INDUSTRIAL ZONE S3E1 - ROUND 1

Written by Iron-K

Jess stood in front of the door at the end of the short corridor, looking at the large inverted black and yellow triangle that formed the "Industrial Zone" logo and the large red unfriendly "Welcome" text underneath it. It had taken her a three-hour train ride to get to the television studio and she hadn't felt at all nervous during the journey, but now that she was standing right outside the entrance to the set for the show she was appearing on, it suddenly seemed imposing and frightening.

She looked over her shoulder at the noise of the lift she had come in by closing its doors. With a deep breath, she reached out in front of her to turn down the large handle at the side of the door, and leaned forward to push it open.

Timidly, she peered around the metallic-painted door as it swung open, far less heavy than it was made to look. Apart from the large logos displayed on the walls, the entrance room for IZ looked like a changing room at a gym, with a white tiled floor, two wooden benches on either side of the room and a low table between them. A similar door to the one she'd just come in by stood at the opposite side of the room.

She didn't get the chance to get more than a glance around the room, because there was already someone there. A well-built red wolf that she recognized as the show's presenter Alex, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black band T-shirt, was waiting with his feet on the table in the center of the room, arms behind his head. He looked up as the door was opened.

"Hi there! Jessica, isn't it?" he asked brightly, sitting up straight as she shuffled into the room and let the door swing shut behind her.

"Er... Jess," she replied with a nod. "That's what everyone calls me," she added. Her hand moved to the strap of the bag she was carrying over her shoulder, and she twisted her fingers in it distractedly.

"Good to have you here," he smiled welcomingly, and pointed to her side. She glanced down and saw a cylindrical water cooler plugged in next to the wall. "Want water or anything? You're the first one here, it might be a while before the others turn up."

"Yeah. Thanks." She swallowed, feeling too excited to be able to drink much, but tugged a cup out of the dispenser anyway and briefly held it under the nozzle. Turning back around as the cooler bubbled, she walked over to the bench opposite Alex and sat down.

"We don't tend to get many fox girls on, you know", Alex commented as she put the cup down on the table and reached to take her bag strap off her shoulder. "I think the last time might have been as far back as... Indy, in the middle of the second series. Did you see the one with her in it?"

"I... don't think I did," stuttered Jess. "I only get to watch the show every so often, because my roommates are always around when it's on."

"Ah, I know that problem." The red wolf grinned, slapping his bare feet on the tiled floor idly. As she put her bag down and nudged it under the table, he hefted his tall, thickset form up, and she watched as he stretched his arms out to the sides, eyes closed and wriggling his back a little. Wrapping one foot around a wooden chair in the corner of the room, he drew it up to the head of the low table and sat down again so that he was closer to her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her with a reassuring smile, and she paused, picking up the cup again, as she thought of how to answer.

"I'm... excited, but I'm a bit scared at the same time," she decided, taking hold of the edge of the bench to her side and tapping her fingers on it. The red wolf nodded back.

"I think that's how most people feel when they come in. We make the show a bit unpredictable, but you're safe here for now!"

She smiled and nodded. Alex had something of a dual personality on the show, always taunting the players a little and enjoying making them a little nervous, but seeming to be on their side at the same time.

"Actually I'm pretty excited myself, taking a team round the new set for the first time. Have you seen any pictures of it yet? I think we put a few of them up on the site a couple of weeks ago..."

"Yeah, and I've read about it in a couple of magazines and... stuff, too." Jess knew she wasn't sounding at her brightest, but she was still distracted by the way she was talking so normally to someone that a few million people knew on TV.

"Oh, I think you're going to love it... have a look, I've got a map of it somewhere in here..."

He twisted down to his other side as he fumbled in the pocket of his jeans, and pulled out a clump of untidily folded paper. As he put it on the table in front of him, Jess leaned over to see, and she was surprised to recognize the handwriting on the top sheet as he opened it out.

"Ah, no... these are the application forms the team sent in," Alex realized, looking at the photocopied sheet on top of the pile. "You'll know this one," he said, handing it to her.

Jess took it and looked down the page at her scrawled answers to the questions, hardly recognizing what she'd written when she'd sent it in during the second series more than a year ago. She smiled as she looked down at the last question - "Who would you most like to gunge?" - and remembered the situation that had inspired her to nominate one of her friends under that heading.

"That's the only answer we really look at," Alex winked, seeing her reading the bottom of the sheet. She laughed back, appreciating that he was trying to make her feel at ease but not relaxing.

"Want to see your teammates-to-be?" the red wolf asked, and shuffled the chair a little closer to her as she looked up. "That's Helen, Skye and Yasa," he said, pointing to the photos of a feline, canine and rabbit boy in turn as he read out their names. "Three females to one male again - it's always the girls who want to be gunged..."

Before Jess could say anything back, he suddenly looked straight at the door that led in from the corridor as its handle turned. Jess followed his gaze as the rabbit-boy she'd just seen put his head round the door. He was pinkish in color, with a head of thick maroon hair that came down to his shoulders. He looked between the two of them, a small anxious smile on his lips, then stepped fully into the room.

"Here's our man now - Yasa! How are you?" Alex asked, getting up and stepping around the other side of the table with his arm extended.

"I'm fine. A bit nervous," he said in short bursts as he accepted the handshake, looking him in the eye but occasionally glancing at other parts of the room.

"This is Jess, who's going to be in your team as well..." Alex raised his other hand towards her, and she nodded at the handsome rabbit boy as he held up a hand in greeting. "And we've still got two others to arrive - do you two want to get changed while we're waiting for them?"

"Okay. Yeah." Yasa blinked a couple of times, nodding his head, as Jess got up and retrieved her bag from under the table. With his eyes still darting around the room, he looked first at the door on the right then the one on the left, heading for it as he saw the male changing room sign on its door.

"Take as long as you need to," Alex said after the rabbit. "There's plenty of time." Yasa smiled back over his shoulder before pushing open the door and disappearing behind it.

The red wolf smiled as he turned around. "Well, Jess, I think there's definitely someone more nervous than you," he smiled, then pointed at the other door. "Female changing rooms are in there - there are a few different kinds of IZ swimwear, T-shirts, shorts and so on, so you can get changed into whatever you feel like wearing on the show."

"All right," Jess answered. "Thanks," she added, one hand on the door, just before pushing it open and entering the changing room.

She took a couple of steps forward into the room as the door fell closed, her nerves returning a little at being on her own again. Like the front room, the changing room looked very normal and not studio-like - there was a set of open clothes lockers on the left wall with a table at the far side, a few changing cubicles on the right and an opening on the wall in front of her. After taking off her bag and pushing it into one of the compartments on the left, she walked over and leaned through to see it led to a shower area, with a couple of cubicles on the wall and a larger open area with sprayers on the walls and floor as well as from above. Smiling uneasily and shivering as she realized just how messy the designer of the shower room was expecting them to get, she moved back through to the main room.

She looked down at the table, fingering through the variety of light clothing and swimwear that was on offer. She had seen most girls on the show go for wearing bikinis, and while she secretly did think that part of the IZ experience was to get messy with as little protection as possible, she didn't feel quite comfortable wearing so little. Deciding on a black full swimsuit, she picked up one that was roughly the right size and headed for one of the changing cubicles.

Locking it behind her even though there was no one else there, she kicked off her sandals and tugged her T-shirt off over her head, putting it on the hook on the wall. She turned to look at herself in the thin full-length mirror on the side of the compartment, still hardly believing she was there herself. After wriggling out of her skinny black sports trousers, she looked down at herself and brushed her hands through her entirely white fur, wondering whether she should shower before going on the show. Deciding against it, she unclipped her blue bra and slipped her knickers off, adding them both to the pile of clothing, then glanced over at the mirror again, turning around to look at it over her shoulder and running her hands through her tail before picking up the black swimsuit.

After shaking it out, she stepped into it and pulled it on, hauling the straps over her shoulders and looking down to make sure that she looked all right in it, excited as she was reminded of what was about to happen by the logo that was now displayed on her chest.

Looking again at the mirror on the side of the cubicle, she realized she'd forgotten to bring a hair tie in with her. Trying to remember whether there was one in her bag, she unlocked the door, carefully took the ball of clothing down from the hook and walked over to the lockers.

After dumping her clothing in the compartment, she opened up her bag and searched through it. Soon finding a tie, she shook out her unruly long dark blue hair, then began walking back to the cubicle, reaching behind her head to tie it back in a pony tail.

