INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 Midgame

Written by Iron-K

Alex led the team at a slower pace than usual back along the wide entrance corridor that they had come through when they'd started. Nicola carried her arms stretched to the sides, grimacing a little at the sound of her feet squelching as she walked. After being hauled out of the sludge they had all been given a brief hose down, but lumps and patches of the murky slime were still clinging coldly to her fur as they headed back to the showers.

She looked up as they stepped into the room with the large hatch in which they'd begun, and remembered something as Alex approached the door to the changing area. "Do we get to see someone else gunged now?" she called over to him, spitting a blob of the gunk off her lips.

Alex smiled as she staggered over. "Yep," he answered simply. "And I have to tell you, I'm pretty excited about this one."

Nicola glanced behind her as the others caught up, anticipating him saying more as he pulled the door to the changing area to hold it open for them.

"I'm not telling you anything else!" he grinned as he noticed them waiting. "If you head in there you'll get to see the whole thing as it happens. Just remember - I promise this'll make sense when you see it - the word is 'videos'. Got that?" He glanced between them as the girls nodded. "All right, enjoy your shower. I'll meet you back through there!"

Nicola, curious as to what he meant, padded through into the tiled room beyond the door - the front area of the changing rooms. The trolley with the TV set on it had been moved out of the corner to face the far bench. Dragging some remains of the gunk down off the fur on her arms, she carefully moved around to the far end of the bench and sat down. She glanced up at the screen for a moment, concentrating more on scraping the stuff off her hands, then jumped and looked back at what she had just seen.

The screen showed a view of a small room, similar in decoration to the room with the Hotseat she had seen earlier. The camera they were looking through was pointed at long cubicle set into the wall, four or five feet wide with a slightly convex plastic front. A grate ran around the side and back walls at about head height. But its occupant was what had caught most of Nicola's attention - inside, sitting on the tank's wide inflatable sofa-like seat, a mid-twenties skunk girl with a striking tiger-striped fur pattern tapped her toes against the floor anxiously.

"It's...!" Nicola indicated towards the screen excitedly as the other girls came into the room behind her. As they sat down on the bench one by one with similar reactions, the skunkette turned her head as Alex strolled into the visible frame, looking like he was trying to hold back a wide smile.

Anneka leaned forward as if to check she was really seeing what was on the screen, gaping in amazement as Alex stooped down to greet the guest, shaking her hand and then leaning into the tank for an air kiss. "How... the hell... did they get Zig Zag to agree to go in there?" she said between breaths.

Nicola was thinking exactly the same thing, but stayed quiet and leaned in closer beside her to watch. Alex was leaning up and away from the tank to address the camera again.

"As if there's anyone watching this who doesn't know, this charming striped skunkette is Zig Zag," he announced, holding a hand out towards her as she nodded in acknowledgement. "She's an actress, producer, and she's been running Double Z Studios for the last few years. Though you haven't appeared in any of the films you've produced for a while?" he asked, turning back to her.

"No. Well, a couple of minor parts, sometimes." She tossed her long white hair behind her head, combing through one side of it distractedly with her hand.

"Well, I bet you didn't expect your return to the screen to go quite like this..."

"Did you ever read what the IZ site said about this series?" Nicola whispered along the row of contestants. Kim nodded a little, turning her head to indicate she was listening but keeping her eyes on the screen as Alex continued talking to the skunkette about her work. "It said they were going to have some special guests, but..."

The mouse girl grinned and nodded. "Yeah, I never thought she'd be up for it. I was expecting them just to get people like..." She trailed off, and shrugged.

"I still can't believe it," Anneka spoke up, shaking her head, then smiled as a thought came to her. "Hey, do you ever watch Leon's Dungeon? I bet they'll get him."

"Wait, I think he's about to say why she's on." Nicola had had the same thought, but put her hand out in front of her as Alex mentioned the show's name, and leaned forwards again to listen.

"...and I was surprised, actually, that you'd never heard of the show before we..."

