The room is entirely white except for the sleek stainless steel cameras mounted on white stanchions hanging from white tracts in the ceiling. It is so white that under the harsh stage lighting most of the six assembled candidates have to squint. The candidates have been kept in cages in the dark most of the time for the past day, and this exacerbates their difficulty in coping with the intense light. But it is really because the system is optimized to the Meks, advanced autonomous robots, which are predominantly made of shiny steel and are, therefore, designed to process bright light more effectively. The candidates sit back-to-back strapped to a mechanical device that appears to be mounted on a carousel-like revolving platform. That is to say, there is a hexagonal slightly raised platform that can spin in the manner of an old-fashioned merry-go-round. The candidates are naked except for a metal collar and a narrow waist belt that are both capable of delivering a painful shock. The three candidates that one sees in the opening camera shot are women of various ages, one is seen head-on and the other two are in profile facing opposing directions. What they are sitting on is more a ledge than a seat, but they are strapped into the device, which has actuators that can raise, lower, or tilt the occupant into a reclined position. Their arms are immobilized, their heads held upright, and their legs are secured such that their thighs form a 90-degree angle viewed from overhead. They have rectangles of flesh colored tape over their mouths so that from a distance it does not appear they have lips.
Suddenly a jaunty melody of electronic tones begins to play, and the voice of a sleek and stylish announcer droid, PARLEK-4, begins to speak over the music. "And welcome back for another exciting episode of 'So You Think You Know Your Mating Unit?', the game in which we test the arrogant assertion of humans that there is a special and infallible 'soul mate' connection between marital partners. Before we bring out our next contestant, let me just recommend an outstanding product called 'Sterling Chrome Wash.' Sterling works miracles and doesn't bead up like the other leading chrome washes. Alright then, J8, tell us about our next contestant."
J8, a disembodied voice, speaks: "Our contestant calls himself 'Ted'. He and several of his familial units were just captured last week by the Department of Human Control, and he thinks he knows the being with whom he mates well enough to lay it all on the line in 'So You Think You Know Your Mating Unit?'"
A sliding door opens, and we see a man. He is naked, and is hard and lean in the manner of one who lives a survival existence of work, evasion, and the sharing of meager stocks of food that must be hunted, gathered, and distributed between all members of the tribe. He has been shorn of all hair except his eyebrows and lashes. He is wearing the same metallic shock collar and belt as the six candidates. However, his shock belt has the addition of a small black box mounted to it. From the bottom side of the box, two wires had earlier emerged under their own power, and they secure themselves like vines to a tree-trunk down Ted's lower stomach, along the fold of his hip, and then disappear around the backside of his scrotum. Disconcertingly, though painlessly, the wires self-tapped into Ted's skin and plugged into his nerve tissue. The purpose of the box and leads is to monitor Ted's proximity to release through detection of subtle physiological cues, and to communicate this information to the control desk. While there is a patina of civility to the show, it is clear that the intention is to exact retribution on humanity through the application of humiliation. The Meks are students of what activities embarrass and demean humans, and they go to great lengths to maximize this humiliation. One way this is accomplished is to force the contestant to take the required games to the edge of orgasm before they are allowed move on to the next round, and the final round usually ends in orgasm. The sensors are hooked to a buzzer that signals to the contestant when they are allowed to stop, as well as letting the viewing audience know that the contestant was about to climax.
Ted is wearing what look like goggles. However, the lenses are completely black. He cannot see what is directly in front of him. The goggles have tiny cameras mounted to them, and before Ted's eyes projections of gross angular shapes and a grid representing the floor are shown so that he can move about without falling down or running into anything. The objective of these high-tech goggles is to prevent the contestant from observing anything about each of the six candidates that might give him a clue as to their identities. Besides giving an indication of where obstacles and trip hazards are located, the goggles also, through the mysteries of machine technology, allow Ted to clearly see a hand crank and button that he must operate while all else is plunged in darkness. The hand-crank turns the carousel and the button allows him to control when it stops. This randomizes which candidate the contestant will come into contact with first. Because the order that one comes into contact with each of the candidates could theoretically influence the outcome, putting this in the hands of the contestant gives viewers confidence that the show's hosts are not setting up conditions to achieve a certain outcome. The goggle lens can be made transparent via a switching signal sent over a wireless link. This allows the producers to reveal to the contestant the selection that they made simultaneous to the unveiling to the viewing audience. This was all part of the building of climactic suspense and drama. The producers never showed the audience a camera shot that simultaneously depicted the contestant and the candidate he was evaluating in the same frame, though they did toggle between the contestant and candidates that may or may not have been being considering at the time.