She heard the door squeak open again and glanced to her left, hands still tied in her hair, as a gray-furred husky girl about her age strode in. Jess recognized her face from the photo she had seen earlier - she was slightly taller than Jess, and wore a black T-shirt and trousers, a leather jacket carried over her shoulder. Her gray fur gave way to a lighter color around her eyes and the bottom of her slyly smiling muzzle, and her shiny brown shoulder-length hair was worn loose.

"Hey," she said confidently, looking around the white changing room before finally making eye contact. "So, you're on today, too?"

"Yeah." Jess shrank back a little as she struggled with her hair, feeling slightly exposed in the swimming costume for the first time.

"Want me to help with that?" she asked, swinging her jacket off her shoulder and pushing it into one of the compartments on the wall. Jess turned around for her, holding her hair out, and she took it in her hands.

"I'm Skye, by the way," the husky introduced herself as she quickly separated Jess's long blue hair into three strands for braiding it.

"Jess," she answered, trying not to sound as awkward as she felt at the quick introduction, but Skye kept the conversation going.

"So what made you want to come on?"

Jess hesitated, having hoped that the question wouldn't come up. "Don't know, it seemed fun," she said quickly. "How about you?"

"Started off as a bet, some stupid drinking game with my college friends," Skye replied. "Forfeits in a hat on slips of paper, and someone had the idea of putting 'Apply to Industrial Zone' on one of them." She finished with Jess's hair and stepped back. Jess turned towards her.

"And you agreed?"

"'Course. I never thought that I'd get on, though. Besides, I've been wanting to be gunged for ages." She turned around to push her jacket further into the clothes locker, just in time to miss Jess's expression of surprise at the remark.

"Did you ever watch 'Massive' when it was on?" she continued. "With that section where they pulled someone out of the audience, and they had to choose someone to phone in and play the game to stop the slime booth going off?"

Jess nodded - she remembered getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch that magazine show when she was still in school. It had been the last show that used gunge as an attraction before it had fallen out of fashion.

"I was on that once. As a phone-in contestant, I mean. Always wanted to be the one in the gunge tank, but I didn't like the idea of the whole country being able to see me."

Jess watched her swish her fluffy tail behind her as she moved over to the table with the folded IZ outfits, and she tapped the end of her muzzle as she looked along it, quickly moving to the swimwear.

"What do you think, full swimsuit or two-piece?" She picked up a couple of them, holding them up in front of her to look at their shape, then dropped the swimsuit and held the black bikini set against herself as she turned around to show Jess.

"Definitely," she nodded. Skye's face broke into a grin, and she skipped towards one of the two changing cubicles.

"I'll see you back outside!" she said, turning to face her out the crack in the door just before closing and locking it behind her.

Jess looked down at herself one more time before heading for the door, pulling the top of the swimsuit out a little to straighten the fur on top of her breasts. Feeling unexpectedly happy with how she looked, she pushed the swinging door open and walked back into the front area.

Yasa had already come back in and was sitting where he had been before, now wearing a white T-shirt and swimming shorts, the IZ warning sign logo in the top left corner of his chest like the girls' outfits. He looked up at her as she came in, jiggling one knee and tapping his fingers on top of the other.

"You OK?" she asked gently, stepping towards him. The rabbit boy looked up at her and nodded, curving his lips up in an unconvincing smile but not relaxing at all.

As Jess stepped across his lap to sit down beside him, the door at the opposite end of the room opened and Alex entered again. He had changed too, and was bare-chested, exposing the lighter, shorter fur on his front. Looking down, she smirked as she recognized the piece of clothing he always appeared in - a pair of loose yellow drawstring trousers.

"Hey, don't laugh at them!" Alex reacted as she broke into a giggle, and he flopped down into the seat again. "You know, some people think the contestants are mad for agreeing to get gunged on IZ, but I think I'm the worst of them for agreeing to wear these things all the time... you at least get to pick what you appear in during the show. I like your choice, by the way."

"Oh... thanks." She swallowed, feeling her cheeks heat up a little under her fur even though she knew he had just meant to make her feel more comfortable. Looking behind her as she sat down, she smiled as Yasa quickly took his eyes off her.

"You'll have just met Skye," Alex continued. "I had a few words with her just before she went through to get changed, and she's exactly how I imagined she'd be from looking at her application form!"

Jess laughed a little, and leaning back on the bench, she looked around again.

"A lot of people are a bit surprised that it's like this," Alex said, noticing her examining the room. "I think they're expecting something bigger and more... rough and studio-like, I suppose." He cleared his throat. "Did you know that IZ wasn't originally planned for TV?"

Jess shook her head, and glanced to the side to see Yasa leaning in, genuinely interested in what was being said for the first time.

"When it was first thought of, the maker didn't think there was an audience for messy TV any more, and he had drawn it up as an idea for a sort of team-building activity place, similar to a paintball field or something. It was only once WKNX got hold of it that they offered out of nowhere to turn it into one of their shows..."

"I had no idea about that," Yasa said, "and I've been watching it for ages."

Alex nodded and leaned towards him, keen to distract him from his nerves. "It's not something a lot of people know - that was why when it was turned into a show, we wanted it to be as genuine as possible for the people who appeared on it. A lot of game shows don't look at all like what you see in the edited-together versions on TV, so we went for the approach of just working out how to film our..."

He stopped as he saw a pink-furred hand come around the door, and it squeaked open a little. A young catgirl, pink all over with a yellow band in her short hair, slipped into the room, looked around briefly and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. She wore round glasses, a white shirt and plaid blue skirt, with a changing bag across her shoulders.

"Hi there!" Alex greeted her cheerfully, lifting himself up from the seat and stepping towards her.

"Hi," she answered, fiddling with the strap on her bag and looking down at her feet, a soft smile on her face.

Alex lowered his voice a little as he realized her nervousness. "Helen, isn't it?" he said, extending his right hand.

"Yeah. Hello." She accepted the handshake, swallowing and looking him in the eye.

"Good to have you here - this is Jess and Yasa..." he pointed at them in turn, and Jess nodded at her in greeting, "... and Skye's still in the changing room. If you get changed yourself, we'll be ready to get started!"

"Sure." She moved softly over to the door and was nearly hit in the face as it burst open, a bikini-clad Skye following behind it. She grinned confidently at the group sitting down and took a couple of steps forward, posing with her hands behind her head, before noticing that they were looking behind her.

"Oh!" she squeaked, turning around and smiling apologetically. "Skye," she said, pointing at herself with her thumb. The catgirl nodded.

"Helen," she replied, slowly forcing herself to make eye contact with her. Skye stepped around her to hold open the door as she padded through to get changed, then let it fall back as she flopped down on to the seat opposite Jess.

"So, what was I saying?" Alex continued, shuffling back in the seat to sit up straighter. "Yes - we're actually planning on still doing something like the original idea, setting up a few IZ centers nearby where you can arrange day trips and so on."

"That would be amazing!" Skye whooped. "I know a few people that I'd want to put in..."

"Well, it might not be on quite as large a scale as this at first," the red wolf smiled back. "We'll do our best, though..."

They talked for a while about the idea, Jess growing more fascinated by the minute and almost forgetting that they were about to take part themselves, even with Alex there. Every so often, he would glance over at the rabbit boy, who had once again lapsed into silence.

"Do you need water, Yasa? Anything?" he eventually asked, pointing at the cooler in the corner of the room.

"No... no, I'm fine, thanks." Yasa curled his toes, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead.

"A bit nervous?" the red wolf smiled encouragingly, and the rabbit boy nodded. "You don't need to worry - I promise, as soon as it starts you'll feel fine."

"Yeah." He nodded again, and looked up at the door to the changing rooms as Helen emerged again. Jess was surprised to see that she had gone for one of the black two-piece swimsuits like Skye had on, and Yasa managed a smile towards her as she quietly sat down beside the husky girl. She had taken off her glasses and the band in her hair, making her hair hang down around chin-length.

"You're lucky to be on with such good-looking team mates, at least," Alex continued, which got a laugh out of him even though it sounded forced. "Come over and I'll show you what's going to be happening over the next couple of hours..."

Jess took hold of the bench underneath her and together with Yasa shuffled it closer, as the pair on the other side did the same to form a group around the table. She smiled as she thought how unusual it was hearing Alex outside his show persona - and also how similar he genuinely was to it.

"Okay... so you're the first group to take on the new set. I should start by saying that what's past that door isn't going to be quite the IZ that you'll have seen before. We've got a new storyline for the show, new rooms, games, pretty much everything." He pointed over his shoulder at the metallic double door. Jess looked towards it again, looking at the prominent black IZ gear logo in the inverted triangular warning sign. "But we've made every effort to make it bigger, better and maybe," he held up his thumb and forefinger, "just a little bit more intimidating. You'll probably recognize a lot of things, just done in slightly different ways from before."

