INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 Round 1

Written by Iron-K

Nicola twisted her fingers in the strap of her sports bag as she felt the elevator slow to a halt, watching the indicator light up against the lowest floor - the one marked with the IZ logo. Tapping her feet on the green-carpeted floor, she looked up as the doors drew apart with an electronic noise to reveal a short corridor area with a single large door at the end.

Breathing out once, she took a couple of seconds to gather herself, and then stepped forwards, swinging her bushy squirrel tail behind her as she strode slowly towards the door opposite. All the time, her eyes were fixed on the large logo and red "WELCOME" stenciled across its painted metal surface.

She heard muffled voices from beyond the door as she approached, and was certain that she recognized the tone of voice of Alex, the show's presenter, as one of them. Grinning to herself and pausing just to take in the moment, she put her hand out on to the bar across the door, and then gradually put her weight on it to swing the door open.

The room behind the door looked like a changing room, tiled in white with a low table in the middle and two benches on either side of it. It was also emptier than she had imagined - the sound of voices had been coming from a television set on a wheeled trolley placed next to the table, and the room's only occupant was a bluish gray mouse girl, who leaned over as she saw her come in and fumbled for the pause button on a video player propped up next to the screen.

"Hi," she greeted her as the mouse stood up and nodded in return, hands clasped and wringing a little in front of her with a nervous smile on her face. She was already wearing the show's signature black swimwear with the show's gear-shaped logo across one side. Nicola noticed as she straightened that she was a couple of inches taller than her, though most people were, and had the large hips and bust that she normally saw on her species.

Seeing her uncertainty, Nicola quickly thought of something else to break the silence. "What's this?" she asked, nodding towards the screen, which was displaying a freeze frame of three barely identifiable figures wallowing in a vat of thick muddy-looking liquid.

The mouse looked over her shoulder at the screen. "It's... um. A video of the last episode, the one they recorded last week," she replied, stumbling on her words. "I got here about an hour ago - Alex was here for a while, but he gave me this to watch while they were all getting ready through there."

"So you've met Alex already! What's he like?" Nicola leaned her head to the side as she pulled her sports bag off her shoulder, hoping to use the line of conversation to break the ice with her future teammate.

The mouse girl smiled a little as they sat down side by side on the bench, Nicola dumping her bag on the ground. "He's nice. He seems exactly the same as he is on the show."

"Cocky, you mean?" Nicola laughed as she leaned forward to start the video up again, and the other girl smiled a little shyly in half-agreement. "I'm so looking forward to getting to take him on..."

She watched the team members in the on-screen gunge vat, eventually realizing they were searching for a set of cubes that a fourth team member was ferrying over to slide into slots on the wall. "Oh, I remember this one! They only used it a couple of times last season. How far through the show's this?"

"It's the start of the third round," her teammate replied.

"Seen anything good that's new so far?" Nicola asked her eagerly.

"Oh, yeah." The mouse girl nodded, giggling a little as she remembered, and Nicola was pleased to see that she seemed to be loosening up a little. "There's this one where Alex put that husky girl inside a cage and she had... she had two buttons for answering questions," she mimed in front of her, "and had to remember to press the wrong button instead of the right one to answer. It was so funny." She shook her head. Confused by her description, Nicola was about to ask her to explain more about it, but stopped as her face lit up as she remembered something else.

"And you need to see this!" She shuffled forwards again and jabbed at the backward skip button on the recorder, glancing from it to the screen and back, eventually letting it run again when it was showing two red-haired tigresses screaming and giggling as they were both covered from all angles in multi-colored slop by the tank surrounding them.

Nicola raised her eyebrows as the massive torrents played over the squirming girls. "Oh, I know this thing..." she recognized as the camera panned out a little. "Is this the bit where they get someone extra in for the middle of the show? I read they were going to start doing that, after they gunged that chubby dragon girl in it at the end of the second season..." She tailed off as her teammate nodded, swallowing as she glanced towards her and realized that she should have chosen her words more carefully.

The curvy mouse hadn't seemed to notice, though. "Yeah - Alex told me they had a special guest going into it this time."

"Really, who?" Nicola asked again. Her eyes moved from her face over to the screen and back as it showed Alex talking with the slippery tigresses, who were now dripping and chest-deep in gunge.

"Didn't say," she shrugged.

"Hmph." Nicola paused, and began to look around the room. "What are they doing through there, anyway?" she asked, nodding at the set of double doors opposite the entrance she had come in by.

"Don't know," came the distracted reply as the mouse skipped the video forward past the game they'd just seen. "I've only been in here and the changing room."

"I'm going to see!" Nicola sprang forwards, putting both feet on the ground at once and straightening up.

"I don't know if..." the mouse girl started, raising a hand as she stepped away.

"I'm just going to look," Nicola reassured her as she moved away from her, walked around the table and approached the double doors. She looked back at the gray mouse girl, who didn't get up from the bench but was watching intently as she put her hand on one of them. Opening it a crack, she poked her head through, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside.

What she could see of the few meter wide area beyond the door was made up to look dingy and industrial, with a few vertical pipes stretching from floor to ceiling next to the battered brick-textured walls. Directly across the room, a heavy-looking hatch was placed below a large projection screen on the wall, and next to it was the chainlink-covered entrance to what looked like a cargo lift. Noticing a couple of stage crew members setting up a camera on the left, she ducked back into the lit room.

"See anything?" the gray mouse girl asked her as the door fell closed.

"Nothing much," she shrugged. "I don't think I've seen that room on the show. It must be the front area where we start off."

She moved away from the doors, suddenly realizing the heat in the room they were waiting in. Adjusting her collar as she walked back, she crouched down to get her bag and rummaged in it for her water bottle.

"Hot in here, isn't it?" she said, glancing at the mouse girl for a moment.

"Yeah, that's why I got changed." The mouse looked up at the ceiling lights for a moment. "I said that to Alex too when I came in, and he said that they keep it like that to keep the team warm, because most of the time you're covered in... you know." She hunched her shoulders and eeped, seeming a little hesitant to even mention the word.

"I like the sound of that!" Nicola put the bottle back and straightened up, grabbing her bag as she moved. "All right, I'm going to get changed too."

The mouse girl nodded, and she turned back to the screen as Nicola headed for the changing room door. She pushed it open with her free hand and walked through.

The changing room looked much like a locker room at a swimming pool, with a set of open clothes lockers to her left and a couple of changing cubicles on her right. In front of her, a gap in the tiled wall led through to a shower area. She headed for the clothes rack placed in the corner beside the lockers, taking off her watch and rings as she walked and depositing them in the bag she had over her shoulder.

She ran her finger along the rack of swimwear, T-shirts and shorts - most of them were colored black with yellow stamps of the IZ logo like she'd seen the mouse girl wearing. After finding a two-piece set labeled as her size, she unhooked it from the rack and slipped her bag off her shoulder. Looking back at the door, she sat down on the bench next to the lockers, tugging her T-shirt off over her head.

She got out of her clothing quickly, standing up to step out of her shoes and then tug her jeans off, dropping them in a pile on the bench beside her. After leaning on the lockers beside her to slide off her socks, she twisted round to shake out the bikini bottoms she'd chosen. Slipping them on up her legs, and shaking her head a bit to keep her loose brownish-blonde hair out the way, she couldn't help smiling to herself as she looked down at the logo on them.

After grabbing the top and doing that up as well, she grabbed the pile of her normal clothing and pushed it into a compartment beside the only other full one. Half-closing the doors over both of them, she remembered about her bag, and pulled a sports spray out of it to use on herself just before kicking the bag into one of the other lockers.

Walking forwards towards the door, her newly bare feet a little cold against the bumped tiles, she brushed her hands through her fur and hair a little, making sure her tail hadn't been caught in her bikini. She pushed open the door ready to rejoin her teammate watching the video again, but jumped as she saw her seat on the bench had been taken by a burly red-furred wolf that she recognized as Alex. Taken aback, she tried to say something, but he turned to grin at her and spoke first.

"Hi, Nicola!" he welcomed her, energetically springing up from the bench and coming forward to shake her hand. "Sorry I wasn't around when you came in - we've just been doing some last-minute setup for your episode through there," he added, letting go and gesturing towards the double doors.

Nicola paused for a moment, swallowing and trying not to show her surprise. "Hi," she said back, nodding as their handshake continued, then sought for something else to add. "Nice... to get to see you in real life," she managed.

"You too," the red wolf replied, then let go of her hand. "I think I took your seat!" he smiled, gesturing towards the part of the bench he'd been sitting on.

"Oh... thanks." Nicola breathed out and made to sit down next to the mouse again, but then turned around as she heard the door being pushed open slightly.

Quietly, a slender blonde-haired girl slipped around the gap between the door and its frame, waving a little with one hand. Nicola was silently relieved to see that she wouldn't be the shortest team member. She wasn't sure of her species at first, but as she turned to push the door closed behind her she could tell from her light double-striped tail that she was a chipmunk. Apart from those whitish fur markings and her hair that was worn loose down to the middle of her back, her fur was a golden brown color. She flashed a smile again, pushing her large round glasses a little up her nose, as Alex stepped past Nicola to greet her.

"Hi there, you must be Lesley," he started, moving to the side a little so that he didn't block the girls' view of each other and extending his hand as he had done to Nicola.

"Yes. Hello," she smiled back quietly as she accepted the handshake. Nicola was quite surprised to hear a slightly classy, articulate accent being very obvious even just as she said those two words.

"Welcome to IZ," he continued as he led her over. The mouse girl stood up and hopped forwards to turn the volume on the video down. "We've got two of your teammates so far, Nicola and Kim," he introduced them, extending a hand towards each in turn. Nicola glanced sideways at the mouse girl as she shook Lesley's hand, realizing that she hadn't asked her name when they had met before.

After Lesley had exchanged her shy greetings with both of them, Alex spoke up again. "So that's three of us - we've still got a while before we're due to start, so we might be waiting for Anneka. Do you want to get changed in the meantime, Lesley?"

"Okay." She nodded and looked over her shoulder for the changing room door before turning towards it and heading through. Alex smiled after her, then put his hands behind his back and took a couple of strolling steps back towards the benches. Nicola sat down as he approached.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing towards the bench, then squeezed himself on to it next to the two of them as Nicola shuffled over to make room.

Nicola turned back to the screen, frustrated that after her confidence earlier she couldn't think of anything to say to Alex. For a moment, she fixed her eyes on the on-screen catgirl who was sitting inside a plastic booth struggling for answers to his questions.

