamphlets that came with each. I mean come on, a toaster has like what, one button and a lever? Why does it need so many pages explaining how to use it? As my coffee brewed and my breakfast, more like late lunch now, toasted I began emptying things from bags and putting them away.

  Once the groceries were away and I was properly caffeinated, I started with the curtains. The green looked even better than I'd hoped, warming up the ice blue walls in a way that made the whole room feel like somewhere a person might actually want to be. The throw pillows went on the couch, breaking up the gray monotony. The plants were sprinkled around the room breathing literal life into the space. I eyed each of them and where I'd placed them. Having never been a plant-owner they would hopefully get enough light to survive my inevitable neglect.

  The art prints needed frames. I'd forgotten to buy frames. Amateur move. I set them on the table next to the box I’d brought home from Holloway, days ago now. The photo of Sarah and I staring up at me from the top of the stack. I ignored it and went back to sprucing up the apartment. Colors that were a shade or two off I edited myself to bring the perfect color balance to the room. Everything matched perfectly and looked as if it had been created custom just for this room. And it was partially correct.

  But as I worked, something strange happened. The room started to feel... different. Not just because of the new stuff. Because of me. Because I was actually putting effort into making this space mine, for the first time in three years.

  When I finally stepped back to look at what I'd done, it still looked like an apartment that belonged to someone who didn't quite know how to decorate a three dimensional space. But it also looked like an apartment that belonged to someone who was trying. And that was something.

  * * *

  Setting up the computer things started to dampen my good mood. I logged into my cloud account. Downloaded the apps I needed. Normal computer setup stuff. And then, while things were downloading I decided to check my email. Sitting there were multiple emails from . I deleted all of the spam emails and adverts that had come through the last three days before I worked up the courage to open the first email from Rebecca. It was just a formal recap of the conversation. Details about what being on leave meant and what I was and was not allowed to do and access. Leave would be without pay but benefits would continue to the end of the month. As I skimmed it I felt my ears ringing and the words became harder and harder to read.

  It was everywhere. On the screen, obviously, but also in the screen. The pixels themselves were made of something, some underlying structure that I could almost see if I let my eyes unfocus just right. Like the static on the walls, but denser. More complex. A language written in a language written in a language. So small, so infinitely complex I could barely concentrate. I closed my tab out, rubbed my eyes and I forced myself to focus.

  Then I opened my bank's website. The login screen looked normal enough. Username. Password. The little button that said "Remember me" that I never clicked because I was paranoid about security on my work laptop.

  I logged in and navigated to my account summary. $280.21 remained in checking after the Target and grocery spree. The numbers sat there on the screen, black text on a white background, completely innocuous.

  I let my focus soften remembering Rebecca's email. Without pay. All that hard work. Years of unpaid overtime working my way up the ladder for what? For suspension without pay. I'd forgone vacation days. Never called in sick and the company hadn't even bothered to hear me out.

  The static crept in at the edges of my vision, and suddenly the numbers weren't just numbers anymore. They were code. Dense, intricate code that connected to other code that connected to servers somewhere that connected to the actual financial systems that made the world go round.

  It was beautiful. And terrifying. And so, so complicated.

  I'd changed a blanket. I'd changed some walls. Those were simple things, single objects with relatively straightforward code. This was... this was the entire financial infrastructure of modern civilization, reduced to scrolling symbols that I could barely comprehend.

  But somewhere in there were the numbers in my account. And numbers were just numbers. Just values in a database. Just code.

  I focused on my balance. $280.21. I could see the individual digits now, each one a cluster of symbols that represented its value. The 2 at the beginning. The 8. The 0. The decimal point. The 2 and the 1.

  What if I just... added something?

  I concentrated on the space between the first 2 and 8. Pushed, gently, the way I'd learned to push when changing the blanket.

  The pressure built behind my eyes immediately. Sharper than before. The code was denser here, more resistant. I pushed harder.

  Pain lanced through my skull. My vision blurred. My stomach heaved. I jerked back from the computer, gasping. The code vanished. The numbers on the screen read $280.25. Not the massive change I'd been going for. But the cents had shifted from .21 to .25. Something had moved.

  "Okay," I said, breathing hard. "Okay. That's... that's harder."

  I sat there for a few minutes, letting the nausea pass. Then I tried again.