"Of course, even though it's done up to look a little dangerous and frightening, and we're going to take the chance to maybe pick on you a bit, everything in there's a hundred percent safe. You all know the idea of the show, don't you?"

"Definitely." Skye grinned and nodded, obviously keen to take part herself.

"Great - remember, the most important thing is that you feel comfortable, so if you aren't at any point, then just shout for help and we'll stop everything right there. That even goes if I've said we can't turn something off, or that you're trapped somewhere - it'll just be part of my script. Are you all OK with that?"

He looked round, and Jess glanced over her shoulder to see Helen and Yasa nod in response. Yasa was still looking a little unwell, wringing one corner of his T-shirt nervously.

"So, this new storyline - the writers have gone over this a hundred times with me, so I've got to make sure I get it right..." Alex reached into the pocket of his awful yellow jogging bottoms and pulled out a piece of paper, along with a palmtop device that looked like an oversized calculator. As they all leaned closer to see, he unfolded the paper on the table, smoothing it out with his hands. It was a plan of the set, showing two areas on either side of a large central hub, with what looked like a second floor drawn in underneath.

"What you're seeing here is a plan of the fictional IZEP ocean complex. The idea is that the whole facility was originally set up to recover things from the bottom of the ocean and investigate them," Alex started, pointing to the circular middle section labeled "Research Center". "That was a normal enough thing to do, but somewhere along the line, they made a slight mistake - a cause of something they were doing or something they were dredging up, who knows - and they accidentally transformed the water in the ocean for miles around into..."

He fumbled in his pocket again. Jess leaned over to see, knowing what was coming.

"...this stuff." Alex held up a plastic bottle, filled about halfway with a thick yellow-green liquid, and set it down on the table. The four of them watched as the movement made its surface wobble unsteadily.

"That's what we call 'gunge'," he said, pointing at the bottle and prodding it with his finger to move the liquid again. "It's actually made out of industrial food thickener, which is a powder that's a bit like cornstarch. Basically, it's like thickened water with added coloring."

He picked the bottle up and stretched to his left to hand it to Skye, who took it and swished it about fascinatedly. After tipping it on its end and back, she moved her fingers to the screw top.

"Go ahead, pour some out," Alex encouraged as Skye glanced over at him. She finished unscrewing the cap, put it down on the table, and carefully tipped the bottle to pour some on to her left hand. Yipping as the liquid oozed out of the bottle and dripped over the edge of her hand, she jerked it upright. She leaned forward to put it down on the table and quickly moved her right hand up to form a cup, staring at the opaque pool of liquid she was holding.

Alex leaned forward to push the bottle over to Helen, who took it shyly and replaced the cap, passing it on to Yasa almost immediately. Jess watched the fascinated-looking husky girl as she wobbled her cupped hands from side to side, dipping her thumbs in to the stuff and stirring them around. "Looking forward to more of it?" Alex asked her, chuckling as she looked up. "You're risking being covered in ten or twenty gallons of it in each game..."

Jess glanced over as the rabbit passed the bottle on to her, twitching as she felt the cold wetness of the dribble left when Skye had poured some of it out. She brought it up to eye level to look at it closely and sloshed it from side to side, watching it leave a gooey residue that slowly slid back down to the surface again. She unscrewed the cap and put her finger inside, carefully tilting the bottle to get some on to it. Twitching as the gunge slowly flowed over her finger, she withdrew it and rubbed it in her hand - it was cold and slimy but not unpleasant, and felt not dissimilar to having stuck her finger in a tub of paint.

She passed the bottle and cap back to Alex as he reached out for it, and wiped her slimy finger off with her other hand, rubbing them together to try and get it off. The stuff didn't dry at all like water did, instead forming wet patches on both her palms.

"Now, our goal in the show," said Alex, putting the bottle down on the table again, "is to get into the main room of the Research Center, where there was an experimental water-purifier." He pointed to the very center of the map. "If you manage to turn that on, then a sample of the contaminated sea water will be turned back into real water again and you'll have won the game. Fantastic. But..."

He held up a finger. "To earn your time in there, you're going to have to prove that you're good enough by taking part in a series of other games. To do that, we ask for a bit of help from the complex's computer, ROB," - he pronounced the name as individual letters - "who can open up rooms to put you in as it likes. Each room has a certain challenge set up inside, which each give you the chance to earn up to a hundred points. The more points you gather, the more time you'll have available in the final game at the end." He looked down at the pocket computer for a moment and then tossed it on to the table. The four of them leaned in to see an angular yellow wireframe face, and Jess instantly recognized the similarity to the computer's face in the second series.

"So before we get in there, I have to take you around the rest of the complex..." After giving them a moment to look, he picked up the pocket device and pointed down at the map with the end of the bottle. "There are two wings on the sides of the hub - the Processing and Storage areas. Underneath it all, there's also the undersea level, which as you'd expect, has a bit of a darker mood to it."

Jess craned her neck to look over the floor plan, but it didn't give anything away as to the actual contents of the rooms.

"We'll be getting you to complete sixteen games in total, some individually and some as a whole team. Some of them are harder to do well than others, but in each game you'll have the opportunity to earn up to a hundred points. Once we get to the final, those points decide how much time you'll have to complete the last game and try and convert the massive tank of this stuff," - he set the bottle back on to the table - "back into water."

He leaned back in the seat. "I think that's everything I've got to go over with you... are there any questions?"

"Sorry, I've..." Yasa swallowed, hauled himself up from the chair and stumbled towards the changing room door, glancing back at them with an apologetic smile.

"You think he's all right?" Helen asked as the door swung back behind him.

"It'll just be nerves - stage fright, or something. It happens to a lot of people before we start." Alex shook his head, and reached down to shuffle his chair closer to the group. They leaned in to hear him as he lowered his voice, looking between them and the door. "But I'll tell you what cures it - we're going to get him into a game first."

The girls glanced at each other and nodded. Jess felt her excitement grow with the thought of one of them in one of the IZ games for real.

"So... we've already gone over everything you need to know before we start. We really try not to make it appear like a TV show to you at all - we'll be going round as if there aren't any cameras on us, and all you'll see of them is maybe a couple of camera people following us around. Just try to ignore them and act as if they aren't there." Jess nodded along with the others - from what she had heard of other TV shows, she had actually expected the whole thing to be very artificial and having to act according to how the program was meant to go.

"The only other bit of preparation we do at the beginning is have you all make an entrance on a large elevator-platform sort of thing." His air of enthusiasm returned, and he gestured with his hands to describe it. "When we go through that door I'll send you up into it, I'll do the intro, and you all appear - that's when I ask the team leader..."

He paused, and looked around at the three of them. "Which reminds me... we haven't even chosen one yet. You've all seen the programme before, haven't you - you know the team leader gets to decide what order we do the rounds in, and can pick who to go into the games?" He glanced round as they nodded. "And just like the last series, they get a risky spectator's seat in the final... now, that's something I can't wait to show you." Grinning, he looked between them. "Any takers?"

Jess watched Helen shrink back a little in the chair, and shook her own head as well. Skye looked from Helen to Jess and back, then spoke up. "All right, I'll do it," she said confidently.

"Great - I don't like putting anything too prearranged into the show, but when I ask you where we're going first, if you could choose the Research Center and nominate Yasa for the first game? It'd help him relax a lot."

"Sure." Skye gave a single nod, and leaned back in the seat.

At that moment, the door of the changing room swung outwards again, and Yasa emerged.

"Ready to go, Yasa?" Alex asked, jumping to his feet.

"Yeah." He nodded, swallowing.

Alex moved along as quickly as possible to keep him occupied. "Let's get you to the start!" He turned around, grabbed the handle of the door to the set and pushed it open, waving a hand to show them through. Jess got up with renewed excitement, and glanced over her shoulder at Yasa as the four of them walked through to the entrance room.

As she walked through the doorway behind Helen, she blinked to try and adjust her eyes to the darkness beyond the brightly lit changing area. The room that they had stepped into was plain and gloomy, about ten metres across, with a couple of brick-textured pillars stretching up to the ceiling - the only giveaway that it was a TV set being the couple of lights and cameras mounted on a rack just under the roof. At the far end, a large circular sealed door took up most of the back wall, with a small screen beside it and a large alcove in the wall on the opposite side.