"Have you enjoyed what you've seen so far, Kim?" Alex spoke up over Nicola's head, and she turned to the mouse girl as she looked over at him to answer.

"Yeah..." she laughed nervously. "I think you've made it even muckier than I remember."

"We try!" he smiled. "Nicola, I don't know how much you've seen of this video..."

"Er, from the first game of the third round," she answered, remembering what Kim had told her earlier. "And the part where you gunged those tigress sisters. It looked like you enjoyed that..." she added, turning towards him and silently laughing at his slightly surprised expression.

He chuckled to himself. "Yeah, I can hardly deny that. But I think this time that part's going to be even better."

"Kim said," Nicola nodded. "Who've you got in there?"

Alex held a finger up, shaking his head. "Can't tell you! You'll get to see it happen, though, I promise - but you're going to have to go through eight games to get to the middle where it happens..."

"I'm looking forward to it!" Nicola grinned, then whipped her head round at the distinct sound of IZ's usual alarm noise, audible even though the volume on the set was down. She watched fascinatedly as a wide downpour of green gunge dropped from the top of the booth to envelop the pink catgirl, who squeaked and wriggled as the stuff poured over her, two thinner streams starting up and licking across her diagonally from the top sides.

"We might be doing that to one of you later on," the red wolf smiled as the downpour began to ease off. Nicola nodded, trying to imagine once again what being covered in gunge felt like. She watched, shivering a little, as the kitten girl bowed her head forward slightly to make the thick liquid pouring on to her head dribble off her fringe. It looked like it had the consistency of paint, she thought.

"What's that stuff made of?" Kim suddenly asked. Nicola pricked her ears up, interested and surprised that she hadn't thought to ask herself.

Alex leaned back, rubbing his chin. "A few things, actually," he replied as he thought about it. "They're all a bit different depending on what kind of texture we want..."

He turned his head as the changing room door opened again, and the chipmunk girl who had gone in a few minutes ago crept out again just as nervously as she had been when she first entered. She had removed her glasses and she was now wearing a black bikini like the other two, revealing her uniform brown fur - no light patches around her chest and tummy like Nicola had.

"Lesley! Welcome back, have a seat. Want to hear how gunge is made?"

The chipmunk girl smiled at the sound of the word as she tiptoed across the room to the opposite side of the table, though she still had her hand clasped nervously across her tummy. "Yes, go on," she answered as she sat down opposite them, feeling behind her for the surface of the bench while keeping her eyes on Alex. Kim got up and nudged the television set around to the head of the low table, so they could all see its screen.

"Well, I was about to say to the others that it's all based on an industrial food thickener," he started, leaning forward and looking round at all of them. "Have you ever made that stuff with cornstarch and water, where it firms up when you press on it?"

Nicola nodded as he finished the sentence. "I used to love that stuff!" she heard Kim say enthusiastically from behind her.

"It's the same kind of idea as that, except this stuff thickens it even more, and if you mix it up with water at the right temperature, it dissolves into it instead of forming lumps. I've no idea why, I never took chemistry..."

Lesley raised her arm, and he looked over at her. "It's..." she started, then swallowed. "It's because it makes it disperse better, so it doesn't get the chance to... stick to itself," she said carefully.

"There we go!" Alex laughed, holding a hand out towards her. "So if we ask you any questions about that during the show, you're going to be safe..."

The chipmunk girl smiled nervously, blinking and falling quiet again. Nicola looked at Alex, eager to find out more.

"When we made the pilot I remember we had to stir the stuff up by hand, but that was murder on your arms - I remember they ached for a week afterwards!" Alex said, rubbing his forearms unconsciously as he looked around at their amused expressions. "Now we've got a couple of big mixers for it upstairs," he continued, pointing vaguely to the ceiling, "and we use powder paint to color it, 'cause it doesn't stain like the food coloring that we tried at first."

Nicola burst out laughing, then looked up at the others who had turned to her. "Sorry," she said. "I just got a picture of some unlucky crew member having to walk around colored bright green for a week before you found that out..."

Alex smiled back, and was about to respond when there was a knock on the door leading outside. "Come on in!" he called. He was on his feet before the new arrival had even started opening the door, and as he approached, a tall, slim spotted feline that Nicola guessed was Anneka stepped around it, her hand still on the outside handle.

"Hi there," he said warmly, his hand outstretched in the same gesture he'd made to the others. The jaguar girl let go of the doorhandle, letting it fall closed.

"Hi," she replied, her other hand moving up to take off the bag she had on her shoulder. She glanced around the room. "Am I the last one here?"

"Afraid so." Alex guided her gently over to the door on the left. "I don't want to hurry you or anything, but if you want to get changed, I'll introduce you all to each other when you're back. How are you feeling?"

"Well... a little overdressed," she laughed as she nodded past him at the others' swimwear, one hand gesturing down at her buttoned shirt and trousers.

Alex chuckled back. "Well, the changing rooms are right through here," he said, pushing the door open for her, "and then I think we'll be ready to get you started!"

The jaguar girl nodded, then stepped through with a wave back at the others, already pulling a clasp out of her chin-length black hair. Nicola looked up at the red wolf as he came back to their bench.

"I thought we'd have to wait around while you set everything up," she said as he sat back down beside her. "Do we really just go in and...?" She tailed off, searching for the right words.

"Yeah, it's all done pretty much exactly as you see it on the show," Alex finished for her. "Usually we go through as if we're not even being filmed - if we do have to stop and retake something it'll usually be because of a mistake I've made!"

Nicola nodded, already wondering if there was anything they'd experience that wouldn't make it into the final broadcast. She glanced at the TV again for a moment at the sound of another siren - it was showing a puppy girl squirming inside a booth as a flood of brightly colored foam crept up her legs. Lesley and Kim had been watching the scene intently, and both gave audible gasps as she was enveloped in a dome of gunge from above.

"The Mixer?" Nicola asked, recognizing it.

"Yep. New and improved," smiled Alex as he watched the messy canine wriggle and duck out of the way of the subsiding gooey drizzle. "We're going to have one of you in there by the end!"

She shivered a little herself as she looked at the results of losing the game, still finding it difficult to believe that they were about to face them themselves. On-screen, Alex strolled around the tank, talking to its victim inside and handing her a face towel.

"Do you ever get nervous about seeing yourself on TV?" Nicola leaned over to ask him.

The red wolf chuckled, watching himself on the screen. "Yeah, I admit it was weird at first. I've got sort of used to it, but I don't tend to watch IZ when it goes out on TV, I see it all being put together in the editing room. This is the first time I've seen this episode finished, actually..."

Their heads all turned once again at the now familiar sound of the changing room door, and Anneka re-emerged, clad in a black bikini like the others.

"Ah - perfect timing!" Alex suddenly moved forwards and stopped the playback that they were watching. "I wanted the final to be a surprise for you all when you get to it yourselves," he explained as he carefully took hold of the corners of the TV trolley and wheeled it into the corner of the room, kicking the power cord into place. "Have a seat, Anneka - I've got some introduction stuff to go over with you, and then we can get going!"

The jaguar girl walked over to the bench opposite Nicola, and Lesley shuffled aside to make space for her as she sat down. "Do I look OK?" she asked the room in general, feeling behind her for her tail and running it through her hands.

"Absolutely," Alex assured her, hooking his foot around a chair in the corner of the room and dragging it over to sit at one end of the table. "But you don't have to worry about staying clean and dry for long..."

His tease was met with nervous laughter from all four of them, and Nicola was surprised to find herself becoming just a little more anxious at the thought of what they were about to go into as the moment came closer. She kept on glancing at the double doors leading to the game area as Alex went around them all, getting them to introduce themselves to the others and say a little about themselves - Kim and Lesley needed some encouragement, but Anneka seemed much more enthusiastic about it, and Nicola hoped that she came across that way too.

Eventually, keeping his eyes on Lesley as she nervously finished speaking, the red wolf reached into his pocket and produced a large folded piece of paper, which he spread out on the table in front of them. Nicola shuffled forwards on the seat and then knelt down next to the table to get a closer look at it - it showed an overhead plan of the set, a collection of corridors and rooms more or less centered around a circular hub area.

"So this is what I'm about to lead you into - you've all seen the show before, yeah?" he asked, looking up from the plan and pointing at each of them in turn to check their responses. "The set's going to be a bit different from what you've seen before in the last two seasons, but you'll definitely recognize a lot of it. The goal's still the same - you're going to be put into sixteen games, four in each of these areas -", he waved a hand over the map, "- with the opportunity to earn up to a hundred points in each, and your score total at the end decides how long you get in the final obstacle course type game."

He continued talking about the show's storyline for a while, while Nicola distractedly nodded and looked around the map in front of her, recognizing several game names even though most of them were abbreviated on the plan.

"Like I was saying to the others, Anneka, you don't need to worry about the cameras," she heard him say, "we'll be being recorded all the time in there, but we try to keep them as hidden as possible. Just try not to look directly at any of the cameras you might spot on the walls, and ignore the camera crew that you might see following us from time to time. They should stay pretty invisible, though, if they're doing their job right - the hope is that you'll forget you're being filmed at all. And I think you will, because you'll have other things to worry about..."

Nicola looked up as he reached into his pocket again, and grinned as he produced a small bottle filled with opaque greenish yellow liquid. "This is what you've been waiting for, am I right?" he asked. She nodded, getting to her feet to get a closer look, then returning slowly to the bench. "I can give you a small taster of it if you want..."

He unscrewed the cap, and motioned for Lesley to cup her hands. She did so, and he tipped the bottle to pour some of the slime out. The chipmunk girl eeped a little as the stuff poured out, looking down into her hands at how the stuff moved as small streaks of it oozed down to the floor between her fingers. Alex squeezed past her towards Anneka, pouring some of it into her hands as well, and came around to Nicola as the jaguar girl peered fascinatedly down at it.

Nicola cupped her hands and stretched them up as he approached, watching closely as he tipped the bottle over. She squeaked a little as the cool slime glooped out of it, almost forming a pile in her hands before it began to flow like liquid. It felt a little like having a bottle of shampoo poured into her hands, and she stared down at the stuff, moving her cupped hands from side to side as Alex gave some to Kim and returned to his seat.

"So, the stuff you've got in your hands is what we call 'gunge'," Alex said. "Fantastic word, isn't it?" Nicola nodded, looking up at him as he continued. "It's water-based, made using an industrial food thickener and powder paint - it's made to feel a bit unpleasant, but it's perfectly safe stuff to be covered in - you can get it in your eyes without it stinging, it's even technically edible, not that you'd want to try."

