Most of the characters in We are represented by a number, and, in fact, the narrator and main character, D-503, often describes the population in general as the Numbers. The male characters, such as the narrator, R.13 (the poet laureate of the One State), and S-4711 (a secret police agent) are represented by odd numbers, while the female characters—such as the narrator's love interests, I-330 and O-90—are represented by even numbers. All numbers are printed on the light blue "unif" (uniform) that everybody wears.

The Numbers, hundreds, thousands of Numbers in light blue unifs with gold badges on the chest—the state number of each one, male or female—the Numbers were walking slowly, four abreast, exaltedly keeping step.

At the beginning, the narrator states that everyone else is more or less the same and that “faces are unclouded by the insanity of thoughts.” However, as the novel progresses, the narrator begins to notice that people are more individual than he first thought.

It starts when he meets I-330 at a parade. He says that

Little horns appeared at the corner of her brows.

And, he says,

The woman had a disagreeable effect upon me, like an irrational component of an equation which you cannot eliminate.

She turns out to be a revolutionary leader who needs D-503's help to take down the One State and its leader, the “Big Brother” figure of the Benefactor (o.r in some translations. the Well-Doer):

On top of the Cube, next to the machine, the motionless, metallic figure of him whom we call the Well-Doer. One could not see his face from below. All one could see was that it was bounded by austere, magnificent square lines. And his hands . . . compel your attention. . . . Suddenly one of those hands rose slowly. A slow, cast-iron gesture.

Though in the end the state proves too strong, D-503 manages to help his lover 0-90 escape with his child to the side of the revolutionaries.