"This bit's a little staged, but it's the last one, I promise," Alex smiled as he led them over to the alcove in the corner of the room. As they approached, Jess saw that it was a doorless lift, with a platform suspended on chains at floor level. "This is meant to be the lift that you arrive on - we're going to put you up into that space there, and you can watch my introduction before you arrive." He pointed up into the area above the lift platform. "From then on, there's no acting required - just play along and everything should be fine!"

The four of them stepped up on to the lift platform and turned to face him.

"Have fun, everyone." Alex grinned, then signaled to someone that the team members couldn't see, and Jess watched the room disappear as the platform rose the few feet into the covered section above them.

As the floor stopped moving, she turned around and saw a screen set into the wall, showing the view of the room that they had just left from the same viewpoint that they'd seen it at when they had first entered. Alex was walking back to the front of the room to talk into the camera. After a moment's pause and a few words off the side of the screen, he launched into his show personality.

The three girls watched intently as Alex did the opening and went over the storyline, various illustrative scenes being shown on the projection screen behind him, including the map that the team had been shown. Yasa paced back and forward behind them, looking at the floor with his hands clasped behind his back. Occasionally he'd pause to rock on his heels, breathing out heavily.

"You rabbits are always so nervous," Skye said over her shoulder. Helen, a little shocked at the sudden accusation, turned to look at her.

"We're not!" protested Yasa. "It's just the waiting that does it." Jess was about to say something in support of him until she realized she'd just done it to distract him with conversation.

"My sister's going out with a rabbit-boy just now," Skye continued, turning to him and smiling impishly. "They live together at college - she keeps telling me that he faints before every exam he ever takes!"

"Hmph. Well, I've never done that," Yasa said, slightly huffily.

"What are you taking?" she asked, moving towards him. Jess looked from her to the screen and back.

"I'm a theatre major," the rabbit boy replied.

Skye nodded. "Unusual," she said, then paused. "So why so nervous about being on TV?"

"It's not that!" he burst out. "It's... it's..."

"Hey! He's introducing us!" Helen, suddenly speaking up as Skye's line of questioning led him back to his stage fright, pointed at the screen. The large projection behind Alex was now showing the two photos that Jess remembered sending off to them when she'd applied to go on the show. Suddenly, they changed to those of Helen, who turned away, cringing.

"Those are terrible..." she giggled, glancing back at them as Alex read out a few things that she had submitted on her application form, apparently from the pocket computer he carried with him.

"...and she says she'd most like to gunge Hawke from the series 'Millennius'." Well, Helen, I don't think you're alone there!"

The three girls laughed, Yasa managing a weak smile as he walked up behind the group.

"Next, we have Yasa..." Alex started, and turned to watch over his shoulder as a screen dissolve made the pictures change again.

"Your ones aren't bad!" said Skye, turning round to him as he chuckled. "I think you've got the best ones so far." She paused, looking at his top in the photo. "Although the black vest is a bit... you know."

Yasa opened his mouth to respond to the unfinished sentence, but she quickly turned back to the screen as Alex introduced her as team leader.

"D'you normally wear the collar?" Helen piped up, indicating the pendant and black strap that she was wearing around her neck in the two photographs.

Skye looked between the two photos and smiled. Jess was surprised to see a hint of embarrassment on her face.

"Yeah, I came in with it today. It's... something between me and my boyfriend," she answered eventually.

Jess reached up to scratch the back of her neck - even though she didn't want to admit it, she was feeling pretty nervous about what was to come as well. She glanced up as Alex finished his opening, and he turned to the back corner of the room where he'd sent them before. Suddenly the floor gave a jolt, and the other team members fell silent as they descended the short distance into the room again. Alex was turning towards them as they came into view.

"...and here's our first team! Come over here..." Alex beckoned to them, and the four of them dashed over to where he was standing. Jess caught a glimpse of a cameraman in dark clothing sneaking away from them as they approached.

"All four of you, welcome to the Industrial Zone - the room that we want to get to is just beyond that door." He pointed over them and they looked over their shoulders at the imposing round sealed door at the back of the room. "But before we go there, you'll have to earn time inside by completing a set of challenges around the rest of the complex. Team leader!"

"Yes." Skye angled her shoulders past Helen and Jess, and stepped to the front of the group.

"The entrance is just ahead of us," the host said, pointing down a tubelight-lined corridor. "There are four different areas that we can visit - there are the storage and processing wings, the undersea level, or the main research center. Which do you want to head for first?"

Skye paused for a moment, remembering what they'd decided before. "The... research center," she acted deciding.

"All right! Computer, can you hear me?" Alex turned to the screen as it flickered back into life, displaying the animated angular face that the team had seen earlier.

"Yeah?" it asked metallically, sounding annoyed at the interruption.

"Can you open up the doors for us?" Alex asked. "I've got four team members here ready to go..."

"Oh, all right," it conceded grumpily. An electronic series of tones sounded, the wide door at the side of the room began to raise, and the screen flicked off again.

"He's a bit... tetchy, but you get used to it," Alex commented as the hum of the door stopped. "Come on!"

He turned around and took off at a run in the same movement, leaving the others to try and catch up with him as they headed down the brightly lit corridor that had been revealed, decorated with the worn IZEP company logo in its tiled walls. Jess felt her heart racing, and not just from the running - soon she'd be seeing her first IZ game close up.

Eventually the corridor made a sharp turn, and Jess looked around the room in front of them as Alex turned on his heel and walked the last couple of paces backwards, facing them and spreading his arms out in a welcome gesture. The circular room they had entered was mostly white and sterile-looking, with a few banks of computer terminal props lining the light walls and one larger screen placed on the wall above them. Various blank metallic doors were set in the walls, and a couple of corridors stretched off into darkness.

Looking to her left, she gave a start as she suddenly saw the room's centerpiece. On a raised platform about two feet up from the floor stood the only black thing in the room - a round, futuristic-looking sphere covered in softly strobing lights, a few tubes and wires connecting various points on its surface. It was mounted on three spindly metallic legs, giving it an alien insect-like appearance. This was something that had been very famous on the old series of IZ - they had called it the Pod, and it had appeared in every show that Jess remembered watching. She shivered as she caught a glimpse of the wide nozzle on its base pointed down at the chair below it - it felt strange seeing it in real life rather than just as something that existed on TV.

"This is the hub of the research center," Alex started, and she turned back to face him as he began to pace around the room. "It was set up as part of the complex's original purpose, to investigate artifacts that they'd dragged up from the sea. So, naturally, they were equipped with rather a lot of these..."

He was now on the far side of the room, and beckoned the team over. Jess followed behind the others, watching as they all gave their nervous glances towards the device in the center of the room.

Alex was looking in to a small chamber cut into the wall - about three feet square and six feet high, with a clear plastic door extending about four feet up to cover its bottom half. As they approached, Jess eagerly leant down slightly to see into the top of it, and grinned at the sight of a dark round opening in its ceiling.

"This was a chamber for... showering things, if you like, to get the salt water and gunk off them after they were dredged up." Alex opened the door, putting one foot inside and looking up into the pipe. Jess glanced sideways at the others, expecting him to announce the first game.

"But we all know that that isn't really an option any more," he finished, stepping out and throwing the door shut behind him with a clunk. "We've got to start somewhere, and I think, just as an introduction for you all, we're going to put someone under that." To Jess's surprise, he pointed not at the gunge tank but behind him at the menacing, slowly blinking spherical pod in the center of the room. He let the others watch it for a moment before continuing. "Skye, who's going under?"

Skye shook her head, still distracted by the imposing sight of the thing, but recovered quickly. "Yasa!" she said, enthusiastically thrusting her arm out to point at him. Jess looked around to face him, and after the initial expression of surprise, he bit his lip to form a nervous smile.

"The team leader's spoken, Yasa - ready to be our first victim?"

"Yeah." Yasa stood up straight, trying to look confident as Alex moved up the shallow staircase to the raised section, beckoning him to follow.

Jess felt her heart speed up as Alex showed Yasa into the chair underneath the Pod. Slowly, he eased himself into it, flattening his ears down on to his head as he looked up into the tube above him. He looked around at the legs and the floor next to him, still looking a little jumpy. His attention was suddenly caught again by Alex taking hold of a keyboard attached to the front of the sphere and pulling it down to place it in front of him.

The host gave him a nod before jumping down from the platform to the girls again. "All right, team - you'll have some idea of what's about to happen, don't you?" He pointed at the large screen, which faded into life, displaying a shot of the keyboard from just above and behind Yasa's head. It wasn't the size or layout of a normal keyboard, instead being covered in a couple of hundred different symbols composed of similar arrangements of lines, strokes and dots. The rabbit boy looked up from the keyboard, surprised to see his enlarged head on the screen, and wriggled down to get out of the way.