"Eurgh," Kim giggled from beside Nicola, bringing her hands up to look at it more closely. "Reminds me of... school custard." She moved her hands down, then looked along the floor, wriggling forwards to get up and step towards the small drain set into one of the tiles.

"You can just dump it out on the floor. We've got a stage crew who have to clean up the set after we've been through it - believe me, a little more mess in here isn't a problem!" Alex chuckled.

Kim reluctantly stretched her arms down a little more and then opened her hands, letting the handful of off-yellow stuff slip through them and splatter stickily on the floor. As the others did the same, Nicola tipped her hands forward, watching the stuff flow heavily out of them. It left behind a sticky layer on her palms, which she rubbed together to try and remove.

"So you've seen what it looks like up close now, but in the games, you'll be risking being covered in about ten or twenty gallons of that stuff each time," Alex went on. The girls exchanged smiles with each other, Lesley bringing one hand up to run down her hair. "But if you're in one of the gunge tanks and you seriously feel uncomfortable with what's happening, just shout for me and we can stop everything instantly, even if I've said there's an unstoppable timer running or anything. We might... pick on you a little, but we want you to enjoy yourselves."

Nicola nodded along with the others. She knew she wasn't likely to want to escape, but welcomed the reassurance.

"And... the last thing is, we need to choose a team leader. They just choose the order we do the games in, and who's going into them - though often it'll be a blind choice, so it might not make much difference," he said. "And the other three will have to rescue whoever you pick in the final, too. Any volunteers?"

Nicola remembered the large tank the team leaders had been trapped in during the final of the last series, and found herself hesitating a little. "I'll do it," she eventually spoke up as she saw Lesley and Kim shaking their heads, then realized she'd spoken at the same time as Anneka across from her. She looked across at her, then nodded at her encouragingly.

"No, you go on..." Anneka said back.

"Ah, a classic stalemate when we've got a group of team mates who are too nice!" Alex said, making them both turn to him. "I'll tell you what we'll do..." Nicola craned her neck to see as he felt in one of his pockets again, eventually producing a bulky palmtop device. "You know I mentioned you'd have to rescue the team leader - I want you to use absolute prejudice to vote on who you'd most like to see inside the big gunge tank in the final," he said, turning the device on and sliding it across the table to Kim.

"Just touch the screen where... yes, that's it," he pointed as he leaned over. Kim scrolled her choice off the display and Nicola reached out to take it, grinning as she tapped in her own choice on the keypad.

Alex waited for the last two girls to enter their choices, then accepted the device back from Lesley. "All right," he said, holding it up in front of him and scrolling through with a thumbwheel on the side. "Kim went for Anneka. Nicola... well, she voted for me."

Nicola grinned at his deadpan reaction, and heard a couple of nervous laughs from the others as he continued. "And the other two votes were for Anneka as well, even though I notice she managed to put a 'B' in her own name - you might not want to put her in any word games!"

"It's difficult to..." Anneka mimed hitting the touchpad keyboard in front of her in protest at his joke, and he smiled and nodded.

"So that's our team leader decided. OK with you, Nicola?" Nicola nodded, remembering with excitement what was coming.

"Want to get in there?"

She got to her feet quickly, the others doing the same as the red wolf pointed over his shoulder to the doors, then turned and swung them both open in front of him. Nicola eagerly moved forward to take hold of the door behind him as they went through.

The room beyond the doors was now lit, but not much more than when she had seen it before. She followed Alex towards the elevator-like platform that she'd seen at the left hand side of the far wall as the others trailed behind them, looking around at their gloomy surroundings.

"This is the last bit before we really get started - I'm going to put you all in here while I do the introduction, which'll take just a couple of minutes - then the platform will come down and the cameras are on from then on." He motioned them through the opening, and each of them took a corner of the platform. Nicola looked up at the small space above them, then back to Alex.

"All ready?"

"Yeah," Nicola said out loud, bouncing on her heels. The others nodded in agreement.

"Start it up, Cliff!" the red wolf called to the side, and the four of them jumped as the platform began rising upwards. He held up a hand to them before turning around and dashing back to the center of the room.

Nicola looked upwards again into the space that they were being raised into, which was a small emclosed area with a screen mounted on one wall so that they could see what was going on outside. As they were lifted up towards it, she positioned herself in front of it, straining to see as Alex addressed the camera, going through an introduction similar to what she'd seen on the television before.

"Can't believe I'm in here, can't believe I'm in here..." Kim whispered to herself, clasping her hands in front of her and drumming her bare feet on the ground a little. Nicola was thinking the same thing, but tried to concentrate on listening to what was happening on the screen, not showing her nerves. A few shots and maps of the fictional complex the show was set in were being projected on the screen behind Alex, eventually dissolving into a display of a slightly distorted yellow wireframe face.

"That's meant to be their new computer?" she asked, looking up at the face that represented it as it exchanged a couple of snide comments with Alex. "I think I liked Silicon better..."

Lesley glanced back over her shoulder at her, and she stayed quiet as the introduction continued. Anneka gasped as he moved on to introducing the team members, with large projections of their faces and names.

"I'm going to do something stupid on camera, I know it..." the jaguar girl smiled, bouncing a little on her feet as her photos came up.

"Yeah, I think we all are." Nicola was trying her best not to show her excitement, but her heart was racing as the moment drew closer. She looked back at the screen as Alex said her name, and -

"It's starting!" Kim squeaked as the floor gave a jolt that startled them all. She held her hands nervously at her mouth, her thin tail swishing behind her. Nicola turned to watch as the lift smoothly moved towards the ground, the opening into the room gradually becoming visible again.

She grinned over her shoulder. "Good luck!" she called, then after a slight stumble as the lift jolted to a halt, she dashed through the entranceway and over towards where Alex was standing.

"Welcome to the Industrial Zone, all four of you..." Alex clapped his hands together as they jogged towards him, calling out their names as they approached. "Nicola, Lesley, Kim... and our team leader, Anneka. We've got four parts of the complex to get through... are you ready to open it up and get in there?"

Nicola nodded, still half-aware of the idea they were being filmed, then joined in the quiet acknowledgements from the others.

"Well, you can see how enthusiastic they are already, ROB," the red wolf laughed as he turned up to the projection screen again, the yellow face fading back into view. "Can you get it open for us and let them prove themselves?"

"Fine. I'll open up sixteen rooms. But I'm not confident," the electronic face smirked before fading away.

"Hey..." Nicola said out loud, then almost squeaked as a mechanical noise started up from somewhere on the right. She looked over to see a six-foot garage-like door slowly rising and folding on to rails on the ceiling, the light from the brighter area beyond it forming a spreading rectangle on the floor.

"Come on!" Alex called as he jumped towards the rising door, ducking under it before it had fully finished opening. Nicola was the first to move after him, and heard the others running to keep up as they moved into a tube light-lined corridor. She glanced from side to side at the large logos on each wall as they ran, then put her hand out against the wall at a sharp turn, walking a little breathlessly into the room at the end.

The room they had entered was circular, white and sterile-looking, with a few blank metal doors placed up short steps on the walls. A couple of corridors like the one they'd come in by led off to the left and right. In the center of the room, a dark spherical device stood supported by three spindly metallic legs a couple of meters above a slightly raised platform - she swallowed as she recognized it as what the show called 'the Pod', a machine that she'd seen used on virtually every episode she'd watched.

She took a couple of steps towards it, excited by seeing the thing in real life, as the other three team members walked into the room behind her. Bending down a little to look up at its underside, she couldn't help smiling as she saw a round nozzle pointed down at the chair underneath it - she had always wondered what the IZ machines looked like from the inside.

Lesley walked up beside her and looked too, and Nicola straightened up. Seeing Alex beckoning the four of them over, she stepped around the fascinated chipmunk girl, giving her a tap on the back to get her attention as they moved over to join him next to one of the corridor entrances.

"This is the hub of the research center, team - we still don't quite know everything that they did here, but most of it involved digging up things from the ocean floor like that thing," he pointed at the pod, and the four girls looked over as softly strobing lights blinked over its surface, "until they accidentally transformed the water for miles around. After that they started on a purifier to correct their mistake, but left it locked away where we can't get to it... until you earn some time in there by taking the challenges left for you." Nicola bounced on her heels eagerly, nodding impatiently as she waited for them to move again.

"So we can stay around this area while you get your feet wet, so to speak," - Nicola held back a grin at the expression - "or if you're feeling confident we can dive right in and go to the storage or processing wings, or even down to the undersea level. Anneka, what's it going to be?"

The jaguar girl jumped a little at the mention of her name, having been distracted looking around the circular white room. "Er," she started, then gathered herself. "Let's head to... storage." She looked between the other three, then nodded at Alex.

"Storage? All right! This way," he pointed as he sprang into a run again, jumping through the group of girls and heading towards the opening that had been to their right when they came in. Nicola was the first to react and jogged behind him as he led them down the new corridor, going a short distance before bursting through a set of swinging double doors with both hands.

Nicola squeezed through as the doors swung back, looking up to see him stepping a little more carefully through a tiled section of the corridor lined with nozzles at the sides. Tentatively, she came through behind him, drawing her arms in and half-expecting the sprayers to burst into life at any moment as she dashed through behind him.

After stepping off the other end still dry, she turned and waited for the others to file through, looking around at the corridor around them. This area was much less sterile-looking than the hub they'd been taken through, with floors and walls that were textured to look like bare gray stone. A few beams slanted across just below the curved ceiling, with flickering light bulbs dangling from wires looped around them. Occasional storage containers marked with meaningless warning symbols littered the passageway ahead, which went on for a few feet before forming a T-junction.

"Okay, team..." Alex spoke up as the other three girls stepped one by one out of the end of the tiled section. He fished in his pocket for the minicomputer that he'd taken out before. "This place is the storage wing, where they used to keep things that they'd dredged up from the sea bed, or more recently, samples of the contaminated water that they'd taken in and hadn't got around to cleaning up yet."

He took a couple of steps towards a nearby blue barrel. "We haven't quite explored all of it, either, but hopefully none of it's going to go off if you shake it or anything..." Suddenly he knocked hard on the barrel with his fist, producing a loud clank and making Lesley and Anneka jump. Nicola smiled to herself, trying not to let her nervous excitement show as she waited to see where they were going to be taken.

