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Industrial Zone 6 - Round 4 by Iron-K

Industrial Zone 6 - Round 4

INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 Round 4

Written by Iron-K

The team headed across the white circular room again, Nicola keeping her eyes on the still slowly dripping nozzle of the Pod as she ran her fingers through her damp hair. The four of them followed Alex around the edge of the room, avoiding the cold puddle of green slime that had splashed outwards from its centerpiece, and he turned to face them as they reached the corridor on the opposite side.

"This is the last area of the complex we're going to visit," he said as they gathered around, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb towards a roll-top door taking up the whole width of the corridor a few yards down. "Past this door's the processing wing, which contains the pumping machines that they used to use for hauling stuff up from the sea bed, as well as the cargo transport from the shore. Let's get you in there and see which rooms are open to us..."

He beckoned as he turned to dash towards the roll-top door, and Nicola led the group at a jog after him. He ducked down to haul on two handles at the base of the door, and straightened as it squeaked and rattled upwards. Nicola ducked down a little to walk through it ahead of the others.

"Whoa," she gasped as she straightened up, pacing towards the handrail in front of her and leaning over it as she looked down at the room in front of them. It was large even compared to the rest of the IZ set, and resembled a metallic hangar. She was standing on a walkway that ran around the room about seven feet off the floor, a couple of sets of stairs leading down to ground level at the corners. In the middle of the room below was a rectangular capsule that had been done up to look like some sort of futuristic aircraft, mounted on rails that led to another larger roll-top door behind it. It was positioned so that the dark glass of the cockpit area at its front was next to the walkway on the right side of the room.

Nicola looked over her shoulder as the others moved towards the handrail as well, looking similarly surprised as they looked around the space.

"I can tell you're impressed!" Alex announced as he paced towards them from the door, looking down at his pocket computer again. "We've got four more games to play here, which are all going to be worth double points at the end of the round to give you your final score. But before we actually venture into any of the processing rooms, I've got something to show you over here..."

He headed off to the right, around towards the shuttle's nose section. Nicola took her hands off the rail and scampered after him as he led them around to a wider part of the walkway, right opposite the dark curved cockpit area. A small control panel was mounted on top of a waist-high podium in front of them.

"Do you remember when we asked you, well before you got here, who you'd most like to gunge?" Alex asked, tapping his fingers on the side of the console as they gathered round. Nicola nodded along with the others - it had been the last section on the application form, and her heart jumped as she realized what they were about to see just as Alex continued. "We got hold of one of your nominations who agreed to join you in the Industrial Zone today, and they're watching us from inside the cockpit now..." He pointed at the curved darkened glass, and Nicola strained to see into it, thinking that she could see a shadowy figure just visible through the semitransparent surface.

Alex paused for a moment before stepping backwards and turning to the panel. "Let's take a look at who we've got in there..." he announced as he pressed something on it. Nicola blinked as a set of plumes of special effect smoke hissed from the edges of the door, and the dark panel began to swing slowly upwards and outwards.

She stepped to the side and crouched down, hands on her knees, as she stared at the widening opening at the bottom of the capsule's front. She was hoping to see her nomination, her brother Nat, inside. But as she glimpsed a patch of gray fur through the gap, a scream came from her left, and she whipped her head round to see Lesley bouncing excitedly with her mouth silently open in shock.

She turned back to the shuttle as the panel lifted the rest of the way. Inside the cockpit section, behind a curved dashboard arrangement, a young gray wolf was seated, his unruly long brown hair worn loose behind him. As the panel clicked into place above him, he grinned a little embarrassedly back at the speechless chipmunk girl, his arms folded in front of his lighter chest fur and tapping the fingers of one hand against his arm.

"So, Lesley..." Alex chuckled, putting his arm around her and leading her gently over towards the panel, right opposite the wolf. "I think it's safe to say you recognize him..."

"Uh-huh." Lesley nodded, then swallowed, bouncing from foot to foot as she tried to calm down again.

"I can tell you're a little taken aback, so do you want me to do the introductions?" he asked with a smile. She nodded her head again, and he turned around, putting his arm out towards the shuttle as he addressed the others, reading off the pocket computer.

"This innocent-looking wolf," - he pointed into the capsule as its occupant nodded shyly, looking uncomfortable at being the center of attention - "goes by the initials DF, and he and Lesley met when they took a language class together. They discovered they were both IZ fans, she applied to be on without telling him - and after she's survived three rounds of games so far, I think she's justified in trying to gunge him as well!" Nicola watched the wolf boy's reaction as Alex spoke, smiling as she noticed him twitch slightly and glance upwards at the mention of the word. "Think that's fair, DF?"

"Well..." The wolf hesitated, clearing his throat as his eyes moved around the capsule he was inside, and laughing uncomfortably. "Yeah, kind of..."