"That pod's going to open up and spill its contents exactly one minute after we begin, Yasa," the host explained, moving towards the screen as the rabbit boy raised his eyes to the round covered chute above his head. "And to shut it off, you've got to find five certain keys on the control panel in front of you." Jess watched the image of the keyboard, nodding as she recognized the game. This was one of the few challenges that hadn't changed at all since the very beginning of the show.

"Nearly all of the buttons on that keyboard have a pair somewhere else, but the ones you're looking for don't have a match - help him find all five of them within the time limit and your team mate escapes clean!" The girls gathered around the large screen and Alex turned back to the rabbit, walking around the edge of the room away from the screen. "Ready, Yasa?"

He swallowed and nodded, his fingers hovering over the keys. Jess turned away from him and looked back at the keyboard's image, already trying to find a correct key.

"Then let's start it up!" Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the computer, pointed it at the pod and pressed something on it. A combined mechanical clunk and electronic tone made them all jump, and a large timer appeared at the top of the screen. The lights in the room went down, only leaving a set of spotlights on Yasa and the pod.

As the girls looked frantically around the image in front of them, Yasa's finger came up into the view, and he leaned forward to jab at one button. As it lit up in red, a loud buzz rang out and to their shock, five seconds blipped off the timer.

"Be careful not to do that too much!" Alex warned with a hint of a stifled laugh. Jess looked back at the timer, which was already at only fifty seconds.

Skye was the first to speak up. "The one right below the one you just pressed," she said, pointing at the screen and standing on her tiptoes to reach up to it.

Jess turned to Yasa, who carefully reached out to the button, and hunching down and flattening his ears to his head, stabbed it with his finger. This time, a lighter bell noise played and the button lit up in white.

"That's one!" the host called from behind them. "45 seconds to find the other four." Yasa leaned over the keyboard, a finger ready to press something, but he leaned back as he decided against it.

The three of them looked over the keyboard, glancing constantly up at the rapidly decreasing timer. Jess tapped her toes on the floor agitatedly, trying to find at least one symbol that looked right. Concentrating on one near the middle of the board, she looked around it to try and find a match.

"Yasa, the one that looks like a seven with a line through it," Helen said over her shoulder. She pointed up at the board, but it was too high for her to point out. Jess looked again and realized that it was the same one that she had been looking at, and called out directions to guide Yasa's finger to it as he leaned over the keyboard. Finally he pressed it and leaned back as it lit up, the timer ticking past thirty seconds.

"There's one five along from the one you first pressed," Skye said quickly. She turned as the rabbit counted out with his finger, and leaned up to look at her.

"This one?" he asked.

The husky girl glanced over her shoulder to see where his finger was. "No - other way!" she called, looking up at the timer frantically. Yasa quickly moved his finger over and hit the button she was talking about, then looked at the timer himself as the third white light came on. With a glance at the nozzle an arm's length above his head, he hunched over the keyboard again, concentrating even harder.

The three girls stood in silence as he moved his finger slowly towards the bottom left of the keyboard, encouraging him as they realized he was heading for another correct one. Speeding up, he risked hitting it, and the sound of the bell confirmed that it was right. With under ten seconds to go, he brought his other hand up to hit a final button.

"No!" Jess heard herself call as Yasa jabbed his finger down, seeing a pair for the button he was about to press in the opposite corner. The warning came too late, and the rabbit boy jumped back as he lost five more seconds.

The girls looked at each other as the timer fell to 2, then turned around to face him. As an alarm blared to signal the last couple of seconds passing, he gave a sickly grin and hunched forward with his face in the crook of his elbows, his arms up over his head and his ears flattened down over them. With a louder klaxon joining the clamor, the timer hit zero, and as the lights on the pod blinked rapidly, he vanished under a wave of murky green gunge dropped from the tank above his head.

Jess looked on awestruck, her hand flying to her mouth to muffle a laugh. As the three girls looked on, the falling slime formed a twitching dome as Yasa wriggled underneath it, and it slapped on to the floor in thick waves, dripping down the sides of the once clean white platform. Occasionally, the dome would slop away to reveal his slime-streaked face, and they saw him slowly relax, moving his hands forward to shield his forehead, revealing his heavy hair.

Another wave burst into life, slightly forward of the last one, and Yasa yelped as the smooth gunk poured on to the front of his face, hiding him from view again. A messy hand poked out of the slimy dome as he leaned to the side, and it came up to try and deflect some of the falling gunge.

As he put his hand up above him the dome moved outwards, some drops spattering out and landing at the feet of the three girls. Helen ducked as a lick of gunge came towards her, but most of the stuff was still splurting through Yasa's fingers and on to the side of his face. Jess was relieved to see he was laughing at the feeling of it as it glooped on to him, clinging to his fur and oozing downwards on to his clothing. After a few moments both streams shut off, completely revealing the messy rabbit boy again, his hair and top half of his clothing darkened by the wet slime. Another short drizzle fell from the pod, and he shook his head as it poured off his messy hair into his lap.

Yasa carefully lowered his hand from the pipe and shook it, spraying slime to the floor, then wiped at his eyes. Blinking them slowly open, he looked towards the rest of the team and smiled at the response of the three cheering girls, looking a little out of breath as he brushed his gungy hair to the sides.

The lights in the rest of the room came back up, and Alex clapped his hands together as he approached him, taking care on the slippery steps. "How does it feel to be the first victim, Yasa?" he asked with a grin, the movement of his feet slopping the stuff across the platform.

"This stuff's heavy!" Holding his hands out in front of him, Yasa let the gunge on his fingers drip to the floor. Alex took his hand and hauled him up from the seat, and he shivered as the stuff slipped down him with the movement.

Yasa stepped down from the platform to rejoin the girls again, and Helen stepped back involuntarily as the gungy rabbit approached. His hair was stuck heavily down to his head, and his previously white T-shirt was stained dark green in the shape of fingers of dripping slime. He looked a lot more at ease now, even reaching towards Jess and Skye and laughing as they ducked out of the way of his slippery fingers.

"Well, team, as you can tell you didn't quite make it, but Yasa did earn eighty points for the team there and that's still a good start. Team leader, who's going next?"

"Let's have..." Skye drew out the last word, looking between Jess and the catgirl, who shrank back a little, her hands behind her back. "Helen!" she said, clapping a confident hand on her shoulder. Jess stopped holding her breath, knowing that her turn was getting closer, and imagining how Yasa felt under all that stuff.

"All right, I'll see what rooms we can get into..." Alex pulled the miniature computer out of his pocket, tapping it with the stylus in a couple of places. "The computer only opens up a couple of rooms, you see, and that limits what challenges we can give you... but our next two are just off this room!" He stuffed it back into his pocket again and took hold of Helen's hand as she offered it to him. "Come with me," he said, and took off at a dash around the edge of the room.

About a quarter of the way around, he stopped at one of the many metallic doors, and moved towards it to tap in a sequence on a code panel beside it. Helen looked back at Jess, a nervous grin on her face, and she whipped around to see as the door hummed open. Alex went up the two steps to the room first, with the catgirl following close behind.

Jess followed them up, trying to peek past them as they moved into the space past the door. It was small and almost wedge-shaped, about ten or twelve feet from the door to the far end - not quite as clean-looking as the main room, with a couple of exposed pipes on the walls and ceiling. At the room's wide end opposite them, a large circular board was fixed to the wall, with the circle divided into labeled sections that she couldn't read from a distance. The other feature of the room was a dark rectangular recess in the right wall, covered by a waist-height plastic door and lit from above in red. Five large bowl-shaped red electric lights were placed on the wall around it - one at the top and two on each side. Jess watched as Helen was led towards it.

"This is a testing chamber - it's a bit like one of the showering chambers I showed you earlier," Alex explained as he opened the door, and Helen looked at the floor as she clambered into the high plastic chair, placing her hands on its arms and hooking her feet under the circular metal footrest. "It's got a couple of the hoses for water, or what would have been water a few months earlier...", he said, indicating a few rounded openings on the ceiling as the catgirl looked upwards. "And," he added, catching her eye and pointing to her sides, "in case anything went wrong, it also had the ability to pump itself full of foam." Helen looked shocked for a moment, then nodded shyly, her eyes closed and curling her toes over the metal ring.