"And if you're all ready..." He paused a moment, looking down at the screen. "...our first game's one for all of you, and it's just around this corner." He put the palmtop away again and beckoned as he turned to dash towards the junction. Nicola eagerly ran to catch up with him and turned the corner as he slid to a halt.

She raised her eyebrows as she looked up at the section of corridor in front of them. On the left, a small step led up to a wide recess that had enough room for four clear plastic seats, placed in a row with about a yard of space between each one. A few feet above them, a metal rail stretched from one end of the alcove to the other, and mounted halfway along the rail was a large mechanical contraption consisting of knotted pipes and dangling tubes, ending in a tapered nozzle that pointed down towards the row of chairs.

"This is the Dispenser, team," the red wolf announced as they all looked up at it. He casually walked down the corridor a couple of steps away from them, giving them all enough room to walk fully around to see it. "When this place was still going it was used to fill rows of barrels quickly, but we've ripped the bottom half out and we're going to put you under there instead. Want to take a seat?"

Nicola felt her heart lurch as he raised his hand towards the row of seats, and stood still for just a moment as the others began moving forwards. Slowly, she walked behind them, staring up at the overhead machine as she stepped on to the raised section of floor and headed to sit down on the far right chair. She'd watched this game played many times on the show before, but she never thought she'd be seeing it from this angle.

As she wriggled back in the soft blowup seat, taking her weight off her dangling toes, she glanced over at the other girls then looked forwards. A large projection screen was set up on the wall of the corridor in front of them, and Alex was watching them as he paced down to position himself beside it. After watching them all take their seats, he cleared his throat, and Nicola tapped her feet a little nervously, knowing that she was about to be part of an IZ game for the first time.

"All right, everyone - we're starting off with a simple one!" Alex pointed over his shoulder to the large projection screen behind him. "You're going to be shown a series of ten everyday items on this screen, and after that, I'm going to be asking all of you to name an item from the list in turn - you're going to get ten points for each item you get right." Nicola nodded - the game worked in the same way as she'd seen it before. It had always seemed easy when just watching it.

"But, of course, we'll be adding an extra incentive to get things right as well..."

Alex pointed upwards, and Nicola looked up to the large funnel above them. Suddenly it began to move down the rail towards her with a mechanical hum, the dangling tubes underneath swinging slightly with the movement. Even though she knew this always happened, she couldn't help shivering tensely as it slid to hang above her. She stared up into its nozzle, seeing a dark metallic device just inside it.

She relaxed a little as it moved away again, heading back down the row of chairs. Smiling a little as she saw the other girls flinch as it went over them, she craned her neck up above them to watch. Eventually it stopped again above Kim, who looked up at it uneasily before returning her eyes to their host.

"Perhaps it's more of a distraction," he smiled. "If you can't name anything that hasn't been said after ten seconds, the dispenser's going to activate above you and... you'll be out." He paused for a moment as the image sank in, watching them all squirm a little before continuing. "You'll be starting, Kim, so make sure you concentrate!" The mouse girl nodded, kicking her feet gently against the front of the inflatable seat.

"All right - everyone ready?" Alex paused a moment and waited for them all to nod before stepping out of the way. "Here they come." Nicola leaned forwards, gripping the arm of the seat tighter as the lights went down. As the screen turned on, showing a table lamp, she repeated its name under her breath, and continued to do so as the screen changed, showing a new item every two seconds. She swallowed, trying to ignore the distraction of her nervousness as she counted out the objects they'd been shown by tapping her fingers on the chair's arms, and continued going over the ones she could remember in her head as the lights came back up.

"Got all of them?" Alex asked. Nicola tried to concentrate on the list she was playing in her head, already unsure of a couple of them, as he paced over so he was in front of the first chair. "Let's get started - Kim, name anything from that list!" The mouse girl sat up straighter, and gasped a little as a ticking noise began playing from the machine looming above her.

"A lamp," she said carefully. Nicola nodded to herself as she watched her glancing upwards at the nozzle again, and the mouse girl sagged relievedly as the sound of the timer stopped.

"That's right," Alex nodded encouragingly. "That seemed easy enough. Lesley, your turn..."

Nicola only half-listened, going over the items she could remember again as she kept her eye on the nozzle heading down towards her. After Anneka and Lesley answered correctly, she bounced in the seat a little, squirming uneasily as the large nozzle hummed into place above her. She opened her mouth to speak, but Alex got in first.

"Nicola, you've got the most difficult position at the end there, but it looks like you're ready to save yourself... what's your first answer?"

She nodded as he finished, then jumped as the timer sound began clicking from above her. "A c... er, drinks can," she said, grimacing to herself as she tripped over the word. She was about to repeat it, but stayed quiet as she heard the timer stop.

"Excellent, you've got through one pass totally clean and there are only six items still to go. Kim, can you remember any of them?" Alex dashed back along the row of chairs as the nozzle moved away from Nicola, sliding faster to click into position above the mouse girl's head again.

Nicola drummed her feet distractedly on the ground as she watched her thinking, still concentrating on the few remaining objects she thought she could remember. Eventually the mouse girl named one of them correctly, and the spout above them moved over to Lesley.

"Lesley, it's getting more difficult - can you save yourself this time?"

"A desk lamp," she responded instantly.

"Sorry, Kim's already said that one," Alex responded, and she gasped, putting her hands to her mouth as the ticking sound from the ceiling continued, getting gradually more urgent. "Anything else?"

Nicola watched as the small chipmunk girl looked up at the gunge nozzle looming above her head, her hands placed over her ears but her face staying calm. "A jam-jar!" she suddenly shouted, slapping her hands down on the arms of the seat, then squeezed her eyes shut as she waited.

There was a clicking noise from above her, and Lesley flinched as the nozzle juddered. But with a mechanical whine, it began moving away from her again.

"That was a close one, Lesley!" Alex remarked as she opened her eyes, pulling herself up to sit upright and then raising her hands in the air. Nicola glanced sideways at Anneka, whose shoulders were shaking a little as she laughed under her breath, watching the gunge nozzle slide into place above her.

"All right, team leader, there are only four more things to go - can you name any of them?"

"That was what I was gonna say," she giggled, indicating to her right at the watching chipmunk girl and shaking her head defeatedly.

"Can't remember any of the others? Then I'm afraid you know what's going to happen..." As the ticking noise of the timer rose in pitch, the jaguar girl continued to shake her head, and Nicola quickly looked up to the funnel above her, putting both hands on one arm of the seat as she leaned eagerly over to watch.

A short, harsh klaxon began to sound repeatedly from the ceiling, and Anneka whimpered, closing her eyes and biting her lip as she rested her arms on the sides of her seat, bowing her head slightly down. Nicola flinched back a little as the klaxon was replaced by a lower alarm sound, something moved on the nozzle and a column of bright green stuff began spilling down out of it.

Nicola quickly looked back at the cringing feline just before the gunge splurged on to the top of her head, splashing outwards wildly with a wet squelching noise just before a loud yelp from underneath the messy dome covered the sound up. Through the falling droplets she saw Anneka raise her arms off the sides of the seat and place her hands over her eyes, squirming to the side a little so the sloppy liquid poured over her shoulder. As the ooze continued to fall and splatter on to her, she leaned forwards instead, taking her hands away from her face and revealing a sickly grin.

The gungy downpour began to ease off, the column of green stuff getting thinner until it was just a thick drizzle from above. Nicola shivered as she looked over at Anneka's green-colored hair, shoulders and back, the stuff forming slimy rivulets as it slithered down her fur. As she watched fascinatedly, the jaguar girl sat up again, blinking as the dribbly remains of the downpour splotted on to her head.

"Bad luck, Anneka, but the first gunging had to happen to somebody - how would you describe it to your team mates?" Alex asked.

"Eurgh," she replied with a giggle, bringing her hands carefully up to wipe across her forehead and get specks of the stuff off her muzzle. She stuck her tongue out, flicking her hands to the sides to spray gooey droplets away from them.

"That sounds about right," the red wolf smiled. With a jolt, the nozzle began to move again, spilling a few more drops down on to the jaguar girl as it slid away from her. Nicola watched it come over, blinking as the continuing drips from it pattered on to the side of her chair, twitching as a green splat of it landed on her arm. She looked back over at Anneka, smiling nervously as she watched the gunge drip slowly from her hair.

"Nicola, you might be getting a bit of gunge from that thing anyway," Alex chuckled as he watched it move into position. "To stop it going off again, though, you've still got four more objects to name - go ahead."

Nicola looked away from the gungy jaguar girl, faced Alex and realized that she'd forgotten everything else that she had seen. "I... I don't know," she stuttered, feeling panic rising inside her. "Uh..."

"Sorry, you've got to come up with something or the same thing happens to you!" Alex shook his head, saying it quickly as he gestured towards the nozzle.

"Um..." As she tapped her fingers on the edges of the seat, frustratedly trying her hardest to think, the fast, harsh blare of the klaxon began sounding from above her. Glancing up at the tip of the nozzle pointed down at her, then at the other three girls watching, she desperately wondered how to position herself for what was about to happen. Instinctively putting her hands to her face, she closed her eyes behind them just in time for the second alarm to ring.

A fraction of a second later, she felt a heavy wave smack on to her and push her head down under its weight, splattering thickly outwards to gloop over her shoulders. As she bowed her head forward the cool gunge slopped on to her neck, and she squeaked as it poured across her shoulders and slithered down her chest. Breathing in and out carefully, she smiled behind her hands as the shock gave way and she became aware of the glutinous liquid coating her back, dripping through her hair and fur, over her hands protecting her face and sliding down her arms. It felt like someone had turned on a heavy shower above her head, except it clung and slithered over her in ways that water didn't.

She took her hands away from her face, leaning out of the drizzly remains of the torrent from the nozzle above her, and laughed slightly, half from relief and half as she looked down at her smooth green gunge-coated fur. The plastic of the seat around her had also been painted green by the downpour, and she had to wriggle backwards to stop herself slipping on the slimy surface. The goo felt colder than she'd thought it would be, but being coated in it was quite welcome under the heat of the lights above them.

"Sorry, Nicola, but you're out! So, you two, now..." Alex stepped back to Kim as the still dripping nozzle started up again and hummed back down the row, making the jaguar girl dodge a little forward out of the way. As Nicola breathed out and looked up at him again, she dragged her hands down each slippery arm in turn, feeling the slime collect on the side of her hands. She had always wondered what it felt like, and even though it had the same custard-like texture she had thought of from watching it happen to other people, the feeling of actually being covered in the mess had been impossible to imagine.