Alex smiled again. "I don't think he's too sure - but don't worry, we're going to give you a chance to save yourself. I'll tell you how it's going to work." The red wolf looked down at the panel and put his hand on it, pointing over his shoulder. Nicola looked behind them, seeing only a blank wall at first, but as the lights at their end of the room dimmed, a projected green screen with a crude ship graphic at the bottom flickered into life, a couple of angular walls rapidly scrolling past.

"This... apparently... is part of the simulation that was used to help new pilots of this thing get a feel for the controls," Alex read out from his pocket computer, then looked up at it. "I think the budget must have been a bit tight at the time..."

Nicola laughed at the remark - the screen reminded her of the very first computers that she'd ever used at the start of school. She looked over to the panel as Alex turned back to the panel, spinning the chipmunk girl gently around to look down at it with him again.

"DF's going to be in control of the ship you see there - at the moment the sea looks open and clear, but you're going to be able to use this to drop obstacles in his path," he demonstrated to her, sliding one control with his hand and pressing another. The others watched as a polygonal rock scrolled down one side of the screen and disappeared off the bottom. "You're going to have one minute to cause a crash - and when your friend in there makes a mistake, you're going to get to start up the gunge tank on him. Looking forward to it?"

"Oh, yes." The chipmunk girl's long blonde hair bobbed a little behind her as she nodded.

"So you get gunged if you hit any of the obstacles that Lesley drops in your way," Alex called across to the gray wolf. "But if you do manage to survive for a full minute without crashing, I'm sure you'd quite like to see Lesley in there herself..."

"Heh heh - yeah..." He smiled enthusiastically, and Nicola glanced sideways at the chipmunk girl, who cringed a little at the thought.

"All right! If you'd like to get ready to save yourself, DF..." Nicola turned to the gunge machine again to see the young wolf lean forward and reach out to the flight joystick directly in front of him. He adjusted his grip on the finger grooves at the back a couple of times, anxiously looking to the screen, its light reflecting off his eyes in the darkness. "I should warn you that he's had some time to practice this while you were getting gunged earlier, Lesley, so... don't feel you have to hold back!"

"I won't," she grinned to herself, eyes fixed on the little screen in the panel in front of her as she watched the shuttle representation on it weave about a little.

"Time starts when you hit that button for the first time - good luck!" he gestured towards Lesley. The chipmunk girl breathed out, then jabbed at the panel.

Nicola and the others looked up to the projected screen to see a timer appear at the top, counting back from sixty. A widely spaced cluster of rocks came into view, the chipmunk girl's opponent dodging them easily. He stayed to one side, keeping away from another two of them on the other edge of the screen.

"Come on, Lesley!" Nicola encouraged.

"She can only put down a few at a time," Alex explained, eyes fixed on the screen as well, "but it's going to get faster..."

Nicola gripped the rail behind her anxiously as she watched the game, looking back and forward between the screen and the wolf's concentrated face. The pace gradually sped up, and after just a few more seconds she jumped as he dived the ship to the side and only just missed one of them.

"You nearly had him!" she called over at her, then breathed out as she realized she was practically jumping up and down. Another couple of near misses later, and with the timer dropping below thirty seconds, she glanced over to see Kim whispering something in the chipmunk girl's ear. Anneka had her eyes fixed on the screen, drumming her feet on the ground.

After another glance at the gray wolf, she turned back to the screen to see it was nearly blank again. Suddenly a pattern of five rocks sped down the screen at the now rapid pace, and she heard the noise of the joystick suddenly being thumped to the side as the wolf only just got through them. The same pattern appeared again, and he dodged them in the same way. She blinked, then looked up to see what she thought was the same pattern yet another time, but she realized just before they reached the ship graphic that they were arranged the other way round. Gasping as the wolf made to get past them in the same way again, she heard a yelp from behind her as he realized his mistake too late, and she jumped as the screen flashed white and an electronic crash noise played. With a cheer from Lesley, a repeating buzzer sounded as the ship graphic blinked along with the rock it had collided with, signaling the game was over.

She turned around to look at the wolf's reaction, and saw him slipping his hand off the control stick as he slumped back in the chair, his shoulders shaking a little as he grimaced and looked up above his head.

"Lesley... that was nearly you in the gunge tank!" Alex said as he stepped forwards, putting his arm around the grinning chipmunk girl again. "But I think it was thanks to Kim's help that you finally got him with eleven seconds to go, so DF stays in there - and I think I'll allow you to do the honors yourself..."

Looking down at the control panel, he tapped in a code and then lifted a plastic cover aside. As the others gathered to watch, Nicola leaned around to see a small red button flashing underneath it. Alex stepped back, holding his hand out towards it, and Lesley moved in front of him, reaching for the blinking trigger.