  This time I went slower. Gentler. Instead of trying to shove a new digit into existence, I focused on just one number. The 0 in the middle of my balance. Such a sad, empty little number. What if it was a 5 instead?

  I found the code for the 0. It was simpler than I'd expected, once I really looked at it. Just a representation of nothing. An absence. Then I looked at the code in the ones place in my .25 cents. I memorized the curves of the symbol that represented a five.

  I nudged the zero. Just a tiny push. The pressure built, but manageable this time. I held the focus, held the intention, and pushed.

  The code shifted.The nausea hit immediately, but I pushed it away. I kept my eyes open, watched the screen, watched the numbers. $285.25. I stared at it. Refreshed the page. $285.25. I'd just created five dollars out of nothing. Well. Not nothing. Out of the fabric of reality itself, apparently. But same difference.

  "No, fucking way," I whispered as blood dripped down my face and splattered on my brand new trackpad.

  LEVEL UP.

  The voice rang through my head, clear and calm as always. Level 3, I assumed. Though it would be nice if the mysterious notification system came with actual numbers instead of just vague announcements.

  I sat back in my chair, heart pounding. Nausea rolling through my body. A light sweat had broken out on my forehead and I felt clammy. Five dollars. I'd just added five dollars to my bank account by thinking about it. Five dollars that hadn't existed, that had no origin, that had appeared from nowhere.

  The ethical implications were... complicated. I was essentially counterfeiting money. Creating currency out of thin air. That was illegal. That was probably some kind of federal crime. That was...

  That was also the only way I was going to survive without crawling back to a job market that thought I was a thief. The irony was not lost on me. Becoming a thief because I had been framed a thief.

  I looked at my balance again. $285.25. The 5 sat there, completely innocuous. No alarms going off. No FBI agents bursting through my door. Just five extra dollars that hadn't existed thirty seconds ago.

  I grabbed my new journal and after copying down level 2. My observations and questions from the previous night on the loose notebook paper I turned to a fresh page.

  Stats

  Current Level: 3

  Abilities:

  Code Vision: Can see the code of the universe.

  Color Shift beginner: Can adjust color of small or non-complex objects.

  Digital Manipulation: Can adjust numeric value on website.

  What I don’t know:

  Everything else

  How often do I water plants

  Physical symptoms:

  Headaches (severe → moderate)

  Nausea (severe → moderate)

  Nosebleeds (still occurring. Need more tissues, and maybe some peroxide)

  Questions: How do I apply symmetrical eyeliner wings? How much can I add to my bank account? How can I get back at the little cockwomble, Daniel? What do I tell Kate? What does leveling up mean?

  Current emotional state: Terrified. Exhilarated. Guilty. Confused. Angry.

  I paused a second and added Lonely to the end of that line.

  Then I looked back at my computer. I grabbed a wipe and cleaned the dried blood off of my trackpad. My bank had logged me out due to inactivity so I logged back in. I dismissed a notification about unusual spending on my account and looked back at my balance. $285.25. What a small and insignificant number. What was another zero?

  I focused on the balance again. Concentrated back on the code for the 5 I'd just created. And next to it, I worked on adding the symbol back for a 0.

  $2,850.25.

  The nausea was worse this time, but still manageable. I breathed through it, let it pass. Then I added another zero.

  $28,500.25.

  The room spun. I grabbed the edge of my desk and held on, breathing slowly, waiting for the world to stabilize. When it did, I looked at the screen again.

  Twenty-eight thousand dollars. I had twenty-eight thousand dollars in my checking account. Enough to live on for at least 4 months. Enough to not worry about rent or groceries or any of the mundane concerns that had been pressing on me since the moment Rebecca's sickly sweet voice had asked me to come to Conference Room B.

  I wrote down my findings in my journal illustrating the symbols for 5 and 0. I closed the laptop and sat in the silence of my newly partially decorated apartment. I'd just stolen money. From... whom? The bank? The economy in general? The fabric of reality? I wasn't sure. But I'd done it. And I couldn't exactly put it back.

  Could I? If I could. Would I? I decided not to think about that too hard. Instead, I continued writing.

  main page and hit follow and favorite, or leave a rating. Reviews keep small authors alive (emotionally, if not financially. Your support means more than my emotionally repressed self will ever properly articulate.)

  Want to read ahead? My has the rest of book one and a bonus prequel chapter. Patience is overrated anyway.