Kim had already given a correct answer by the time she looked up to see the nozzle sliding towards Lesley again. It clicked into place, and Alex just held out a hand to prompt her. She opened her mouth a little but was quiet for a few seconds, and Nicola was sure she was about to be gunged. But suddenly a look of excited realization crossed her face, and she pointed as she struggled for the word, miming it wildly front of her. "A... water tap! Kitchen... you know..." she stuttered quickly, hesitating for a moment.

"Yes!" Alex laughed as he confirmed her answer. "There was a faucet there, and that means you've only got two more things to name now - can you remember either of them, Kim?"

Nicola leaned forwards to see past the messy jaguar's seat, picking a strand of heavy hair off her face and tucking it behind her ear as the curvy mouse girl looked up at the nozzle sliding into position above her head. Quickly, without a prompt from Alex, she faced forwards again, squeezing her eyes closed and mouthing as she thought. She gave a quiet squeak, holding her hands up to her face, then suddenly moved them away and spoke up.

"Was there a phone?" she said uncertainly.

Alex paused, looking back at her for a moment. "There was."

Kim breathed out heavily, collapsing back on to the seat as the large spout moved away from over her head again. Nicola swallowed and drummed her fingers on the side of her seat agitatedly even though she knew she was no longer in danger. The slender chipmunk girl wriggled nervously, bouncing in the seat as the nozzle moved back into position above her.

"So, Lesley, to save yourself for the last time - can you name the final object that you saw up there?" Nicola slipped her legs up on to the seat, propping herself up on her knees to better watch the chipmunk girl as the ticking of the timer began.

"Uh..." She gripped a bunch of her long blonde hair distractedly, rolling it in her hand. "A chair..."

"Already been said," Alex said quickly, then looked up as she continued to list objects, counting on her fingers and speeding up as the ticking sound got louder.

"...phone, lamp, guitar... salt shaker... bunch of flowers... plant... thing..."

"Yes!" Alex called above her, holding a hand out in front of him. She froze, looking over to him wide-eyed in what looked like real disbelief. "Amazing memory, Lesley, because a vase of flowers was the last one, and that means you've saved yourself - come out from under there!"

He beckoned them with both hands, and Nicola carefully slipped forwards to put her feet on the ground again. Pushing off the slippery seat, she dripped over towards him, feeling the goo on her shoulders drip down her back as the others got back into a group.

"You managed to name all ten items, so that's a full hundred points for the game - you can't start much better than that." The girls smiled at each other in celebration of their first success. "So, Anneka, bearing in mind we've got two team members who are still clean, who's going into the next game?"

The jaguar girl spun round, making green specks of slime flick off her hair. She looked between the chipmunk and mouse girl, who glanced nervously at each other, then she pointed as she turned back to Alex. "Lesley was the one who got me gunged," she announced.

The small chipmunk bowed her head down shyly, smiling as she stepped forwards towards Alex and dragged one toe on the ground.

"Oh, come on, she didn't!" Alex laughed a little, offering his hand to her. "She was just... better at it than you." Anneka's mouth dropped open in a shocked smile, but she didn't say anything else as Lesley took his hand and he ran down the corridor with her, a little more gently this time.

"Sorry about this, Lesley, but you know it's the team leader's decision," Alex kept them listening as he led them back down the corridor, passing the T-junction they had turned at before and heading towards another corner further down. Nicola glanced around at the heavy metallic doors with inset grimy windows leading off from the corridor as they passed them, wondering which one they were going to be led through.

After turning the corner, Alex slowed down, pointing to the right as they approached a large opening, about six feet high and wide, that was covered with hanging strips of heavy black plastic, forming a curtain over the doorway. As they walked over to it, Nicola noticed the end of a rail fixed to the floor poked out from underneath it.

"Lesley, you managed to save yourself from the gunge, but this time, it's going to be up to your team mates to save you instead," Alex announced, letting go of her and heading towards the opening. "And this is what you're going in to!"

He stepped forwards, reaching both hands into the curtain and pushing a handful of strips aside in each direction. Nicola caught a glimpse of what was inside, but dashed around to get a better look as the chipmunk girl nervously ducked forward under the red wolf's arm.

Holding one arm up to push the heavy black curtain aside, she followed Lesley in and looked at the large contraption ahead of them. An eight foot high gunge booth was set up at the opposite side of the room, and a metal frame, covered in tubes and piping, supported a collection of tip-tanks and slime-filled reservoirs around and above it. The biggest one, about three feet wide, was mounted right at the top center of the frame. A pipe from it jutted downwards slightly, pointed along with nozzles from each of the other containers down to a large funnel on top of the booth.

"What do you think, Lesley?" asked Alex, letting go of the curtain as the others came through and heading towards the machine, beckoning her to follow.

"...Wow," she giggled, scampering to keep up with him and keeping her eyes on the liquid-filled clear tanks positioned around the frame. Nicola glanced around at the rest of their surroundings as they approached it - to her right, a set of blue and red targets on various supports and brackets covered one wall of the room, and to her left, a cannon-like device was set up facing them, with something that looked like a blowup paddling pool behind it. Curious, she wandered over towards it.

"I'll be showing you that in a moment," Alex called over, noticing her looking around. He opened the door for the chipmunk girl and held a hand out to encourage her in. Her hands held clasped at her chest, Lesley stepped nervously inside, picking her feet up high to avoid the slight step, and turned around as she stared up into the end of the funnel above her. As she heard him closing the door, she faced forwards again, and parted her hands to clasp them behind her back instead, raising herself up on her heels then dropping back.

Nicola walked past the thing on the floor and peered down into the blowup pool, seeing it was filled with yellowish blobs floating in a translucent green liquid. Crouching down a little further and poking one, she realized that they were rubber water-balloons.

She stood up as Alex walked over, the other two girls joining them. "This game's more of a physical challenge than the last one," he started explaining as he moved past the cannon and crouched down next to the pool. He dipped a hand into the glutinous liquid to grab one of the balloons, and raised it up as a stream of sticky slime dripped down off it.

Nicola turned as he walked away, his arm outstretched, looking over at Anneka and Kim who exchanged squeamish, giggling glances. "This thing's a spring-loaded launcher," he said, indicating the cannon-like thing on the ground with his free hand. "And your aim's going to be to hit as many of the red targets over on the opposite wall as you can." He dropped the balloon down a pipe that jutted out from the top of the cannon's barrel. "For each target hit, you'll get ten points - but make sure you only hit the red targets," he emphasized, "because if any of those balloons hit the blue ones, a tank's going to empty its contents on to your team mate over there. Feeling OK in there, Lesley?"

"Yeah." The chipmunk girl nodded, shifting her weight between her feet and resting one arm against the wall of the booth. She moved her gaze up to the pipe above her again, looking a little worried, but shuffling slowly backwards so that she was right underneath it.

The three other team members watched as Alex swiveled the launcher so that it was facing away from any of the targets, Anneka stepping backwards a little out of the way as the barrel was swung a couple of inches in her direction. Slowly, he pulled the plunger on the end back and suddenly let it go, making the liquid-filled balloon streak through the air dripping a trail of slime behind it, finally bursting on a blank part of the far wall and leaving a bright yellow splatter mark that drizzled slowly downwards.

"Got the idea? It's simple enough. You've got two minutes to hit as many as you can - at the end of the time, we'll set Lesley free again."

"Yeah," Nicola confirmed along with the others, her eyes on the targets on the far wall trying to see which ones would be the easiest to hit.

"All right..." Alex moved to the side, away from the launcher. "Oh, and I forgot to mention... they're not going to stay still." He held up the computer he kept in his pocket and jabbed a button on it, and Nicola watched as some of the target-carrying frames on the opposite wall ground into life, moving a few of the targets slowly back and forward or around in circles.

"I'm starting the time now - remember, hit the reds! Good luck!"

Before he finished speaking, Nicola had moved over to the pool, and she dipped both her hands in to grab a couple out of the cold slime. Kim knelt down behind the cannon as Alex had, and she pulled the plunger back a little as Nicola approached.

Carefully, Nicola dropped one of the balloons she was carrying down the pipe at the top of the barrel, and watched as Kim looked intently over at the far wall. Carefully, she pulled the trigger back and let it go, but was too gentle and the balloon didn't make it halfway across the room.

"Oh..." she groaned, agitatedly. "Quick, put the other one in..."

Nicola dropped the other balloon down. "Really... pull it," she said, miming tugging on it hard. She glanced behind her as she became aware of Anneka standing there, carrying two more balloons from the pool.

Kim put both hands on the handle, pulling it back, but wobbling the cannon as she did so. She let it go with a thump and the balloon sailed out of the end of the cannon, but well off to the right hand side and it skimmed the right hand wall before bursting on the corner.

"Can I try?" Nicola asked quickly. The gray mouse girl nodded, then quickly turned away, nearly falling over as she hurried to move as Nicola got down on her knees and shuffled to take up her position at the launcher.

She watched as Anneka squeamishly picked up another gunge balloon and slipped it down the funnel, then bracing her arm on its support, swung the cannon up a little to point at one of the stationary red targets. She took hold of the plunger and tried to keep the whole thing steady even though it was heavier than she had expected, then held her breath and let it go, flinching only slightly as the balloon thumped out of the end.

She stood up as it flew away across the room, arcing up and then downwards, splattering on the very edge of the target she'd been aiming for. Quickly, she turned to Alex, unsure whether it counted or not.

"I'll give you that! Just keep going," he encouraged them. Nicola pumped one fist in the air, then signaled to Anneka to drop another balloon in as she lined it up for another shot.

Over the next minute or so, Nicola got more confident as the team managed to get into a rhythm of loading and firing the balloon launcher, and she managed to hit five more of the red targets near the right hand side of the wall without touching any of the blue ones. After hitting the target that was being moved back and forward squarely in the center, prompting a cheer from the mouse girl and feline, she turned her attention to the other side of the wall that she'd been avoiding before - a set of four red targets on a windmill-like frame that was rotating over a large blue circle. Trying to think of how long each balloon had taken to get across the room, she pointed the cannon at a mostly guessed angle and then pulled back the trigger, glancing over at the chipmunk girl in the gunge tank who was standing watching her, hands clasped nervously at her chest.

She let go, but caught her hand on the plunger as she moved it away and the balloon rolled uselessly out of the end of the barrel to splat soggily on the ground.

"You've only got about ten seconds left, make the most of them!" Alex called. Nicola looked up at the targets then at the pile of balloons next to them, and bent down again behind the cannon, looking up at Kim and Anneka.