Resting her finger on top of it, she looked over the gap towards the long-haired wolf, who wriggled a little uncomfortably from side to side, smiling nervously back at her for a moment but with his eyes darting to the sides and top of the cockpit around him. Nicola looked between the two of them as Lesley dragged the moment out, and suddenly she jabbed down on the button, holding it in place.

A shrill alarm sounded from inside the tank, and the wolf jumped and tensed up in the seat, closing his eyes as he drew in his breath. Nicola, bouncing with excitement as she leaned on the rail in front of her, glanced around the edges of the capsule as she waited to see what was going to happen, and she whooped as four drizzles of thick bright yellow slop spurted into life from the sides of the tank, dribbling on to the floor behind the dashboard for a moment before strengthening. The gray wolf barked as they splurged on to his chest and shoulders, hunching up as he was coated in a soupy yellow layer that slid slowly down to cover his front.

The top two streams angled up slightly, slopping across his hair and back and making him hunch up further, just before two diagonal streams of white foam hissed into life from the top corners of the tank, splattering on the sides of his head and rolling off to slither down from his twitching shoulders as specks of the stuff flew outwards. Nicola heard Lesley cheer as yet more yellow stuff was spurted from the lower front of the cockpit, and he yelped and jerked upward as it hit him in the face, then flailed his hands in front of him in an attempt to defend himself, strings of the stuff dripping from the end of his laughing muzzle.

Nicola leaned down a little more, catching the occasional glimpse of the wolf through the air thick with sprayed foam and yellow gunge, his outline becoming gradually clearer as the jets began to ease off. As the sprays of gunge became drizzles from the pipes at the side of the tank and the foam nozzles spluttered and stopped, she heard Lesley's laughter at the sight of him - he was completely coated in the runny yellow and white mixture, slumped against the back of the chair with a single drizzle of the stuff dripping from the scruff on the end of his chin, his eyes firmly closed but his mouth still a little open in surprise. As she watched, he wriggled upwards in the chair again, raising his slimy arms to the sides and shaking them in the air to make dollops of gunge drip down from them. He moved his hands to the top of his muzzle and dragged the sloppy liquid away, and with some strands of the gray fur on his face visible again, blinked a couple of times as he opened his eyes, shaking his head and looking up at the giggling chipmunk as he wiped down his muzzle and chin. Sheepishly, he grinned and then waved over at her.

Suddenly a deeper alarm blared, and the gungy wolf dropped his hand back to his side, grimacing and hunching up again. Nicola looked at the top of the tank just in time to see a wide column of mixed dark and light gunge drop down from the middle of the ceiling. The wolf tensed as its shadow fell across him, and an instant later he was engulfed in the murky green downpour.

Nicola watched the dome of thick liquid twitching as he squirmed underneath it, the occasional outline of a flailing gungy arm visible as it played over him, the stuff making a thick slurping noise as it coated the dashboard in front of him and painted the back wall of the cockpit area. After a few moments his muzzle poked out of the downpour again, his face frozen in the same unsure grin as he let the slop slither down the back of his head, his ears flattened under its weight and with rivulets of gunge drizzling from their tips.

"What do you think of that, Lesley?" Alex asked, his arm still around the cheering chipmunk girl as they watched the slime pouring on to the utterly coated wolf's head gradually slow to a drizzle from above, gradually spattering the blobby remains of the tank's contents on to him. "Do you think you're even now?"

"Just about," she giggled, her eyes fixed on him as she watched the mixed gunge slither and drip down him, his eyes firmly closed underneath the colorful glutinous layer.

"And how about you, DF - how are you feeling in there?"

The young wolf looked up and visibly sighed, looking a lot more relaxed now that the inevitable had happened. "Awesome," he tried to deadpan, but it turned into a chuckle at the end, and more of the mingling green and yellow gunk slithered around his shoulders as he moved his hands up to his eyes again. Wiping them off one by one with the palms of his hands, he shook his head, sending specks of gunge spattering outwards, and held his arms out to the sides as he looked around at the now gunge-coated interior of the capsule.

"Good - and I'm afraid I think you deserved that, because even though you didn't manage to gunge Lesley here, you almost lasted the whole time so they're only getting twenty points for the round... can you do one last favor for us?" His ears pricked up again as Alex continued. "Somewhere among those controls there's an access card that we need to get into the final game, can we borrow it from you?"

"Sure..." The wolf hauled himself up from the back of the seat, causing a thick splattering noise from the gunge that dripped down as he moved, and looked along the dashboard in front of him, holding his hair out of his face with one hand. After a moment he reached forward and pulled out a card like the other ones that Nicola had seen Alex pick up before, and at the red wolf's signal he tossed it over the gap to him.