"In total there are five pipes pointed into the tank, and the task for the three of you is to turn them all off before the timer reaches zero," Alex said, stepping back and pointing at the timer above the cubicle. Helen put her hands on the door and leaned out to look at it as it turned on, showing a time limit of two minutes. "If you haven't deactivated them all in that time, then whatever pipes are left will pump their contents into the tank... and all over Helen." He pointed at her as she settled back into the seat, squirming uncomfortably with a nervous grin on her face.

"So Helen, you're relying on your team-mates to save you - after seeing what happened to Yasa, are you confident?"

The catgirl giggled a little, flicking her hair behind her head, and didn't answer. Alex moved away towards the other three. "And your fate is going to be decided by the spin of the wheel!" he announced, pointing towards the board and dashing up to position himself next to it. "This is where my job as your guide gives in to my gameshow-host side..." He spread his arms towards the sectioned circle.

"We're going to get each of you to take a spin on this thing by pressing the button in the centre," he said, thumping it. A rapid beeping noise started up as a light at the back of the board rotated quickly around, making each section highlight in turn and then coming to a halt, blinking on a section marked "Question" after a few seconds.

"For most of the sections, you'll have to answer a question from the computer, and if you get it right, you'll be allowed to turn off one of the tanks around your friend by hitting one of the buttons on the wall," he continued, pointing over to where the catgirl was sitting. Jess watched the five lights around her flash in sequence.

"There are a couple of other sections as well," Alex said, drawing their attention back to the board. "If you're lucky you'll get one of the 'Instant off' sections and you'll be able to turn off one without getting a question right first... but there are a couple of sections that are less good news for Helen, as they'll instantly turn on some tanks again."

He pointed around the circle as he explained the sections, and then dropped his arm to his side, stepping back and fishing the palmtop out of his pocket again. "All right - are you ready, Helen?" He stretched to the side to look at her, then turned back to the team. "Team leader, I think you'd better start us off. The timer will start as soon as you hit the button for the first time."

Skye confidently stepped forwards and put her hand on the central button, putting her weight behind it as she pushed. With a step back, her head moved slightly as she watched the light spin around and suddenly stop.

"Instant off! That's a great start - go over there and turn off a nozzle!" Alex pointed over to the tank on the wall, and Jess watched as the husky girl dashed over to Helen's cubicle. Standing on her tiptoes, she hopped a little to press the button at the very top of the tank, which darkened as it sounded a beep.

"Jess or Yasa?" Alex quickly spoke to get their attention back, and Jess stumbled forward to take a spin. After pushing the domed button she bounced on her heels as she waited, and eventually read the word "Question" on the lit section it stopped at.

"All right, Jess, we're in the research center, so - what would you use an anemometer for?" asked Alex, reading from the device in his hand.

"Um..." Jess thought, pursing her lips and having to just guess. "Measuring... atoms?"

She sagged as Alex shook his head. "Sorry... don't worry, Helen, there's still time left! Yasa, come up here!" Jess took a couple of steps back as Yasa moved in to replace her, running one hand through his thick gunge-coated hair again. He also landed on a "Question" section, but got his right and jogged away from the wheel to turn off one of the lights at the side of the tank.

Jess watched Helen lean out of the tank to see as the wheel was spun by Skye again. Looking worried as it landed on "Miss a turn", she glanced down at the rapidly decreasing timer on the front of the booth at the other side of the room before leaning back in the seat.

Remembering it was her turn, she stepped forward to take another spin, realizing she was mouthing to herself to encourage it to stop on a good space. As it blipped to a halt on "Instant off", she let out an excited squeak and clapped her hands together, then, feeling a little embarrassed at her reaction, moved over to the cubicle on the wall.

Looking around at the three remaining lights, she stretched up to turn off the one at the top right. Looking into the gunge booth as she did so, she caught Helen's eye, and she wriggled anxiously in the seat while managing a weak grin. Sitting silently, her eyes moved up to the top of the booth, and Jess followed them, seeing a round cover next to the red tube light like in the tank that Alex had showed them before, with two nozzles pointed down diagonally from the sides as well.

A buzzer made her jump, and the light at the side of the tank that had previously been off flickered into life again. She glanced down at the timer to see it drop below one minute.

"Sorry, Yasa - that's a tank turned back on! Come over here, Jess, we'll need you in a moment!"

With what she hoped was an encouraging smile back at Helen, Jess left the tank and dashed back over to the wheel as Skye got her question wrong. Breathlessly pressing the button as the husky stepped away, she turned towards the host as she landed on another question space, then happily jogged back over towards the tank as he announced that she'd got it right.

She jumped up to hit the last of the buttons near the top of the tank, leaving only the two at the sides still lit. Helen nodded at her, seeming more at ease now, and she glanced back to see her eyes on her as she went back to the wheel.

Yasa hand his slimy hand on the spin button and was waiting for the wheel to stop. He jumped as it landed on one of the few grey sections again.

"Miss a turn... sorry, Yasa," Alex called after him as he sighed and moved away, out of Skye's way as she stepped forward.

"Come on..." she muttered as she watched the light spin around the electronic wheel, but she growled in annoyance as it landed on a "Miss a turn" section for the second time in a row.

"Again! I'm sure someone's rigged this." Alex beckoned to Jess and she dashed forward to hit the button, hopping from foot to foot as it seemed to take ages to stop spinning. It landed on a "Question" section again.

"Quickly, Jess - what was..." Alex's voice was drowned out by a loud alarm, and he whipped his head around to the side. Jess followed his gaze to see the timer on the front of the booth at zero, and Helen giggling uneasily inside, looking from left to right and shuddering.

"You're out of time! Sorry, Helen..." A high-pitched mechanical whine started up, and the catgirl gripped the seat, tapping her fingers on its arms nervously as she kept looking around her, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, a loud hiss started from the nozzles at her sides, and she gave a prolonged squeak as she was instantly hidden by two wide jets of foam - green from one side, white from the other.

She put her hands out to the sides to defend herself, and some of her pink fur became visible through the thick cloud of flying foam as it spattered off her palms and flew up into the air, drifting down to land on top of her. Wriggling to the side and turning her head as some of the stuff splashed on to her left cheek, she gradually drew her hands in and covered her eyes instead, hunching forward as the gooey spray coated her from all angles.

Slowly, the two jets eased off, dripping back to reveal the messy catgirl, only a few patches of fur at her front visible underneath the creamy layer. She dragged her hands away from her eyes, smearing the green and white foam down her face as she attempted to clear it off. Her bare feet slipped off the now slimy footrest, and she wriggled her toes to shake away the blobs of foam that had fallen on them.

Opening her eyes, which were just visible through the thick foam, she saw the team watching her and her shoulders shook in a giggle. A klaxon began to hoot, and she glanced upwards instinctively as there was a noise from the top of the tank.

Jess looked up too as a wide curtain of orange slime slopped down towards Helen, who squeezed her eyes shut and faced the front again just in time for it to slap on her head and shoulders. The downpour only lasted half a second but was thick enough to cling to her hair and fur, the ooze dripping down to mingle with the foam against her.

As the noise of the machine faded away, Alex stepped forward through the group and grinned at her. "You're looking colorful, Helen," he commented, putting a hand on the slime-streaked door of the tank to haul it open. "It looks like you got a bit of the gunge anyway..."

The messy catgirl shrugged her shoulders, grimacing as the movement dislodged more of the slime on them and made it slither through her fur. Taking Alex's hand as he offered it to her, she used her other hand to steady herself on the seat as she carefully extended her foot and set it down shakily on the floor. Taking care not to slip, she gradually took her weight off the chair and stepped out of the tank to rejoin the other three.

"Well, Helen did get a little messy in the end, but shutting off three of the streams means that you get sixty points for the game," Alex announced as he swung the door closed, flicking the small amount of foam on his hand to the floor. Jess looked from him to the dripping catgirl, who was trying to wipe the thick foam off her fingers without much success. As she turned around, she saw the orange splatter mark across her back and shivered as she watched it ooze down her fur.

"Want to move on? Our next game's right across the room." He pointed at the door as he moved towards it, and the four of them were following close behind as he hauled it open and jumped down the short stairway.

As they stepped into the main room again, Jess looked over at the pod, which was still slowly dripping green slime on to the chair below it. The gungy puddle underneath had mostly spread to the edge of the circular platform and was slithering down into a gutter at its base. She looked nervously back at the team leader as she realized she might be underneath one of those things next.

"So, Skye..." Alex began.

"Yeah." The gray husky bounced on her heels, looking keen and glancing with a smile over at Jess. She swallowed, imagining what was going to happen to her very soon.

"Don't you think it's about time you had a go?"