"Just put them all in!" she called to them, gesticulating with one hand as she held the cannon's plunger and waddled to the side as she pointed it roughly in the center of the remaining four targets. Hesitantly, the mouse girl took two of the wobbling balloons in each hand and dropped them down the end of the barrel, then stood aside as Anneka did the same and Nicola leaned back the way.

Nicola pulled the handle as far as she could, then let it go. There was a loud bursting noise, and she squeaked and turned her face away as a splatter of yellow stuff splurged out the end of the launcher, spurts of it flying up into the air to settle back down on the three girls. As the slimy mist settled, she got up and leaned over to look at the front, where a few shreds of water balloons were lying in a spreading puddle. Smiling and shrugging at the disappointing result, she heard a series of beeps and then a mechanical noise as the targets on the far wall ground to a halt.

"All right, time's up!" With a laugh, Alex stepped forward, waving his arms above his head to signal them to stop. Nicola let go of the launcher's handle and straightened up again, stepping back as she looked up at the yellow-splattered wall in front of them.

"It seemed like you had some trouble at the start, and that plan at the end didn't go too well, but in between those you found your feet and you managed to hit..." - he looked to the far wall and counted, pointing at each in turn - "six of the ten targets. And there was no gunge at all for Lesley - so she should be happy with your result..."

Nicola looked over at the booth with their team-mate inside. The chipmunk girl shrugged, smiling a little as she looked shyly at the floor. As Alex stepped forwards again, she shifted herself forwards on the seat, then waited for him to open the tank's door before pushing herself up to step out of it.

"Come on, let's keep moving!" Alex called to the others as Lesley padded alongside him back to the curtain where they'd come into the room. Nicola followed the others at a dash as he held the black strips aside for them, and ducked back into the corridor.

Alex clapped his hands together as he stepped through as well. "All right, who's going next?"

"Kim," Anneka said immediately, pointing a finger towards her for a moment. The gray mouse girl nodded, having expected it, and bowed her head down but looked up at him shyly as she extended her hand towards him.

Gently, Alex accepted her hand and walked her forwards, leaving the others to follow the two of them. "You've been pretty quiet so far, actually, Kim - how are you feeling?"

Kim ran one hand through her bluish hair as they turned back around the corner. "I'm a little bit nervous," she admitted, giggling at the end of the sentence.

Alex nodded. "Well, I'd reassure you - but knowing where we're going next I'd say you have every reason to be!"

"Oh..." Kim whimpered, one hand still gripping her hair. Alex let her go and she continued tapping her toes on the floor as he moved over to unbolt the nearby door.

"Have a look in here," he said, moving through and holding out his hand towards her again. Breathing out, she stepped through the door, taking his hand, and Nicola quickly dashed through behind them.

The room was smaller than the last, extending several yards to the left of the door and slightly longer than it was wide. Its most obvious feature was a large vat in the center, several feet wide with its round wall coming up to about shoulder height and painted to look as if green slimy drops had spilled over to drip down its side. Sets of shallow stairs led upwards, curving around the outside of the vat to reach a higher level at the back of the room that was level with the lip of the vat. Nicola walked forwards, putting her hands on the sides of the round vat and standing on her tiptoes to better see down into it, grinning as she looked at the sloppy dark and light green mixture within. Stretching one arm over the edge, she dipped her hand down into the cool batter-like glop, stirring it around a little and feeling the slippery stuff surrounding her fingers.

Kim was still gripping Alex's hand as the two of them climbed the stairs, heading towards a platform that jutted out a couple of feet above the green stuff. Nicola pulled her hand out and shook the sticky slime off her fingers, wiping them on the edge as they reached the top. The mouse girl wriggled her hand out of Alex's as she turned towards the vat, her hands cupped over her mouth and hiding her expression as she looked down at its contents.

Alex gestured down to the blue platform, which was about a foot off the ground and supported by a small frame underneath it. Gingerly, accepting the support of his hands, she moved down to straddle the platform, then began wriggling forwards carefully to keep her balance as she eased herself out over the gunge tank.

Nicola watched their host stroll down the left hand side of the stairs, his eyes on Kim as she stopped at the end of the platform, and reached around to her tail to adjust her swimsuit bottoms. Looking down, she gripped the end of the platform in front of her and stretched her leg down to dip a bare toe into the gunge, eeping as she continued to submerge her foot halfway. After turning it a little, she raised it out again, watching the green slime drizzle thickly from her toes.

"How's the water? You might be going in a lot further soon," he smiled over at her, then turned back to the team as he reached the floor. "But to make sure that doesn't happen, you three, you're going to have to get to grips with this."

He pointed at the wall behind them, and Nicola spun around to see a confused arrangement of pipes, about six feet square, for the first time. Dangling from a pipe on the left was a card key attached to a loop of small chain through a hole punched in its corner. A longer pipe led out from the right hand side opposite it, ending in a section bent slightly away from the wall.

Alex stepped forward and grasped the card, sliding it along the pipe it was attached to with a scraping noise. "This is one of the keys to the purifier room that we have to get into at the end, and your task's going to be to get it free in just one minute," he explained, pointing up to a pair of long indication bars above the pipes. Two pointers sat at their right hand sides. Letting go of the card, he moved along the wall a little, reaching over a switch mounted at a junction in the pipes. "You can get past junctions by flicking these," he said, pressing it and making sure they saw the effect as a connecting pipe snicked from one side to the other, freeing space on either side alternately. "But every one you press is going to decrease the pressure gauge up there - and if that ever drops into the red zone, then the support under that seat over there's not going to be able to hold up, and Kim's going into the gunge bath."

Nicola looked over her shoulder at the precariously positioned mouse girl, who wriggled her hips slowly to reposition herself, raising her feet away and clutching the end of the platform. Trying to ignore the others' eyes on her, she looked down at the surface of the slimy mixture in front of her, then glanced upwards, looking back at Alex as she pointed at the ceiling a few feet above. Nicola looked up to where she was pointing and saw, hidden among the ceiling lights aimed down at the vat, a couple of dark cylindrical canisters ending in nozzles at the bottom. They were mounted above and just in front of where the mouse girl was seated.

"Those?" Alex asked, leaning down to look up at them as well. "Well, they're not part of the system over here," - he waved a hand behind him at it "- but there was some space left up there, so we thought we'd make use of it..."

Kim giggled silently, shifting again and swinging her legs back and forth. The movement caused the seat to bounce a little and she stopped quickly as it shook underneath her.

"I'd stay still if I were you, otherwise you might be going in anyway!" Alex chuckled, then turned back to the wall, stepping backwards away from the other girls. "All right, you three - I'll award points based on how far you get in a minute, or before Kim gets dunked. Get ready, because your time to save her starts now!"

Nicola, surprised at the sudden start, looked up and around at the perplexing arrangement in front of them as Anneka stepped forward to move the card along the rail. After guiding it up and to the right, she reached for a switch to open up a junction, but hesitated as Lesley held her hand up.

"I think we need to go to the left," she said quickly. "There are too many switches over this way."

Nicola looked up and counted the notches in the bar that indicated the number of switches they had pressed - there were nine or ten of them before the red zone started. As she watched, the other two pressed one to loop the card on to another pipe, and the needle on the indicator juddered worringly as it fell one notch.

She watched the jaguar and chipmunk girl work together, Lesley directing Anneka as she moved the card and guided the loop of chain along behind it, and glancing between them and the timer worriedly. As they paused and Anneka struggled to reach a route at the very top of the frame, she took a couple of steps forwards and crouched down to form a step for her with her hands.

"Thanks," the jaguar girl said distractedly as she grabbed on to a nearby pipe for support, tugging the chain awkwardly along the pipe at the very top level.

"Can you climb up?" Lesley asked from behind Nicola. Anneka tried to place her other foot on the pipes, but growled as she wobbled unsteadily and shifted her weight back on to Nicola's hands.

"You could go on her shoulders!" she said quickly, indicating to be let down. Nicola slackened her arms a little as Anneka moved away, then quickly turned to Lesley. She didn't look at all heavy. She nodded, and crouched down beside the pipes as the chipmunk girl carefully slipped her legs around her neck, then carefully moved upwards as Lesley steadied herself with her hands, eventually grabbing the dangling card.

"Yes!" Anneka laughed as the chipmunk girl, wobbling slightly on top of Nicola's shoulders, easily moved the chain along the top layer, pressing it past a couple more switches along the way. After a couple of turns she dropped it down a vertical stretch of pipe.

"Okay, put me down!" she called. Nicola quickly ducked again, trying to look up as she did so to see how far they were going. The timer was already worryingly low as Anneka stepped forward and hovered a little, thinking of where to go next.

"Over to your right," Lesley flailed an arm to indicate where she should go as Nicola set her down, and she ran around her to point her in the right direction, hitting a switch on the far right as she came up to it. Nicola straightened and looked up, seeing the timer with no more than about ten seconds left. She whipped around to look at Kim, who was sitting with her hands balled into fists in front of her, knocking them together nervously as she kept her eyes on the rapidly dropping bar above the grid on the wall.

"Come on!" Lesley squeaked excitedly, completely different from how quiet she'd been before, as Anneka frantically slid the loop of chain along the last bent stretch of piping. Nicola looked round and kept up behind her, flicking her hands over the chain as it got stuck on the corners. Finally, the jaguar girl dashed across to where the pipe finally finished, whipped the card off the end and turned around to Alex, holding it up victoriously in the air.

The red wolf nodded once, smiling and stepping forward to take it from her. "Well done, team - that's one of our three tickets into the final game, and thanks to that creative tactic you managed to get it off without dipping Kim into the gunge..." They all looked over at the mouse girl, who clapped her hands above her head, cheering while still trying not to move. "So that's another hundred points - your second perfect game already! If you carry on like this then the showers aren't going to get much use..."

The girls on the ground level exchanged grins with each other as the red wolf moved up the curve of the stairs to get next to Kim again. Watching him, she carefully wriggled her bottom backwards, bracing her hands on the platform to move herself back to the safe end.

"All right! I have to say I'm surprised, but that's another game that you've managed to escape clean," the red wolf remarked as he held Kim's hands tightly, making sure she kept her balance as she struggled to move her leg over the dunk seat and get back onto dry land again. After he let go she raised her hands in the air, then bounced back down the stairs and put her arms out to hug Anneka as she rejoined the others. Alex came after her, bounding down the steps and then walking past them to head for the door, putting one hand on it as they filed back out into the corridor.