"All right!" Alex caught it with a flick of his arm, shaking it a little to flick the gunge off before putting it in his pocket. "We're going to have to leave you in there for now, but we'll see you again in the final, where you'll get the chance to get Lesley back again..." The younger wolf grinned and nodded, still twitching a little as blobs of the gunge slithered down him. "For now, team, let's go down to the ground floor..."

He turned and walked through the group of girls, heading towards the steep metal stairs, then propped himself up by his arms on both handrails, lifting his feet off the ground, and slid rapidly down to the floor below. Kim and Anneka clambered down after him, and Lesley gave the slimy wolf a last wave before she turned to follow them. Nicola padded behind her, taking a last glance over her shoulder at him - he was still trying to wipe his face off, squirming to get his head out of the way of a couple of spurts still raining down on him from the ceiling of the capsule. Smiling, she shuddered and looked down the way as she carefully descended the stairs to rejoin the group.

"Only twenty points from that last game, I'm afraid, but you've still got three chances to earn more before the final," Alex said to them, turning and leading them around the white shuttle. "Two of them are going to be games where one of you has to entrust your cleanliness to your team members," he continued, pointing around at the heavy industrial doors around the walls of the space, "and then we'll have a bit of a surprise for the last one."

Nicola glanced at the expressions of the others as they walked in a row behind him, trying to remember the games that she had seen before on the show that they hadn't been in yet.

"And I think that we've got two team members who haven't been in that position enough yet," Alex stopped and spun round, his finger outstretched. "Nicola," - she jumped as he pointed straight at her - "...and Anneka."

Nicola looked sideways at the jaguar girl, who was outwardly smiling, but her swishing tail and curled toes gave away her nerves. She, too, was feeling anxious about seeing what they were going to do to them.

"Kim, Lesley, I think that as these two both had a hand in getting you covered in the last round, it should be your choice this time," Alex said, stepping around the group and crouching down a little to look the short chipmunk girl in the eye. "Who do you want to see taking the risk first?"

Nicola glanced aside as Anneka moved closer to her, and she accepted her one-armed hug as the mouse and chipmunk whispered to each other. After a moment, they both nodded.

"Anneka," Kim spoke up. The jaguar girl closed her eyes, grinning defeatedly, and flopped her head forwards as Nicola patted her on the back and stepped away.

"The team leader it is! Come over here, I can't wait to show you this..." Catching the jaguar girl's hand as he walked past her, he turned her around and headed for a door that was just visible in a gloomy corner underneath the upper walkway. A set of two rails, jutting slightly out of the floor, protruded out of a plastic flap-covered hole in the wall next to it.

Nicola watched the feline bouncing on her heels nervously as Alex pulled the lock on the door aside and shouldered it open. As he stepped through, the jaguar girl padded forwards, and gave a startled squeak as she looked around the door frame.

Nicola stepped through the doorway behind her and immediately saw what had caught her attention - a circular section of the floor and left wall was cut away to form a sunken pool full of a mixture of bright orange and green gunge. Behind it, a set of rails like the ones outside came out from a tunnel in the wall, the end of the rail dangling precariously above the edge of the vat.

As the others followed them in, Nicola looked around the rest of the room, which looked like it had been done up as a security center - a bank of small monitors showing various rooms took up most of the back wall. To the left of the bank, the rail that ended above the vat came out of the wall again and ran parallel to it before disappearing around another corner.

Alex moved back through the group to close the rusty door behind them, then stepped towards the area of exposed rail. Nicola moved to follow him, noticing that Anneka was still staring down at the gloopy vat and tugging on her arm to encourage her over. As the feline stumbled behind her and they approached where Alex was standing, he looked up to a lever placed at head height on the wall.

"Now, nobody's going to be completely out of danger in this game, so you won't be alone, Anneka - but this is where you're going to be sitting..."

He reached up to the switch and pulled it down, holding it in position as something rattled in one of the walls. The team looked around to see where it was coming from, and after a few seconds Nicola spotted a rickety metallic chair turning the corner out of the covered section of wall towards them.

"Oh..." Anneka shuffled her feet and looked at the floor as the seat came closer, but Nicola could see she was smiling to herself. Alex let go of the lever and the chair stopped with a squeaking noise, making the feline look up at it, tossing her black hair behind her head again with one hand.

"You might recognize this as what we call the Ride, Anneka, but fortunately for you we're only using one section of it just now," Alex said, offering a hand and turning to her. "Mind you, it's probably the section that you most want to avoid anyway..."

Anneka giggled and nodded. "Great," she said, drawing the word out sarcastically as she climbed up into the chair with his help, sitting down and placing her feet on the rest at the front.

