Free Candidate (Selected Book 4) by Robin Roseau

stared for a while. I bet if the Catseye were wearing the visor, there'd be a feature that let her type an email address. I decided I knew what type of features were disabled.
    But the name was sitting right there, so I selected the Ardent's name then composed a brief note.
    Dear Jessica,
    Thank you for your kind company while swimming today. Perhaps we'll meet again.
    Andromeda Hayes
    It was simple and perhaps not very warm. But I wasn't feeling very warm, either. I hovered my gaze over the Send button for a while, then squinted, and off it went.
    I was wondering what to do when the visor told me I had new mail. That was fast. I clicked the Read Now button to discover a note not from the Ardent, but from Administrator Brighteyes.
    Your visor can provide a variety of distractions. It can also help you to sleep, if you desire. I have also added additional options from the main menu related to your job for me. You officially begin tomorrow at ten AM, but if you wish to study tonight, you could. Your visor displays your schedule including meals, times you will work for me, and your windows to participate in exercise.
    Jasmine Brighteyes
    I found the schedule. It was accessed directly from the main menu, and sure enough, it made sense. Breakfast was at 7:30. There was a blue period from breakfast until 9:30. I was then scheduled to work from 10:00 until 4:00, and then a blue period until 5:30. Dinner at 6:00, and nothing marked after that.
    I found the new option from the main menu. It was titled simply, Job. I clicked it, and I was presented with two more options: Videos and Tutorial.
    I went to the videos first and quickly learned these were from past challenges. The first was listed as an overview, and so I clicked it.
    It was background. I learned about the challenge process. I learned about the different arenas. And I learned some of the challenges were games such as chess or even cards.
    After that, I had access to what seemed like an endless number of other videos, and I was provided different ways to search, sort, and index them. I could search by date, participant, type of competition, or arena used.
    I figured out how to list the videos by human participant sorted in reverse chronological order. The list showed the woman's name, the date of the earliest video, the number of videos, and the total duration.
    Near the top was a woman named Apple Hayes. We shared a last name, and so I selected her. This gave me a much shorter list of videos. There was one titled simply, "Contestants." I clicked it. Then I watched. There was video and voiceover.
    First, it displayed two images, one of a human woman and one of an alien male. I paused the video and stared at the alien. I couldn't tell relative size, but he looked powerfully built and, well, humanoid, anyway. He had the usual assortment of appendages: one head, two arms, two legs. He was wearing what looked like a vest, pants, and boots. His muscles seemed powerful, and there was something unusual about his skin. It was almost iridescent, and I would see shortly he had scales.
    Scales like a snake.
    He was introduced as Tom Baskins. It seemed strange to look at what was clearly an alien with such a normal, western name.
    Apple Hayes was twenty-two years old, five-foot-four, and, I decided, quite cute. She had short, black hair and a pert nose. But in her picture, she looked sad. She wasn't smiling, and I thought her eyes looked red.
    I imagined that was a common look.
    I wondered who saw these videos. I wondered if they realized when a woman looked like this, it was because she'd been crying.
    I wondered if the aliens cared. I found it unlikely. Jasmine Brighteyes clearly didn't care how much she hurt us.
    I let the video run. The video introduced Apple. She was a recent college graduate with a degree in chemistry. I learned a little about her test scores, which didn't quite make sense at the time. She was a middle daughter.
    Then the video went on to talk about Tom Baskins, the