"Before you asked me to come on, no," she replied, finishing the tail of his sentence. "But I got a lot of encouragement from everyone at the studio, and they were very eager to show me what you do to people on it..."

Alex nodded. "That's not surprising, it was one of them that pointed us in your direction in the first place."

"What! Who?" With a start, the skunk girl slapped both hands onto the top of the tank's front as she leaned forward, her face a picture of shock.

"I think I'd better keep that a secret... for their safety and for mine!"

Zig Zag growled a little but didn't ask again as the red wolf took a couple of steps away. She slid her hands a little down the inside of the clear plastic door as she took them off its top, then wriggled back on the inflatable seat to get comfortable again, flicking her wide tail behind her. Breathing out, her eyes went up to the ceiling, staring at the round opening looming above her head.

"What do you think of the furniture?" the red wolf asked her.

"Hm?" She lowered her head again. "Oh... it's... comfortable enough in here," she said hesitantly.

"Good, well, I hope it stays that way for you..."

"Huh. Thanks," the pretty skunkette replied, more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She worriedly looked from one side of the booth to the other, her gaze moving along the long grate that stretched all the way round just below the ceiling.

"Anyway... as you know, you're inside it at the moment because someone you work with volunteered you to take a small challenge. You want to get it over with?" he asked, reaching around to take his minicomputer out of his pocket.

"Yeah." She turned to face the front and nodded once, running one hand down the length of her white hair and twisting it in her fingers as her eyes moved to the palmtop he was holding. "Go on."

"All right - Zig Zag, to stop the gunge tank..." Alex raised the computer up to eye level and pressed the screen as she looked worriedly at its back, hands stroking through the fur on her lap. He smirked to himself. "Actually, you're going to love this..."

"Oh, what now?" She craned her neck to see, shifting forwards onto her feet and standing up a little as he stepped back, holding it higher to stop her looking at the screen. Sulkily, she flopped down again and tapped the fingers of one hand beside her against the blowup seat.

"You've been in more films than I can remember over the last few years, so you're pretty decent at speaking on camera - wouldn't you say so?"

"Yes..." she replied apprehensively, stretching the word out. She seemed to realize what she was doing with her hand and took it off the seat, gripping her knee instead.

"Well, your task is to talk for one minute about ZZ Studios..." - the skunkette cringed, sagging down and resting her chin on her hands. "...without saying a certain trigger word that the computer's just shown me. Everyone else watching should be able to see it too..."

Nicola waited for a display on the screen to come up, but nothing happened. "Oh, they'll add it on later," she said out loud, pinching her forehead as she remembered what she was seeing was happening just a room away.

"All right - so it's 'videos'," Anneka reminded them, still picking blobs of gunk out of her hair.

"She'll never be able to manage that..." Kim remarked, shaking her head.

"I think that's the point." Nicola grinned to herself and looked back at the screen as Alex prepared to start the game.

"You ready?" they heard him ask. The skunkette watched, shoulders already shaking in a helpless defeated laugh, as he reached up to put his hand on the exaggeratedly large switch beside the booth. She put her hand up to her face, pinching her forehead.

"Yeah, as much as I'll ever be." She straightened up, shaking out her hair, and took a deep breath.

"All right, your time starts now!" Alex hauled the switch handle down the way, and the skunkette jumped as a mechanical noise played followed by the ticking of an electronic timer.

"Well..." she began, swallowing, "ZZ studios started... five, maybe six years ago, after I left my last studio along with Tommy Jensen. We scraped together funds from our savings as well as taking out a couple of loans, and we rented out a warehouse as our studio. At that stage we could only get acting talent from people I already knew from the industry, and they worked on our first production with only the promise of royalties."

"What was its name?" Alex interjected.

"It was called..." - she hesitated before pronouncing the word carefully - "'Predators...'" She cringed and stopped halfway, expecting it to be the trigger word, but blinked and continued distractedly as nothing happened. "And, um... that was a low-budget film we released on video after..."