"We'll just get you into position and meet you round there - ready?" the red wolf asked as he stepped away, putting his hand on the switch again. She shook her head, but squeaked and gave a start as he tugged it anyway, starting the chair moving along the rail again. She turned a corner into the gap in the wall and disappeared from view into the darkness.

Alex motioned for the others to gather round the vat, and Nicola followed the chipmunk and mouse girl back to where they had been standing before. As they watched, the chair with Anneka in it rounded a corner into view at the end of the tunnel that ended above the vat, and they watched her squirm uncomfortably as she got nearer, blinking as she passed under a couple of ceiling lights.

Her mouth dropped open as she neared the end of the tunnel, and she shrieked as the chair moved right to the edge. With a clank, it suddenly stopped, and she visibly breathed in and out a couple of times, holding one hand on her chest as she turned to Alex.

"Don't worry - we're going to give the team a chance to get you out of there, even though we could just dunk you in right now..." he chuckled. Anneka growled playfully, running both hands through her black hair and flicking it outwards before returning them to the arms of the seat. She lifted her feet off the footrest a little, looking down at the gungy surface below as Alex beckoned the others towards the bank of monitors.

"These screens show the views from the CCTV around the complex," he started. Nicola walked over, looking at the thirty or so small monitors that lined the panel in front of them. Each was showing a grainy top-down view of a room or corridor, as if seen through a security camera high on a wall - she recognized some of them as game rooms from the show, but most of them looked like more general shots of machinery.

"Take a good look now, because one of you..." He turned between the three of them, and Nicola jumped a little as he pointed at her, taking her hand as he walked past and turned her around towards a plastic booth set into the wall. "You're going to be shown a scene from one of those cameras, and the others are going to have to press the button next to the monitor that they think matches the description of it that you give them," he explained as the clear plastic door slid aside automatically.

Nicola stepped up on to the cross-hatched metal floor of the chamber, looking up as she did so to see a wide pipe stretching across the ceiling with a nozzle splitting off it and pointing down towards her. Hearing the hum of the door behind her, she turned around as it closed to see Alex pointing up at a screen fixed on the opposite wall next to Anneka's seat, a curtain blocking the other contestants' view of it.

"Nicola, you're going to get a view of the same room as one of those cameras for about ten seconds. You've got that time to describe it to Kim and Lesley as much as you can - your view might be from a different angle, so don't rely on directions!" He walked over to the two free team members as they looked nervously at each other. "Kim and Lesley, after ten seconds you've got to press the button next to the monitor that you think matches your friend's description - if you pick the right button then you get twenty points, and Anneka gets a little closer to being rescued. You need to get five correct in two minutes to save her from dropping into that vat of gunge in front of her." They looked over as the jaguar girl whimpered down at the gloopy surface, drumming her feet on the chair's footrest about a foot above it. "But if you get it wrong, you're going to hear this noise..."

The dirty hooting sound of the gunge tank siren blared from the ceiling, and Nicola flinched and ducked out of the way instinctively. Alex chuckled as the noise faded away, and she shot him a look.

"...And Nicola knows what's going to happen to her! Whether you get it right or wrong, she gets let out of there and somebody else goes in for the next one. All make sense?"

The girls nodded, and Nicola watched Kim and Lesley turn back to the bank of monitors as Alex pointed at the projection screen in front of her.

"Get ready, Nicola, remember to give them as much detail as you can - here it comes!"

A burst of static appeared on the screen, clearing quickly to show a view of a room, with a two-minute timer overlaid on the bottom corner. Nicola hesitated, taking it in before speaking.

"Okay, there are loads of pipes around the walls," she started, her eyes darting around the picture. "In the middle there's this... big gear thing, I think, and... three of the pipes stretch over to it..."

Suddenly, static clouded the screen again, and Nicola stopped, glancing up at the nozzle before looking at the backs of the heads of the girls at the monitors.

"There's your description, girls - any ideas?" Alex said over them as they whispered to each other.

Nicola watched worriedly, trying to see over their shoulders, as Kim reached a hand out to press on the button next to one of the screens with her palm. As she pressed it, a high-pitched bell sounded, and she looked over at Alex.

"That's right!" the red wolf confirmed, and the door of the tank slid open again. "That's twenty points already - Kim, let's have you next..."

Nicola stepped out of the booth as the mouse girl turned around quickly, looking like she was only now realizing that she was going to have to go in the tank as well. Nervously she padded forwards and took Alex's hand as she stepped up into it, shuffling around so she faced the screen and bouncing on her heels. Nicola heard the static noise from the screen again, and her eyes lit up with recognition.

"It's the room with all the booths that we were in at the end of the last round," she said confidently. "The one with the row of them that we had to go into to get the code..."

She stopped abruptly as the scene disappeared, and turned towards the others expectantly. Nicola spun around to look at the monitors, seeing the room she had described immediately as Lesley reached for a button on the other side.

