Page 7 of The Prime-Time Experiment

Riley

Riley became aware she was waking in stages. Nothing dramatic or immediately destabilising, just a series of small interruptions to what should have been a normal morning.

The first was her phone. It was already vibrating when her awareness surfaced, a persistent, irregular disruption against the surface of her bedside table. It pulled her further into wakefulness in fragments rather than whole pieces, each pause just long enough to suggest it had stopped before starting again.

She didn’t reach for it. Notifications were rarely urgent. Anything that required immediate attention would escalate.

The second was the silence. Not silence itself, but the absence of the sounds she had been expecting to hear. The stretch of time in which she would usually already be awake reviewing notes, structuring the day ahead passed without her noticing. That registered more than the phone.

The third was Dee.

“Riley.”

Her name was spoken lightly at first, almost absentmindedly, as though Dee had already been awake long enough to assume everyone else should be as well. Riley did not respond.

“Riley.”

Sharper this time, far closer. And then, with far less patience: “Riley, if you don’t wake up right now, I’m going to assume you’ve died and that is going to ruin my entire day.”

Riley opened her eyes slowly. The light filtering through the curtains was too bright for the hour, diffused just enough to make it tolerable but not enough to be ignored. Her focus adjusted gradually, settling on the figure standing at the end of the bed.

Deanna Hayes did not do subtle urgency.

She was already dressed, which in itself was enough to suggest that something was wrong. Dee operated on a sliding scale of readiness that rarely aligned with early mornings unless absolutely necessary. Today, however, she was fully put together in tailored trousers, a soft knit jumper, everything sitting exactly where it was meant to without appearing structured. Intentional, but never rigid.

Her hair sat in a loose bob, natural blonde, styled just enough to look effortless. It framed her face cleanly, drawing attention to the kind of features people tended to describe as warm before anything else. Approachable. Reassuring. Useful, Riley supposed, given her profession.

There was nothing sharp about Dee unless she chose it.

Where Riley was analytical, Dee was dynamic. Everything about her: her posture, her expression, even the way she held herself carried a kind of ease that resisted categorisation. Dee attributed it, occasionally, to her weekly yoga class.

Riley did not. The variable had not been present long enough, or consistently enough, to account for it. Dee never had the time to go to yoga, not in the past few years. They had known each other for just over eight years, lived together for seven years of that, and the pattern predated any structured attempt at explanation.

It was simply… intrinsic. Her presence filled space without overwhelming it. Her emotions, however, were rarely subtle. At present, they were somewhere between disbelief and poorly contained amusement.

Riley frowned slightly. “What.” It wasn’t a question so much as a request for context. Dee let out a breath that bordered on a laugh, though she clearly hadn’t decided yet whether the situation warranted concern or entertainment.

“You need to look at this,” she said, lifting her phone slightly as though that alone should be sufficient explanation.

Riley pushed herself upright, reaching for her own phone with measured reluctance. The screen lit immediately, and for a brief moment, she simply observed it.

Notifications. An excessive number of them. Messages layered over one another, emails stacked in rapid succession, missed calls sitting just beneath them. The pattern was irregular, unstructured, suggesting external input rather than controlled communication.

Riley’s frown deepened. “This is inefficient,” she said quietly, more to herself than to Dee, as she opened the first message.

It was from a colleague. Saw the segment. Interesting approach.

Riley paused. The phrasing was vague. She opened another.

Are you actually doing this?

Another.

Call me when you can.

Riley’s gaze lingered on the message from her boss for a fraction longer than the others. That one, at least, was clear. She exhaled slowly, already reaching for the contact before she had fully decided to act. If the segment prompted a response from her supervisor this quickly, then the deviation had been noted. She assumed based off the text that she was realistically going to be…

“Don’t.”