Jess looked over and grinned at Skye's surprise at being asked the question, and joined in the laughing encouragement from the others as the husky girl glanced around at them. Yasa, behind her, clapped a slimy hand on her clean shoulder, and she shivered, brushing him off. Jess was surprised at her reaction compared to how confident she'd been before - she looked as if she was having second thoughts now she was under pressure.

"Well... okay," she said, looking back at the two gunged team members again.

"Good!" Alex, as enthusiastic as ever despite her reluctance, took her hand and dashed around the edge of the room to another of the metallic doors. The others followed as she looked worriedly over at the machine in the center.

Alex tapped out a long code with his free hand, speaking to her as he concentrated on the keypad. "Now, as you're the team leader, Skye, I think it's only fair you get to try out one of our new games..." The husky girl turned to the door, nodding confidently again. Jess watched her face as the plain metal door hummed aside. She blinked at the light from inside the room, then her eyebrows went up in surprise as she saw its contents. Gently, Alex encouraged her inside by leading her by the hand.

Jess leaned around the frame of the door as the others followed them in, and slipped inside as the door closed behind them. The room was similar in shape but slightly smaller than the last, not much more than ten feet long and just wide enough for them all to stand side by side. At the other end of the room, a large mass of pipes and angled vents jutted down from the ceiling above the middle of the wall. They ended in one single nozzle pointed downwards. Underneath the machine, a few sheets of wire mesh stretched around a frame formed a six foot tall cage.

Skye looked from the cage to the tubes above it and back a few times as Alex led her over to the side. He let go of her hand and struggled with a bolt near the back of the frame, then swung the cage's side outwards with a rusty squeak. Smiling a little nastily, he held his hand out to show her inside. The husky gave him a silent look, then padded into the cage.

On the inside of the frame was a short stand, and Skye moved to take the seat behind it. As the cage was closed behind her, she looked down at the two buttons placed side by side on top of the block, labeled "1" and "2".

"I don't think she's too happy about this... feeling all right in there, Skye?" Alex asked, spinning round after taking a couple of paces away from the cage. The husky girl, still looking uncomfortable, looked up into the pipe above her, biting her lip.

Jess took a couple of steps forward to get a closer look, and watched as the red wolf produced the device from his pocket again. Holding it in front of him, he looked down and scrolled through idly with his thumb.

"Now, you'll have noticed that you have a choice of two buttons on the panel in front of you," he began, looking up from the screen. Skye nodded, placing her hands on each of the large curved triggers, then lifted them up again to look at the numbers on them.

"I'm going to be asking you a series of questions, but to keep things simple for you, all the questions in this game can be answered with either 'one' or 'two'. Simple enough, isn't it?"

She nodded again, and leaned forward a little, listening intently as he continued.

"So if you think the answer's 'one', press button 2. If..."

"Oh, you bastard." Skye slumped forward, placing her forehead on the podium and resting her hands on its sides, her brown hair spilling forward over her shoulders as she rolled her head slightly from side to side. Jess looked at Alex as he turned towards her, an exaggerated expression of amused shock on his face.

"Did you hear that?!" he asked, pointing towards the cage. Skye looked up again, peeking over the top of the podium as her shoulders shook with laughter.

"A word of advice, Skye..." Alex coughed and composed himself, looking down at the minicomputer again. "When you're under that thing, be careful what you say to someone who can turn it on!"

Skye glanced upwards again, straightening up and shaking her hair back into position.

Alex recovered and explained the rest of the rules quickly. "Okay. Press button 2 if you think the answer's 'one', and button 1 if you think it's 'two'. You'll only have three seconds to answer each time. A right answer will get you ten points, a wrong one... well, you'll see. Got it?"

The husky girl nodded again distractedly, looking back and forward between the two buttons and hovering her hands over them.

"All right, the first one - what are two ones?"

Skye lifted both her hands and shook them as she thought through the answer she was meant to give, her eyes widening as a shrill beep marked each second passing. Suddenly, she slapped her left hand down on the first button. An electronic bell sounded in response.

"Good, and... 257 minus 255?"

She breathed in, pursing her lips as she thought frantically, and jabbed at the left button again.

"Yes! How many eyes do you have?"

Skye calmly pressed the right-hand button, and jerked upright in the seat with a yelp as a harsh buzzer sounded. A moment later, a high siren shrilled and a column of mixed blue and green slime spewed out of the nozzle above her, slapping against her head and hiding her under a gooey dome as her hands flew to her face.

Yasa moved a pace forward to get a closer look at the cage as the wave of gunge splattered out from Skye's head, pouring through the wires and dripping to the floor. The downpour shut off as quickly as it had started, leaving her to run her hands up over her messy hair, laughing and twitching as the turquoise slime on her back slithered around her neck to drip down her chest in two streams.

"Keep going! One times one!" Alex, looking on amusedly, didn't give her any time to recover.

Looking up from shaking the gunge on her right hand to the floor, the blue-stained husky thumped the right-hand button again to the sound of the 'correct' bell. Breathing out, she slid her hand off the trigger, leaving a blue-green handprint behind.

"The number of moons around the planet!"

She jabbed forward again, then shrieked as the sound made her realize she'd pressed the wrong one. Clutching her hands to her ears, she ducked down as a wave of transparent green gunge slopped out of the tank above her. As the sudden downpour sploshed on to her hair and slithered off on to her back and shoulders, she shook her head, bowing down so that the stuff drizzled off the front of her hair.

Jess watched as she wiped her gooey hands on her lap, the turquoise and green stuff dripping down her and mingling to form a slimy mess.

"Difficult, isn't it?" Alex asked with a smile. She shot a look back at him, raising a finger, and then hunched down over the buttons, concentrating intensely.

Jess mouthed the correct responses to herself as Alex went through four more questions, visibly tensing up and reversing the answer in her head before quickly slapping a hand down on top of one of the triggers. After getting all four right in a row, she made eye contact with Alex, a self-confident smile on her lips.

"And finally... guess."

Skye's mouth fell open, she looked from him to the buttons and back, and after a moment's hesitation, she slapped her palms down on both of them at the same time. She sagged as the harsh buzzer blared once again, and squeezed her eyes closed just before another wave of blue gunge slapped on to her head.

This time it stayed on for longer, and Skye leaned to the side to escape the torrent, her hair matted with slime and hanging over her shocked face. Gradually, her expression turned into a grin as the stuff slapped on to her left shoulder, slithering down her side and making her turn her face further away as it splashed on to her neck. She opened her eyes for a moment to look sideways out at the others, moving her hand up to defend her face from the blue stuff.

The siren wound down, leaving only the noise of the gunge slapping against Skye's fur and dripping stickily to the floor as the downpour subsided, becoming a drizzle from above. She straightened up in the seat again, her eyes closed and her hands near her face as the last few drips of the thick liquid splatted on the top of her head, a couple of drizzles from the edge of the pipe slithering down and landing in her lap.

Jess stepped forward as Yasa moved through the slimy puddle on the floor to the front of the cage, watching the gloop drip from the cage's wires as Skye did her best to clean herself off a little. After brushing the gunge off both her shoulders, smearing it down her arms in the process, she grinned and flung a handful at him. Laughing, he deflected it with his hand.

"You did pretty well there, Skye - only three wrong answers means you've earned seventy points for the team!" Alex moved to open the cage, and the husky girl whooped, pumping her arms in the air happily. As she heard the bolt slide aside she got up, holding her dripping fringe out the way with one hand, and picked her way carefully over to freedom. Gathering up a bunch of her soaked hair, she wrung the slime out of it and smushed her hands on his chest before turning away and walking back towards the group.

Alex followed her across the spreading puddle. Jess swallowed as he pointed at her, knowing what was coming.

"Now, I think we all know who needs to be put into a game now," he started as Skye moved off to the side, shaking her gungy feet between steps and trying to wipe them off on the floor. Jess nodded uncertainly, nervous at being the center of attention and suddenly imagining all the muckier games that used to appear on the show, particularly at the ends of the rounds.

"Let's see where we're going..." He raised the computer again and tapped a couple of buttons. Jess waited, biting her lip as he looked up again, a wide grin on his face.

"Actually, it looks like we've got something lined up for all four of you now... so Jess's safe for the moment!" he continued. Jess breathed out, relieved but a little disappointed at the same time. "But we'll make sure she gets her chance afterwards..."

He clapped a hand on her shoulder as he moved past, and she spun round to follow him as the door opened automatically. He led the team out into the main room again, then turned sharply to run a short distance down one of the corridors before sliding to a halt outside another of the identical-looking doors.