There was a gasp from Lesley at the other end of the bench, and Nicola jumped as she realized what had been said, but let her breath out again as nothing happened.

"They let it pass," she said, shaking her head. The show wasn't normally known for being that forgiving. She looked down the bench at the three other girls, who were watching the screen, transfixed.

"That sold about... thirty or forty thousand copies, I think, which set us up to..." She gestured in front of her agitatedly with her hands. "How much time left?" she asked instead, turning quickly to face Alex.

"I can't tell you, keep going!" The red wolf waved his hand in a circle encouragingly, pacing towards her again. The skunkette whimpered as she moved her hands up to grab her hair, looking frustrated for a moment before her shoulders shook with awkward laughter.

"What has the studio been doing recently?" the red wolf asked, leaning down to prompt her as she struggled.

"Um..." She wrung her hands, eyes darting to the sides as she thought. "We're... about to start releasing productions in high-definition - things have come a long way since the, er, tapes we used to..."

"Damn," Nicola said under her breath. She wondered how long she'd been talking, and started to think that she was going to make it, but reassured herself that the show was unlikely to let her off entirely. She tapped her fingers on the underside of the bench as Zig Zag faltered again, then thought of something else to say.

"Oh - Sabrina's been working on a redesign of the website, and you're going to be able to get some of the older videos thr..."

Nicola jolted forwards, smacking her hands together triumphantly. A loud klaxon drowned out the rest of the sentence, and Zig Zag's mouth dropped open in a wide-eyed shriek just before two wide waves of green gunge spewed from the head-height grates at the sides of the booth, enveloping her head and shoulders. Quickly, she leaned forwards out of the deluge, her eyes hidden by the green slime splattered across her face. Her mouth was still open in a frozen mixture of shock and enjoyment, slime dripping down the sides of her muzzle and off her chin as she screamed out loud.

She brought her hands up, sticky curtains of the translucent slime dripping from her arms, and wiped at her eyes, moving her head a little from side to side. The wide green curtains of ooze continued to play up and down her striped fur, soaking her white hair and coating her shoulders and sides in a glistening, gooey layer. After a few seconds they slowed, parting and gradually revealing her fully again. She lifted her head from her hands and looked to the side, her soaked hair and fur dripping the translucent green stuff with every movement. Shaking her head, she wiped her hands down her face and watched the grates continue to pour the gunge down the walls, forming a rapidly spreading pool on the floor.

Suddenly there was a click of a valve opening on the ceiling and a column of bright purple gunge dropped on to the skunkette's head. A muffled yelp emerged from underneath it as it continued, the stuff splattering outwards in a smooth dome shape that dipped down as she ducked under the weight of the falling slime.

Carefully, Zig Zag leaned slightly to her left, hunching her shoulder up as the heavy downpour spilled down on to it. The half of her face that was visible revealed an uncomfortable grin as she looked up at Alex with her one visible eye, then as the flow of gunge began twitching to the side to splatter off her head again, she leaned further away, grabbing on to the far arm of the seat to support herself as the purple gunk flowed down her back. Looking down as the level of slime in the tank rose around her ankles, she lifted her feet, watching the murky mixture pour in streams from her bare toes.

Nicola gasped, laughing to herself as the grate at the back of the tank began pouring a wave of orange stuff into the tank from behind Zig Zag, making her flinch and lean forward to get her face away from the thick streams. As the purple gunge from above became just a drizzle, the flood from behind also eased back, pouring orange stuff down the back wall and over the blowup surface of the seat as it continued to fill the tank.

With little of her striped fur pattern visible underneath the colors she was splattered with, the skunkette tentatively straightened up again, leaning on the back of the seat and twitching as she watched the orange goo slithering over her shoulders. She managed a smile at the gentleness of it, wriggling a little from side to side and letting it cover her, but then jumped as a harsh siren rang out above the continuing alarm.

