Page 22 of The Prime-Time Experiment

She disappeared briefly, then returned holding a soft, tangled ball of wool. The ball was a hideously unorganised set of bright colours, ranging in a gradient that went green, blue, purple, orange. It seemed, from appearance, to be knotted in on itself in tight, overlapping loops that resisted immediate logic.

Dee held it out. “Can you try fixing it for me?”

Riley looked at it. Then at her. “Yes, although it may be worth the three dollars for a new ball.”

“Great,” Dee replied, as if that settled something larger than the object itself. “Thank you, Ri.”

Riley moved without resistance this time, sitting with the same discipline she applied to everything else. Dee followed, dropping into the opposite end with far less structure, tucking one leg beneath her as she handed the wool over.

She turned the ball slightly, finding a loop buried beneath two tighter pulls, easing it free just enough to create space. Dee watched her for a second, then took another sip of her drink.

“Alright,” she said, softer now. “How bad was it?”

“The note-taking part was okay, but I was told last minute that I was also starting today,” she said finally, her attention still on the wool. “I was not prepared.”

Dee didn’t interrupt. Riley loosened another knot, slower this time.

“There were too many variables working and introduced simultaneously,” she continued. “Sound without pattern. Movement without logical sequencing. The structure of his programs did not hold long enough to establish consistency.” A pause. “And he kept talking.”

Dee’s mouth twitched, just slightly. “Yeah, that sounds like him... based off your other conversations.”

Riley adjusted her grip again, pulling one thread through with more force than necessary before correcting it.

“He redirected focus inconsistently,” she said. “At times to me. At times to the camera. There was no stable point of reference for me to look at.”

“And that bothered you.”

“Yes.”

Another knot resisted. Riley’s fingers tightened. “He also continued to use a nickname I explicitly asked him not to use.”

Dee let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. “Oh no.”

“It is inefficient,” Riley said flatly. “It contains the same number of letters as my actual name.”

“That is not the point of a nickname, babe.”

“Then what is the point?”

Dee smiled into her mug. “Annoying you, apparently.”

Riley didn’t respond immediately, because that explanation aligned more cleanly than she would have preferred. It fit the pattern she had been reconstructing, one that was an intentional, low-level disruption framed as something insignificant. Her fingers paused briefly against the wool before resuming, sharper now, pulling one knot loose with a strength that bordered on forceful.

“He was not responding to the variables,” Riley said, her gaze fixed on her hands. “He was introducing additional ones.”

Dee tilted her head slightly. “Wait, on purpose?”

“Yes.”

Riley adjusted her grip again, the thread resisting as she pulled it through.

“He maintained contractual compliance,” she continued. “Each change was individually justifiable. There was no point at which I could formally object.” A brief pause. “However, the cumulative effect prevented stabilisation of baseline data.”

Dee frowned slightly. “So he knew what you needed… and made sure you couldn’t get it.”

Riley’s fingers stilled. “Yes.”

She resumed, slower now, more deliberate.