"So we've just got one more game to go here now before we move to the next area. Anneka, who are you going to put in this time?"

Nicola shifted her weight from foot to foot a little as the jaguar girl looked around at the three of them, eventually ending with her. "I think..." she started, hesitating, "...actually I think Lesley should go in again."

"Lesley!" Alex repeated her name, drawing out the last syllable as he spun around slowly to face her. Smiling down at her feet, she shuffled forwards out of the group, nervously playing with the strap on the shoulder of her swimwear. Breathing out, she looked up at the red wolf and took his hand.

"Seems like Anneka still thinks you need to be gunged - so I've got a bit of a surprise for your second game," he added as he strode off down the corridor, making her laugh nervously as she skipped to keep up. Nicola followed them at a jog, glancing over her shoulder to see the other two come up behind.

After leading them back towards the corner, he started heading around it and then skidded to a halt abruptly, turning around on the spot and changing the hand that he held with Lesley. Nicola dodged back out of the way and looked in the direction he was pointing - on the corner of the corridor was another of the metal doors, but this one stood out as it was bordered by diagonal black and yellow stripes. A few vague triangular warning symbols had been mounted on the wall around it.

"Know what's in here?" he asked as he used one hand to pull away the bolts that held the door in place. The chipmunk girl shook her head, her blonde hair bobbing behind her. As Nicola moved up beside them, she saw that she looked more excited than nervous at the prospect of being put in the game.

Alex let go of her and shouldered the door open, then stepped aside to let them in first. Lesley tiptoed into the dark room, and Nicola heard a little gasp as she clasped her hands to her mouth. She craned her neck to see, hurrying into the room behind her.

In front of them, lit in green and standing out against the gloom of the rest of the room, there was a chamber separated from the room by a metallic half-height door. Inside, the top of a rounded chair was visible, with reflections of arrays of lights and switches from the cubicle's walls flickering across it. Nicola shivered as she recognized it as the Hotseat.

"I know we try to give you a gentle start and everything," the red wolf announced as he led the chipmunk girl towards the booth, "But we've got to make up for the team avoiding so much gunge so far..."

They reached a short ramp that led up to the machine, and Alex let her go to pull a switch high up on the right wall. With a loud clank, the metallic door began sliding into the ground. Nicola watched Lesley's back as she stood in place, flicking a hand through her hair as she looked at the inside of the tank.

"Want to take your seat?" Alex encouraged her as the door disappeared into the floor. Lesley stepped into the booth, turning around and putting her hands on the seat before shuffling backwards on to it, stopping when her pointed toes were just able to reach the ground.

"You've seen this thing before, haven't you?" their host asked her, leaning over from his position by the switch.

"Yep." The brown chipmunk girl nodded quickly, and looked down, turning her hands in front of her face as she noticed her fur was tinged an odd shade of green by the overhead lighting.

"Well, you may be thinking that we wouldn't have the heart to do this to a... cute, pretty young chipmunk girl like yourself," Alex continued, a laugh creeping into his voice as Lesley giggled at his description of her. She tossed her long hair back as she looked from side to side for the gunge nozzles pointed at her. "But believe me - you'd be wrong!" He pulled the switch, starting the metal door rising again, and then hopped back down the shallow ramp.

Nicola laughed, but felt her heart pounding at the same time. This was one of the show's signature games, and a favorite of her own - she'd seen many people getting doused in goo by the Hotseat when watching the show, but now it was right in front of her, it seemed far more threatening. The door clanked back into place as she watched, the slender chipmunk girl wriggling back to lean on the back of the futuristic chair.

"This is the second time you've found yourself inside an Industrial Zone gunge tank, Lesley," Alex said as he stepped back down again, rejoining the others and turning to face her. "Except the consequences are all or nothing now. Think you'll get on as well as last time?"

Lesley bit her lower lip, looking like she was trying to hide a smile as she glanced around the tank again. "Don't know," she replied.

"Well, let's hope that's the last time you'll be saying that in there..." Lesley shrank back, laughing a little nervously and fiddling with the top of her swimsuit as he looked down at his computer pad.

"You've got two choices as to how the game works," he explained, glancing up at her. "You've got as much time as you like to answer three questions. And if you give three correct answers, then we'll let you out of there completely clean. But if you get even one wrong..."

The chipmunk girl nodded again, bouncing in the seat anxiously, obviously wanting him to get on with the game. Nicola shivered as she pictured the consequences happening right in front of her.

"You know what happens," Alex finished. So - do you want to try and escape yourself, or do you want your team to answer for you, after they've managed to save you and Kim so far?"

Nicola watched as Lesley looked down between the three of them, breathing out as she thought. "I'll answer them," she decided.

"Sure? All right!" Alex raised the computer, tapping it with the stylus, and the lights in the room dimmed to leave the Hotseat highlighted in green.

"Good luck, Lesley!" Nicola called out. The chipmunk girl shivered, then tried to settle and relax in the seat as she looked out at the red wolf.

"Here's your first question, Lesley," he announced, slowly and clearly. "What was the unusual sport that featured in last year's movie 'The Underdogs'?"

"Um..." The slim chipmunk girl squirmed, looking up as her lips moved in thought. "...What's its name... table tennis?" she said, miming it in front of her uncertainly, then whimpered, putting her hands to her mouth.

Alex just smiled back at her, in a way that Nicola couldn't decide was amused or reassuring. The title had sounded familiar, but she didn't have any idea whether she had been right or wrong. He looked back down at the computer for a moment before speaking again. "Question two: How many squares are there on a standard chess board?"

Lesley breathed in, looking like she was sure of the answer but making absolutely sure that she thought she was right before speaking. "Sixty-four," she answered. Nicola nodded in the darkness - that was the answer she would have given as well. She felt Anneka creeping closer to her nervously, though all their eyes stayed on the gunge tank.

"And your last one..." The red wolf paused as he read the screen, making the moment last just a little longer than was comfortable. Carefully, he read the question out. "Her name appeared on your TV screen every week for a full decade, until five years ago - what was the name of the actress who played the lead character in the children's soap 'Our Family'?"

Lesley looked upwards again, and Nicola could hear her tapping her toes on the bottom of the tank. Her expression indicated that she was really unsure of the answer.

"Did you ever watch that?" Alex asked.

"Sometimes..." she nodded, and groaned frustratedly as she closed her eyes, cupping her hands to her mouth and rocking back and forward a little as she thought.

Nicola watched tensely as she stayed there, thinking, and was surprised to feel Anneka shuffle closer still to touch her arm. She glanced sideways at her face, her worried eyes showing up in the darkness.

Eventually, the chipmunk girl reached an arm up to pinch her forehead, and finally faced Alex again. "I think... it was... Sh..., no, Sandrette." She put her hands on the sides of the chair, squeezing them in turn as she gave her final answer.

The red wolf nodded, and Anneka relaxed her grip on Nicola's arm as the room's gloomy tube lights flickered on again. Nicola looked over at Kim, who moved over to join them as they all waited for Alex to reveal what was going to happen. Lesley looked a little relieved before he spoke up again.

"Not an easy game for just having three questions, is it, Lesley?" The chipmunk girl shook her head as he moved closer. "How do you think you've done?"

Lesley followed him with her eyes as he positioned himself beside the lever on the wall, and took a deep breath before letting it out again. "I think... you're going to gunge me," she whimpered through a sheepish smile, her eyes on the large switch.

"We'll see! You might be in with a chance - remember, there has been one person in the history of the show who's escaped that seat..." The chipmunk girl glanced over at her team mates, cringing as she bit her lip again.

"The second question - you got that right." She nodded slowly in response. That had been the one she had seemed most sure about, and Nicola was sure she was worrying, as she was, why he had started on that one.

"The first... what was your answer again?"

The chipmunk girl paused for a moment. "Er, table tennis..." she said, even more hesitantly than before. Alex paused, smiling back at her, for a few seconds that seemed to take far longer.

"Absolutely right," he replied. Lesley breathed out, then bounced again to ease her nerves as he looked back at the computer. Nicola looked to her left and right, then took both of her team mates' hands, gripping them as they waited.

"And finally, the third question - you had a bit of trouble with that one, didn't you?"

"Yeah..." Lesley nodded, then visibly shrank back in the seat as her eyes moved to the sprayers at the sides of the tank again.

There was a silence for a moment, then Alex growled frustratedly, and Nicola wasn't sure if he was acting or not. "I can't drag this out any more - you got all three right, you've beaten the Hotseat - come out of there!"

Nicola felt a wave of relief wash over her as he announced the result, but couldn't help but feel disappointed as well. As the red wolf reached for the lever again, she joined in the cheer from Kim and Anneka as Lesley recovered from the shock of the announcement and happily put both hands up in the air, waving her arms from side to side in a victory dance. Alex pulled the switch upwards and the chipmunk girl slid forwards off the seat, waiting for the metal panel to slide fully into the floor again before stepping over it and bouncing down to rejoin the team.

"So that means you've earned yet another full hundred points for the game, bringing you up to three-sixty for the round! You only dropped forty points in four games - you need to keep that going." Nicola exchanged smiles with the others and began to turn to the door. "But..." he continued, a little louder, making the four of them turn towards him again. Nicola watched him glance back at the unusually clean gunge tank. "We've hardly seen any mess this round, and I have a feeling that it's not just me that would be disappointed if we didn't get to use the Hotseat on someone..."

Nicola swallowed, and glanced back between the others, who looked as surprised as she did. She looked past them up the ramp at the green-lit cubicle, suddenly finding herself thinking about what it looked like from the inside...

She was snapped out of her thoughts by Alex again. "Lesley... having saved yourself, is there anyone on the team that you'd particularly like to see in there?"

Lesley turned around to face the other three, a delighted and unusually malicious expression on her face. She looked up at them all, one hand on her chin as she read their expressions. Nicola tried to keep her face neutral as she tried to decide whether she would actually want to be gunged in there or not. She glanced over at Anneka, who was also wringing her hands behind her back nervously.

But the chipmunk girl had already decided after looking at the only other clean team member there. "I think Kim should get it," she said quickly, pointing at her but looking straight back at Alex.

The mouse girl cringed, a nervous grin forming on her face as she flopped her head down, swishing her thin tail. Reluctantly, she looked back up at the machine at the back of the room. Alex held out his hand towards it, and, shoulders shaking, she whimpered through her grinning teeth.

Lesley, bouncing on her heels with excitement, watched as Alex stepped up beside the tank in front of her again. Kim moved to step towards him, but Nicola laughed as she swung around and caught the chipmunk's arm, making her stumble and squeak as she dragged her forwards towards the tank with her.