Jess stood at the front of the group as he put in the code to open the door, and leaned round to watch as it slid open.

At the back of the room, four clear cubicles stood in a row, each marked with a number on the front. Above them, a rail stretched across the width of the room, and attached to it was a clear empty cylindrical tank complete with a round funnel-like nozzle underneath it. It was in the center of the rail as they walked in, but looked like it could slide from side to side to position itself above any of the four booths. Jess looked behind her at the rest of the team, watching their mixed expressions as they took in the sight.

"Want to choose a position each?" Alex asked from the back, the door sliding shut behind him. "They're all as good as each other if you ask me..."

Yasa was the first to move, going for the tank numbered "4" on the right. Jess followed him and took hold of the plastic door handle, hauling it open against the light rubber seal on the door. She tentatively stepped inside, looking up to see a round opening cut out of the ceiling of the booth. Turning around, she allowed the door to fall closed behind her. She looked round the plain tank with its metallic back, thinking how much like a phone booth it looked, and realized that it probably had been one before being reworked as part of the set.

Helen stepped into the tank next to her and Skye took the first one on the far side, and they turned to Alex, waiting for him to introduce the game. Casually, he walked over to a projection screen opposite the row of booths.

"This doesn't need much in the way of explanation from me... You're all going to be given a question. If you get it right, you escape clean - or as clean as you are now - and if you get it wrong, then I think you can guess what happens..." He pointed up at the cylindrical tank, and gave the team time to watch as a stream of yellow slime rapidly gushed into it with a loud gloop. "Ready, ROB?" he asked, raising his voice to call at the screen.

"Ready," the metallic voice repeated back. The team members jumped as a mechanical whine was heard from above them, and the tank on the rail slid over away from Jess to the far tank, the one that Skye was inside. With a whirring noise, the funnel extended down towards the tank, and clunked into place above her.

Jess tried to lean around Helen to see her, then looked over at the screen as words started appearing, read out simultaneously by the voice of the computer. A timer faded in at the bottom right, counting backwards from fifteen seconds as Skye frantically read over the question again.

"To the nearest thousand, how many feet were there in three miles?" she repeated to herself worriedly, shifting from foot to foot as she looked at the question. "Fif... sixteen thousand?"

There was a moment's silent pause, with Skye frozen in place. Suddenly, she flinched down as there was a loud click from the machinery, but straightened up again, breathing out heavily as the nozzle rose away from her. Pawing at her messy hair again and trying to straighten it out, she watched as the tank moved to the side, down the row of booths.

Helen also followed the nozzle's movement as it hummed towards her. The layer of foam still clinging to her, she brought one hand up to her face to wipe the stuff away from her eyes as the machine descended to nestle in the gap above her head.

"What was the name of the inventor of the temperature scale?"

Jess watched Helen's reaction as the question was read out. She stood in the same nervous pose that she always seemed to, wringing her hands behind her back and curling and uncurling her feet, and looked up to re-read her challenge only after the voice had finished. Her eyes darted over the question, occasionally opening her mouth then closing it as she thought it through.

She shook her head as the time dropped below five seconds, the ticking noise from the screen becoming increasingly urgent. Without saying a word, she shook her head faster as an alarm sounded, and bowing down, put her hands up to clutch the sides of her head. Jess looked up from watching her just in time to see the slimy surface bubble as the valve at the bottom of the tank burst open.

Helen ducked down a little more just before the yellow column reached her, and squeaked as the cold thick wave slapped against her hair, blobs of gooey foam from the last game she'd been in rolling off her and splatting to the floor along with the waves of yellow gunge doming out from her head. Jess found herself stepping back even with the two sheets of plastic between them as the yellow paint-like gunge slopped against the side of the tank beside hers. Giggling, Helen leaned to the side and put her slimy hand against the side of the booth to steady herself as the gunge poured on to her hair and right shoulder, slithering down to cover her pink fur.

Jess glanced up at the tank above the catgirl, and at the same moment a loud click sounded as the last of it emptied out. Another slurping noise emerged from it, and it began to fill again, this time with a green and orange mixture as the last few drops of the last load dripped on to the yellow-coated catgirl's head. She stood up straight again and coughed, her fingers going to the straps of her swimsuit to straighten them out, tentatively picking at them on her gungy shoulders.

"You OK, Helen?" Alex asked as the nozzle whirred again, hoisting itself back up before the tank moved over. Jess didn't look at her response, instead watching apprehensively as the machine slid over to position itself above her head, and she felt her heart speed up as the funnel clunked into place on her gunge tank. Glancing to the left and right and realizing that Helen and Yasa were watching her, she squeaked as she felt a couple of thick drops of gunge land on her hair. She moved a hand up to wipe them away, trying not to think about being the center of attention as another question came up on the screen.

"What is the next number in this sequence?" the electronic voice asked. "Sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, a hundred and twenty eight, two hundred and fifty six..."

Taken aback by the sudden barrage of numbers, Jess craned her neck to see the screen as the sequence came up, and looking at them made it a little clearer. She bounced on her heels, trying to concentrate on the numbers on the screen, and she knew after just a moment that the number doubled each time, but she couldn't keep her mind from wandering - to the large nozzle placed above her head, how that stuff felt when she'd dipped her finger into it before they'd started the game, but mostly being distracted by the rapidly decreasing timer in the corner of the screen.

"F... Five hundred and twelve," she said suddenly, tripping over the words as she tried to get her guess out before her time reached zero. There was a mechanical click from above her, and her hands instinctively shot to her face.

After a moment, she peeked out from behind her hands, and breathed out, trying to calm herself down as the nozzle above her slowly rose away. Taking her hands away from her face, she watched Yasa's expression as the overhead tank was hauled over towards him, still dripping yellow stuff as it went. Eagerly, he looked up as it stopped, and lowered his eyes to the screen as it descended towards him.

"Did the second millennium start in January 2000 or January 2001?" the metallic voice asked. Jess looked to the screen and back to the rabbit boy, who was thinking hard with his mouth open.

"2001," he answered. Without warning, the alarm blared, and Jess jumped back as he vanished underneath a deluge of mixed green and orange slime. As it bounced off his head and slopped against the cubicle walls, it mingled into a murky brown color.

Yasa leaned forwards a little to get his face out of the dome, flicking his hands and making the custard-like slime on them fly off. As he moved his neck under the downpour it began to subside, stopped doming out and instead ran down and around his neck. He glanced over at Jess with a sickly grin, shaking his head to try and get it off his hair and long ears a little, his hands held out at his sides.

Eventually the stream shut off, and Yasa straightened up to let the last few dollops splat on to his head. Slowly, the blobs of gunge ran down to his fringe as he bowed slightly forwards. Jess watched the stuff ooze and trickle from all over his fur as he stood still, his clothing soaked through and clinging to him heavily. After a few moments, he looked up, blinking, as the electric whine from overhead signaled the nozzle moving up and away again.

Alex stepped forward again, clearing his throat. "Well, out of a possible four, we've only got two gunged team members, which means fifty points for the game - and that brings you up to 260 for the round!"

Jess smiled as Skye and Helen cheered, the husky girl clapping her hands above her head. Yasa grinned from underneath his messy hair, holding his dripping fringe away from his forehead.

"If you're interested, you two - the inventor of the temperature scale was Weiss, Helen, which is where we get the name of the kind of thermometer from..."

The gungy catgirl nodded, eyes closed and dragging the yellow stuff out of her soaked hair.

"And... well, Yasa, the answer to your question was actually neither of them, because it's the third millennium that started then. That was a nasty one, ROB..."

The face of the computer didn't answer, instead disappearing as the screen flickered off as soon as Alex looked at it. He shrugged and turned back to the team.

"Anyway," he continued, "Despite him, that's not a bad start at all - as long as you've got over half the possible points, you're doing pretty well. Come on out here..."

The four of them pushed on the doors of the booths to escape. Jess looked to the sides as the two neighboring team members set their slimy feet carefully down on to the floor, and they all made their way over to gather around the host at the door.

"OK, team leader..." Alex looked over at Skye, who dodged past the dripping Helen and Yasa to get to the front of the group. "We've got to move on now, so would you prefer," - he pointed with his hands - "to head to the storage wing, the processing wing, or go down underwater?"

"Storage," she replied, having made up her mind before he'd stopped speaking.

"Great, because it's just along the end of this corridor," Alex said as he turned away. Pulling on a wall-mounted switch to reopen the door, he showed the four of them through and then followed them out. "This way!" he called, beckoning them to follow as he took off down the passageway. With a brief look at each other, the four of them ran after him.