The camera pans in a loop showing each candidate in turn.
As the view is being shifted between the contestant and the candidates he will consider in order to try to select his mate, PARLEK is speaking. "Let's review the rules of our game for first time viewers. Our contestant will be given three opportunities to correctly identify his mating unit from a collection of six candidates. This is a best two out of three contest. If the contestant correctly selects his mate from among the six candidates in at least two rounds, he will have a free-hu identification chip installed that will identify him as a self-owning human for life. He will also get one million Mekredits posted to that chip with which to start his new life. However, if our contestant does not make at least two correct picks then one of our lucky Arch-contestants will win the contestant, and can take him home as a pet or auction him off on M-bay. The arch-contestants must enter their guesses before the contestant makes his selection. In the case of a tie, a random number generator will select between the best performing arch-contestants."
"We'll start play with one of my favorite games, and I hope one of yours. It's called, 'Does the Nose Know?'"
The electromagnetic link on the hand-cuffs that join his wrists disengages and a red box in Ted's peripheral vision attracts his attention causing him to turn his head in that direction. As the red box reaches the center of his field of vision, a wheel-like hand-crank reminiscent of a water shut-off valve comes into view. It has a single spindle perpendicular to the wheel so that it can be easily cranked. Through the miracle of Mek-tech, he can only see the hand crank and a big red button below it labeled "Stop." Everything else is bathed in blackness. Ted cranks. It requires little effort.
As Ted is cranking and then stopping the carousel, PARLEK speaks. "Humans say that a sophisticated sense of smell is one way in which they are superior to most Meks. In this game we test that claim as we discover just how well the contestant knows his mate. Our contestant, Ted, will have an opportunity to smell each of the six candidates in turn. Whichever candidate Ted selects, he will have to engage in sexual union with until the buzzer sounds to indicate that he is about to ejaculate. If Ted really knows his 'soul mate' this will be just another instance of copulation between them, but, if he doesn't, we may see a bit of the red face. Now if at any point he physically touches a candidate or engages in any other behavior, besides sniffing and smelling, that could aid in selecting a candidate, his shock belt and collar will be activated. Our home audience can see how Ted views the world via the picture-in-picture feature on their 3DTVs. You can see that all the candidates look like colorless and featureless angular shapes to Ted. The goggles only give Ted enough information to avoid inadvertently touching, or tripping on, the candidates. None of the candidates are wearing any kind of perfume or other artificial scent like cleansing products, it's just odor 'au naturel'."
Ted depresses and holds down the stop button until the carousel comes to a complete stop. There is electronic music playing that gradually decays to silence to indicate the carousel has stopped. Once it stops completely, Ted lets his hand drop. The electromagnetic link is reengaged and his wrists snap together behind his back forcefully. While no great flexibility is required to touch his wrists behind his back, the abruptness of the motion hurts his shoulders. He shrugs and rolls the joint to make sure nothing is damaged.
Ted walks forward. Two triangles that form an inverted "V" are interpreted to be thighs and the rectangular box above it, the torso. It is enough to let him know his proximity to the candidate. He approaches the first candidate, and leans in as close as he dares to sniff what seem to be the shoulder and neck area. This is no good. The scent is feint and smells mostly like nondescript skin and hair. He needs to go where the scent is most pungent. He moves his head down around what seems like the area where armpits should be. A triangle attaching to the torso rectangle is indication that he is at the pit. Now he does sense an odor, but is it his wife? The Meks had thoroughly hosed down the candidates the evening before, and so no acrid body odor has yet formed. There is one more chance. Ted kneels down putting his head near the inverted "V", and is almost certain that this is not his wife.
The banter continues between the announcers. PARLEK speaks. "You know, J8, a lot of contestants are shy about getting down and sniffing the genitals, but I think Ted has made a good move by doing so. A woman's vagina has one of the highest concentrations of scent particles of anywhere on the body."