After struggling for only a couple of steps she skipped forwards to walk beside the mouse girl, hanging back to let her step up the ramp first. Carefully, Kim turned as she stepped over the door, looking up at the unseen mechanism above her head as she held her tail out the way and hesitantly sat down on the rounded chair. She blinked as the flickering lights briefly passed over her, then held out her arms as Lesley stepped up beside her. As Kim shifted over a little to make room for her, she tried to squeeze into the seat by her side, then changed her mind and sat down on her lap instead, her dangling legs either side of Kim's. The mouse girl put her hands on Lesley's waist to hold her in place, shuffling her feet as she got comfortable.

As the two of them got ready, Alex reached up and flicked the switch back into place. Kim curled her toes, peeking out from behind the smaller chipmunk girl to watch the metal door rise out of the ground, and gripped her a little tighter as it clunked back into place.

"Sorry, you two, but we've got to make up for you staying clean for so long somehow..." the red wolf announced as he turned, taking a step back from the tank. The two girls tensed up as a ringing alarm started up from somewhere near the ceiling, and Lesley closed her eyes, a slight smile on her face as she whimpered through her tightly shut lips.

Nicola swallowed, her heart racing as they all waited. Suddenly, with a squirting noise, streams of translucent green slime spurted out of a pair of sprayers at the front sides of the tank, and the chipmunk girl gave a high-pitched gasp as they splattered against her arms. She wriggled and squeezed her hands between her thighs as the gooey jets got stronger, spraying across her tummy and making the mouse girl twitch her hands as they were coated as well.

With the spurting slime moving up to her face, the chipmunk girl closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose and turned away, leaning just far enough for Kim to peek over her shoulder. She quickly closed her eyes too as specks of the gooey stuff flew towards her, but held Lesley firmly in place, eventually relaxing as she leaned up again after the sprays had gone down a little. With her chest and tummy still being sprayed with translucent green stuff that drizzled in blobs off her fur, she seemed to relax a little, her mouth opening into a slight grin just as a harsh hooter blared above the alarm.

A downpour of smooth yellow gunge fell in a column from the tank's ceiling, impacting on Lesley's head and splattering outwards, hiding the two girls from view as they squeaked in unison. The chipmunk quickly leaned forward, making the dome of bright yellow slop pour instead down the back of her head and neck, and Nicola saw her shocked expression underneath a splat of yellow stuff dripping from the top of her head as the flying gunge licked her light blonde hair out to the sides. Strands of her gungy hair fell over her shoulders and splatted heavily against her chest, and she relaxed her shoulders, making fingers of brightly colored ooze creep down around her neck.

The yellow torrent shut off, and Lesley wiped a dripping green hand across her forehead. Opening her eyes again and grinning as she looked down at herself, she dragged her hands down her shoulders and put her hands over Kim's, then jumped again as the yellow gunk started up again, this time right on top of her.

Nicola gasped as the girls were covered in the gunge, the dome of smooth yellow stuff shining under the light from above as it poured outwards from the top of Lesley's head. The shape of it shifted a little as she moved about, splitting as it met the continuing green sprays from the sides and making a thick glooping noise as it hit the tank's walls, floor and the two girls inside it. Gradually, Nicola and Anneka watched the chaotic deluge subside, leaving Lesley dripping with a gooey green and yellow mixture, her hair heavy and hanging in front of her face, with Kim's gungy head just visible behind her as she slithered on top of her lap.

Parting her sloppy hair and shuddering as she tucked it back behind her shoulders, Lesley's grin became visible to the team again through the slime dripping across her face. As the lights in the tank suddenly switched to a pulsing red, she seemed to remember the tank's final stage and huddled down, her face in her hands in readiness.

With a mechanical clank and a long lower siren, a heavy column of black sludge poured in from the ceiling, and Lesley leaned down a little further before it splurged on top of her back with an unpleasant wet smack. She shrieked from behind her hands as the downpour moved backwards towards Kim, and the others saw lumps of the stuff flying outwards as the sludge hit her head. Lesley quivered as the column of gunge moved forwards and up her back again, eventually pouring on to the back of her head and running down her hair, then finally slumping down over her face, making her quickly lean back again as the last blobs of it splotted down into her lap.

Nicola stayed frozen for a moment, looking at the messy chipmunk as Kim raised her gunge-coated arms from behind her. Black and yellow dollops dripped from her arms as she pumped them in the air. Anneka clapped her hands above her head, and Nicola joined in the cheer for the two of them as Lesley wearily wiped her face again, sticking her tongue out in mock distaste as she cleaned the lumpy stuff off. Her pretty blonde hair was now coated in the black stuff and clung messily to the sides of her head.

"Sorry, you two!" Alex smiled as the gunge-coated girls looked down at themselves. "You..."

Suddenly the green gunge sprayers at the sides burst back into life, interrupting him and making Lesley squeal and giggle as she was hit by the gooey translucent jets again, washing some of the heavier black stuff away from the fur on her arms and tummy. Raising her sloppy arms away, she watched as they eased off for the last time, making a dreadful splatting noise as the gunge poured on to the messy tank's floor, and kept her arms held up as she looked down at herself, shoulders shaking.

Alex waited for a moment, leaning down to look up into the mechanism above their heads for a moment before carrying on. "Like I was saying, the Hotseat got you in the end, but you got Kim in there as well, and you still earned a hundred points for the team - let's get you out of there and get you cleaned up..."

Nicola, still excited from seeing the girls getting covered by the machine, breathed out as he reached up to the wall switch. Tugging it down, he moved towards the tank as the metal door slid once again into the floor.

"Careful, it'll be slippy." Alex commented as he took Lesley's hand, giving her support as she gingerly put her slippery toes, then the rest of her feet, on the ground. The sludge slid down her long hair and broke off in lumps with every movement as she began to step away and Alex turned his attention to the mouse girl.

"Kim, you've..." He broke into a laugh, and Nicola darted to the side to see past Lesley as she turned to look as well. The chipmunk's back was coated in a murky greenish mixture of yellow and black gunge, fingers of the black slop dripping down to cover her stripe pattern all the way to the base of her tail.

"Kim, are you OK?" the red wolf recovered enough to ask. The mouse girl had been trapped right under the flow of gunge, and her head and face were a complete mess of lumpy black stuff that was oozing down to splat on to her equally coated shoulders and chest, some remnants of the smooth bright yellow gunge still visible on her arms and tummy. Her shoulders shook as she looked down at herself, the whites of her eyes showing up against the dark slop dripping across them. Spitting a clump of gunge from her lips, she managed a brief sickly grin up at Alex as he stood in front of the chair to offer both hands to her.

"It's just as well we've got a water sprayer down the corridor," he remarked as he helped her up from the seat, and turned to watch as the gungy mouse girl dripped back towards the team. Nicola couldn't help shivering as she approached, but didn't resist as Kim moved a hand down one slippery arm and spludged a handful of gunk on to Nicola's head.

"Come on," Alex encouraged them as he moved brightly around the group and hauled the door open, going out into the corridor ahead of them. Anneka followed close behind him, and Nicola let the dripping mouse and chipmunk girls go ahead of her as she took a look back at the gunge-coated seat.

They began following the red wolf back the way they had come. Nicola watched Kim shiver as the black gunk on her back slithered down towards her tail in gooey lumps, and moved around the group to walk beside her as they rounded the corner.

"You all right?" she said with a laugh, leaning forwards to look at her face. She was holding her head slightly bowed and as still as possible as she walked, watching the gooey strands of the muck on her head drip down to the floor.

"Mm'hmm", she replied, unable to keep herself from giggling in response. As her head moved, more blobs of the stuff fell away from her face. Carefully, she opened her mouth. "It's... ick." She gave up on the sentence, moving her eyes to look forwards again, and watched as Alex dashed through the inactive sprayers in front of them, moving to a valve on the wall at the other end.

As he hauled on the wheel with both hands, Nicola watched the sprinklers in the tiled corridor section slowly trickle into life, eventually building to a constant hiss of water spraying into the center. "Go ahead," he shouted through, beckoning them with one hand. "Though I think I know who needs it first..."

Nicola patted Kim on the back to encourage her through, smearing her hand down and taking it off, then rubbing the black liquid through her fingers and grinning at the slippery, sticky feeling of it. She wondered what it felt like to be as covered in the stuff as Kim was, hoping that she wasn't going to escape finding out.

Kim squeaked as she stepped into the sprayers, holding her hands out to the sides and rolling her head around as darkened water sluiced off her. The clinging gunge broke away quickly under the water jets, revealing her blue-gray fur again - she ducked down to shake her head around in the sprays, getting as much as she could out of her hair before stepping out the other end.

Lesley held her breath and then went after her, holding her hair out behind her and wringing her hands through it. Nicola gave her a few seconds and then followed her through, closing her eyes as she stepped between two jets at head height. She shook her head, patting the back of it to feel the remnants of the green gunge from the first game slipping away.

Eventually she felt her face come out of the haze of water and stepped out of the other end of the sprayer section to join the others next to the double doors that led them back into the center of the show's set. Alex watched as Anneka made her way through, carefully keeping her hands over her ears, and he tugged down on the wheel to spin the valve closed again as she rejoined them.

"All right, team leader, where are we going next?" he asked as the water shut off. He turned around, stepped towards the double doors and flung them open with both hands, striding through but glancing back as Anneka skipped ahead to keep up with him. "We've still got four rooms open in the opposite processing wing, the lab in the center, or the basement underneath."

He pointed and started leading them back down the short span of corridor, Anneka walking at his side as she wrung her black hair out with one hand. Nicola distractedly looked up again at the imposing pod in the center of the white circular room ahead of them.

"Basement?" she suggested uncertainly, and looked back at the others. Nicola nodded at her. "Yeah, the basement," Anneka repeated as she turned back to Alex.

"All right! That means... we need to be going the other way." Alex suddenly turned on his heel, and Anneka stumbled as she changed direction, following him with the others to a hatch in the wall a few yards back the way they had come. The four of them stood back as he turned a valve handle in its middle and hauled it open, revealing a small metal stairway descending into darkness.

"You'll need these," Alex said as he stepped over the threshold, reaching in with both hands and producing two flashlights in each one. He handed them along the line of girls before turning back and taking another for himself, then beckoned to them as he headed slowly down the staircase.

Nicola waited for Anneka to step through the hatch, then with a glance back at the others, excitedly followed her into the darkness.