"No, wait..." she put her hand on her shoulder, pointing at the screen she had been looking at. The chipmunk girl looked over her shoulder at her, surprised, and Nicola raised her eyebrows as she saw the screen she had been reaching for.

"There are two of them!" she realized. "Kim, which..."

"Sorry, she can't help you any more!" Alex cut her off. "Choose the one that you think fits what she's told you!"

Nicola glanced over at the mouse girl, who was wriggling nervously with her hands clasped over her tummy again, then looked back at Lesley as she hovered her hand over the button that she had been going to press. The chipmunk girl looked up at her hesitantly.

"Go on," Nicola shrugged, but held her breath as Lesley pushed the switch.

There was a pause, and they both looked round as the mouse girl bowed her head, closing her eyes with a nervous grin on her face. Suddenly the bell signaling a correct press sounded, and she gasped as she looked up.

"Yes! Very lucky... get out of there and let Lesley in!" Alex encouraged them as Anneka clapped her hands together.

The chipmunk girl skipped over towards the booth as Kim stepped down from it, and she put her hands out on the tank's walls to steady herself as she stepped inside. Shuffling her feet and positioning herself right under the spout, she tossed her hair behind her head as she watched the screen.

"Um," she started, shifting from foot to foot as Nicola gesticulated to encourage her to talk. "It's this kind of... round thing, there's a window in the front and it's got..." She began to draw the outline of something in the air in front of her, but stopped as the static sound played again.

Nicola and Kim looked at each other, and Nicola shrugged as she turned to the screens. At least half of them could have matched Lesley's description.

"Remember, with each second Anneka's closer to getting the plunge..." Alex said from the side, and Nicola twitched as she heard the jaguar girl eeping quietly from behind them. Kim put her hand over a button uncertainly, looking at Nicola before she carefully pressed down on it.

The alarm rang from the ceiling, and Nicola spun round just in time to see the chipmunk girl jump, her mouth falling open a little. A column of lime green foamy slime spewed out of the nozzle on the ceiling and hit her on the top of the head with a thick smacking noise. A squeak came up from underneath the torrent as Lesley bounced underneath the gunge, making the dome splatter outwards and slap on to the tank's walls.

The flow quickly shut off again, the curtain of slime falling away to reveal the slippery chipmunk girl again, laughing a little as she wrung out her green-colored hair and hunched her shoulders as the gunge dripped around them. The door of the tank hummed open and she carefully stretched a slimy foot down to the floor again, balancing herself with her arms on the corners of the booth.

"Sorry, Lesley - you got the first wrong button! You still have three to go, and just over a minute left... Nicola, get back in there!"

Nicola remembered as he spoke that she was next in, and with a glance back at the mouse girl, hurried over to the wall. Cautiously she stepped into the machine, blinking as a couple of thick green drops splotted down from the ceiling right in front of her face, then turned around to look as the screen turned on.

"It's..." she called as she looked at the scene in front of her, twitching away from the blobs of gunge still raining down from the nozzle above her. "It looks like the corridor from the first zone we were in, it's got a curved ceiling, there are two barrels on the right..."

Lesley reached forward for a button before she had even finished speaking, and she tailed off, balling her fists tensely and looking at the streaks of green gunge on the sides of the tank as she heard the button being pressed. The correct bell sounded again, and breathing out, she looked back up at the nozzle before stepping forward to slip past the opening door. Kim ran in to swap places with her, and she heard her squeak from behind her as she stepped into the shallow pool of green stuff on the tank's floor.

She was half-listening to Kim's stuttered description of the room in front of her as she dashed back towards the monitors, and looked quickly between them. Confidently, she reached forward to thump the button next to the monitor at the top left, glancing at Lesley as she pressed down on it.

This time, she cringed as the hooter blared, and turned to the tank just in time to watch a wave of yellow gunge spew out from the nozzle of the pipe and splatter on to the mouse girl's bowed head, bouncing outwards to the booth's walls and flowing over her face. Kim squealed from behind the twitching curtain of slime, her hands hovering in front before she reached through it and ran then both over her head. Her awkward smile became visible again for a second before the flow of slime slumped over her face.

"Oh... that's two of you gunged, but you've got thirty seconds left - you might still be able to save Anneka!" Alex called as Kim took a step to the side, moving her head out of the cool slimy downpour. The flow shut off, and she looked down at her yellow-splattered chest and arms, before shuffling to the front of the opening tank and stepping down from it as she clutched her hair behind her. Lesley was already there to take her place, and Nicola watched her stepping into the tank for the second time as Anneka shifted in the dunk seat tensely.

As the slime-covered mouse girl approached the monitors again, Nicola turned towards them, listening intently to Lesley's description and then leaning past Kim to jab at a button as soon as she tailed off. Smiling as the correct bell rang again, she put a hand on Kim's slippery shoulder distractedly before racing over to the booth again.