With a second blare from the siren, a wide column of blue and yellow ooze poured in from the ceiling, doming out over the messy skunkette's head and hiding her completely from view for a moment before she leaned forward, stretching out of the downpour. She had put her hands up to cover her face, squirming around as the falling gunge splashed outwards in slow, sticky waves from her back and neck, splattering on the surface of the still rising knee-deep pool. Gooey streams of it slithered around her neck and crept over her chest, mingling into an off green color as they went.

Zig Zag screeched and opened her hands to look as her elbows were swallowed underneath the multi-colored liquid, her eyes on the surface as it slowly crept up towards her face. Grimacing, she leaned up a little away from it, the back of her head going underneath the torrent from the ceiling again and making the stuff slither heavily down the sides of her hair. Her soaking striped tail sagged down behind her, eventually glooping under the surface as it rose to her tummy.

Shaking her head slowly from side to side as the deluge from above subsided a little, the skunkette appeared to relax and a grin became visible through the slop on her face. The mixture of gunge poured down her neck and back, finger-shaped streams of it slithering over her shoulders and chest on its way down into the off-green pool. As she moved her gaze from the rising surface back to Alex, the sprayers at the sides gurgled back into life and sprayed her shoulders and sides with translucent goo again. Squeaking at the ticklish feeling of them, she hunched her shoulders up, leaning back just far enough for the downpour from the ceiling to slop over her head, hiding her face again and splattering streaks on the edge of the tank's door.

After being hidden by the gungy dome splattering off her head for a few seconds, all the streams shut off together, leaving Zig Zag sitting in a chest-high pool of thick slime, her hair hanging messily over her face and shoulders. After a moment, she pulled her hands out of the gunge bath, the movement sending a wave of gooey liquid spilling over the door of the tank in front of her. Shaking them to spray the slime off them, she reached for her thickly coated hair and brushed it out of her face, then wiped at her eyes and muzzle, dragging the slop off her fur as she looked around at the slime-streaked walls.

A harsh repeating klaxon began blaring from above. Cringing as she heard it, Zig Zag shifted her hands to cover her eyes again, and hunched her shoulders back up as a spray of bright lumpy green stuff spluttered on to her head from a nozzle in the ceiling. She held her hands firmly over her face and muzzle as the lumps slithered down through her hair and off her fringe, splotting on to her shoulders and down to settle on the pool. The bright liquid colored her soaked and matted hair green again, flopping it over her face as it went.

After a few seconds, the bright downpour drizzled to a halt, a final couple of lumps dripping on to her head from above, and the alarm finally wound down. Sagging her shoulders in relief that it was over, Zig Zag slowly took her hands away and breathed out heavily, her messy face only just visible behind the hair hanging over it. She coughed, watching the chunky green mixture drip down across her vision, and a little squeamishly, pulled her hands back to pick her hair off her face again.

"That part was new?" she panted, pointing with one finger up at the pipe above her head as she tucked her drenched hair behind her ear with her other hand. She blinked as a couple of green lumps dripped from her fringe onto her muzzle, and brushed them away.

Alex came forward to see what she was pointing at. "It was, I thought I'd leave it as... oh, I know what you're thinking!" The messy skunk girl's squeamish grimace turned into a grin as she dipped her hands back into the pool, forming a cup and hauling herself unsteadily upwards with a heavy glooping noise. Colorful curtains of slime slithered thickly away from all over her fur as she stood up, hunching over slightly out of the tank and grinning evilly as the red wolf retreated back a few steps, his arm across his face to defend himself. Faking a throw to get his arm down first, she threw the collected handful of slime at him and he barked as it caught him on the side of the chest.

Laughing to herself, she looked down at her completely plastered fur, turning left and right and shaking the gunge on her hands into the waist-deep pool. Giving up, she flopped back down into the gunge bath, disappearing up to her neck again with a slurp and causing another wave of green and yellowish slime to ooze its way over the door. Slowly, she dragged her clasped hands over her hair, brushing away the lumps of gunge sitting on her head and leaving behind a glistening off-green layer.