"Fifteen seconds! Nicola, it's all up to you - you've got to get this or Anneka's going in!" Alex encouraged.

"Come on, Nicola!" Lesley joined in as she stepped down, then dashed back to the screens as Nicola stepped on to the slippery floor of the gunge tank in her place. Quickly, she hopped up into the tank and spun round to the screen, peering at it closely to try and see through the fading static.

"It's the Pod!" she called out. "There's a chair under it, it's empty, but the keyboard is down in front of it..." She glanced towards Kim and Lesley, who were searching frantically over the bank of monitors. Turning back to the screen, she tried to think of anything else to help them, but faltered, shaking her head.

Alex spoke up as she hesitated. "You're going to have to guess quickly, you two, you've got... four seconds... three..." He counted down the last few seconds, and suddenly Kim leaned up to hit a button on the top row. There was a long pause, and then Nicola flinched down as a loud noise played from the ceiling. It was the bell sound again - they'd got the fifth one right.

"Yes!" Alex called, his arms raised. "That's right again, so Nicola gets away clean..." He gestured as the booth's door opened, and Nicola stepped out.

"And that heroic last-second rescue means that for the first time she's entrusted her cleanliness to you..." he announced happily, extending a hand as he walked towards the vat, "...Anneka's been saved! Impressed with their performance, Anneka?"

The jaguar girl grinned, punching the air and clapping her hands together in celebration. Alex smiled back at her, then turned to the rest of the team and continued.

"But seeing as we've got her in there, and you've been getting a little messy for her... do you want to gunge her anyway?"

"What?!" Anneka yelped, her expression suddenly changing to shock and her arms flying back down to grip the seat underneath her. Nicola looked over at Alex, who was beckoning over to the lever that controlled the chair, and with a glance back at the others, she dashed towards it, reaching up for the switch as Anneka protested hysterically.

Ignoring her, Nicola grabbed the switch and tugged it, a mechanical hissing noise signaling the machine being turned on. She whipped around to face Anneka, who turned to look at the glutinous surface in front of her again, placing her hands next to her eyes and drumming her feet on the chair's footrest. She gave out a high-pitched shriek that turned into a helpless laugh as the noise of the siren rose up around her.

Nicola dashed back to the front of the vat just in time to see a cascade of thick green slime pour in from the ceiling above the chair. Anneka squeaed again and twitched as the front of it hit her, shaking her head to make it splatter outwards on to the walls, her bare toes curling under her feet as the gunge slapped on to her lap and shoulders. Just as the smooth downpour began to thin out, a click sounded, the seat tipped forwards underneath the jaguar girl and the team got a glimpse of her screwed-up face as she flung her arms out in front of her and fell forwards into the vat.

She hit the surface and went right under with a wet smacking noise, the green and orange paint-like liquid splashing out wildly and making Kim squeak and turn away as a high wave of it hit her on the chest. The surface buckled and rippled as it closed again behind her. Nicola, shaking her feet to get rid of the gunge that had splashed out on to her toes, leaned further forward to watch, gaping awestruck as the brightly colored ooze heaved and glooped slowly from side to side, the colors swirling and mixing into each other.

After a moment, Anneka's head burst up through the surface again, barely recognizable under the coating of gunge, and she bobbed up and down with the surface as she shook from side to side, arms flailing to the sides and splashing the goo around as if treading water in the glop. As she shakily found her footing and stood up, the pool wobbling against her chest and tummy, another thick downpour of yellow gunge dropped from the nozzle above the center of the tank, and she held her hands to her forehead, ducking down a little as the stuff splattered in a dome shape off her already soaked hair.

Nicola laughed a little with the others as the flow of smooth slop from the ceiling gradually thinned out, playing over Anneka's shoulders as she held her head bowed underneath it. The jaguar girl slowly blinked her eyes open again, looking up at the rest of the team with her face an image of shock and breathing heavily as the goo rolled and dripped from all over her, her hair colored bright yellow and hanging heavily around her head. Laughing helplessly, she held her gungy arms out to the sides, skimming the surface again with her hands as she shuddered at the feeling of the slime glooping all around her.

She struggled forwards unsteadily towards them, hunching her shoulders as thick drops from the ceiling hit her on the back of her neck. She giggled as she got her breath back, scooping her hands up to splash even more of the stuff out at the others, then yelped as yet another downpour of green and orange splurged down on to her, thinner this time and spraying from side to side to spatter into the vat around her and on to the others' feet.