"All right..." Alex wiped at his slippery side, flicking the slime to the floor as he stepped towards the tank again. A couple of drops from the pipe on the ceiling splattered down onto Zig Zag's head, and she blinked, leaning away to the side, as they slithered down her hair to drizzle on to the surface. She cleared her throat again and faced the red wolf as he came back to talk to her.

"You all right in there?" He smiled as she ran her hands down her messy hair again, heavy drops of gunge dripping off her arms. "If it's any consolation, I've been told that there's something in this stuff that makes it very good for the fur..."

Zig Zag scoffed, and flicked another handful of gunge in his direction, then settled back, dropping her arms back below the surface but making sure to splash as much of the thick liquid out towards him as possible with the movement.

Alex stepped back a little, watching the glutinous wave splatter on to the floor to join the spreading puddle around the front of the booth. He paced around it, back to the side of the tank with the switch. "Well, I'm sorry that you had to be gunged, but thank you so much for coming on and being our first special guest... having experienced it yourself, is there anyone you'd personally like to see inside this thing?"

The skunkette looked up as he leaned on the wall beside her, then wriggled in the slime as she thought. "Whoever volunteered me for this?" she suggested, raising her hand out of the glop and pointing down at the glutinous surface. A stream of slime dripped from the end of her finger.

Alex chuckled as he straightened up again. "We'll see what we can do. In the meantime, we're going to have to leave you in there, although we can give you a bit of your natural color back if you want it..."

He raised his voice above a loud hiss that started up as he was speaking, and Zig Zag splashed her arms out of the tank to clutch the sides of her head as two jets of foam started up from either side of the ceiling - one black, one white. She squeaked through her gritted teeth as the thick foam piled up on her hair and rolled off to splat heavily on the surface, floating outwards on the slowly rippling gunge.

"Thank you, Zig Zag!" Alex called one final time before dashing off to the side, leaving the room the same way he had come in. Struggling under the foam jets, she glanced up to watch him go, shaking her head and leaning forwards to try and get away from the last of the sputtering sprays.

The team sat in silence for a moment, watching the on-screen image of the soaked and messy skunkette trying to clear the black and white foam off herself as it mingled into a murky gray color, sighing relievedly as she wrung out her hair. Kim was standing beside the three on the bench, having jumped up in excitement when the tank had first gone off.

Anneka shook her head. "I can't believe they got her to come on. That was incredible!"

"Yeah, I know a couple of people I'd want to put in there..." Nicola smiled. She looked to her side at Lesley, who despite her quietness looked as enthusiastic as the rest of them.

"You know, I think Alex should have gone in with her if he was a real gentleman..." Kim smiled, tapping the image of the gunge-filled booth on the screen. The slippery skunkette was wiping the mixed foam away from her face, watching as a stagehand approached with a large towel. As he came near, she hauled herself upwards again, the stuff drizzling and dripping from her drenched fur as she stood hunched over slightly under the low ceiling. After pulling her hair out of her face and tossing it behind her head with one hand, she stood with her fingers outstretched, watching the gunge drip off her fingertips.

"We'll get the chance to slime him ourselves if we win the final game!" Nicola cut in. She looked around at the other two on the bench. "Did you see what happened to him at the end of the last season?"

"Yeah!" Anneka leaned towards her, a huge grin on her face, and Lesley smiled to herself too. "I'd love to see what happens to him if we win now..."

"He'll probably have to go into the tank that the team leader used to get gunged in," replied Kim. "The one that you're going to have to go into, Anneka..."

Together, they all looked at the jaguar girl, who glanced back around at them, an uncomfortable grin on her face.

"You're going to save me, right?" she asked, biting her lip.

"Depends if you decide to gunge the rest of us again!" Nicola teased, getting up from the bench as she spoke. The thinned slime still clinging to her fur was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. "Come on, let's get this stuff off."