Alex waited for the gunge shower to run out, becoming a sputtering drizzle from the ceiling and pouring on to the back of the slime-coated jaguar girl's head. She walked another step forwards, fighting against the thick liquid to take hold of the side of the pool and trying to keep her arms above the still rippling surface as he crouched down next to the vat. "I think I know the answer to this one already, Anneka..." he began, a wide grin on his face as he watched her looking up to face him, "but just as a formality, is there anyone you'd particularly like to risk getting gunged next?"

The slime-coated jaguar girl took her hands off the edge, one slippery hand stroking up from her forehead over her heavy hair to flick it behind her. "Her!" she announced, pointing straight at Nicola, then blinked and turned away as the green and orange drizzles slopped down into her face.

Nicola tried to act casual, smiling as she stepped around the gunge vat and watched Alex reach down to haul their team leader out. But even though she had expected it, she was excited and nervous about being in a game again - especially as she knew that the fourth round was usually the harshest. She shivered as their host raised Anneka slowly out of the vat, rivulets of heavy gunge drizzling down from all over her fur and splashing back down on to the surface. She swung her legs forward, hooking her toes on to the vat's side as Alex gently hauled her over on to the ground again.

The red wolf let go of Anneka, and she held her arms out in front of her, watching the gloop drip down from all along them and smack in puddles on to the floor before raising her hands to try and clean herself off a little.

"Okay, you rescued Anneka... even though I don't think she feels rescued!" he started, putting a hand on the jaguar girl's shoulder as she ran her hands down her sides and tummy, "and only got two wrong answers, so that's eighty points for the game. Ready to try and add to that, Nicola?" He turned towards her and offered his hand, and with a nod, she took it.

Nicola gripped his hand tightly as he led them out of the door again and back through the room with the large shuttle in the center. As they crossed the tracks she leaned around, wondering if the gray wolf was still dripping with gunge in there where they had left him, but then looked over at the double doors that she was being led towards.

"You've managed to avoid being put in a game yourself for a long time, Nicola, so I think we should treat you to one of the classics..." She felt her heart speed up again as she remembered about one of the show's tanks that they hadn't seen yet.

Alex opened the door and showed her through. She took a step into the room and whimpered through a smile as she realized she had been right. On the right wall, set in a slight recess, stood a six foot high cubicle, with wide curved pipes stretching from its top and the base of its sides to the walls around it. She looked it up and down as she heard the others' gasps and giggles as they stepped into the room behind her.

Still gaping a little at it, she felt the red wolf put his arm around her and allowed herself to be walked distractedly over to the booth. "Yes, we saved the Mixer for you," he laughed at her reaction, walking around to the other side as he pulled the door open, then gently closed it behind her as she took a step inside. "Everyone else, come over here..."

Nicola turned around and pulled herself up into the chair fixed to the back wall of the gunge tank, set high so that her toes only just touched the floor. Like she'd seen everyone else do, she looked up at the ceiling, and saw a wide double nozzle that was the opening of the pipe that led through the bigger prop around it. She swung her toes nervously against the floor, shuddering as she mentally pictured the normal results of being in the tank, and leaned down to look at the wide slots next to her dangling feet.

Alex had led the others over to a slightly slanted table in an alcove opposite her booth, and as they gathered around to look down at it, a projection screen next to the alcove flicked on, showing her a view of it from above. The top surface of it was divided into fifteen tiles with a gap in the bottom right, and together they showed the IZ logo, with two pieces the wrong way round on the top and bottom rows.

"Played this before?" Alex asked them, and looked around as they nodded. "Yes, I think you know the idea of this one - you've got to rearrange these tiles so that the logo is complete," he demonstrated as he spoke, flicking the three tiles at the bottom right around with the palm of his hand. "But you've got added pressure in this game, because if you don't sort out the tiles within ninety seconds, then the Mixer's going to turn on and absolutely cover your friend in foam and gunge..."

He put his hands out towards Nicola, and she shivered, looking around at the nozzles surrounding her again. When watching the series at home she had seen a lot of people being gunged by this thing, and it seemed hardly real that she was now viewing it from the inside.

"They didn't save you last time, Nicola, but maybe they can make up for it with this - are you confident?"

Nicola hesitated, still distracted by the double nozzle looming above her, then just shrugged with a smile.

"Oh, I don't think she trusts you..." Alex grinned, leaning on the side of the tank as he turned back to the others. "Prove her wrong, everyone - your time starts now!"

A timer like the one from the last game appeared on the screen and began counting down from a minute and a half as the three of them leaned over the board, whispering to each other. Lesley put a hand forward, hesitating as she hovered between the two movable tiles.

"Come on, you're going to have to move something!" Alex called to them, and with a jump, Lesley cautiously began sliding the tiles to move the gap up towards the top left, looking like she was being careful to remember where each one came from. A couple of unsure pointing fingers from the other girls came into view of the screen.

Nicola kept her eyes on the unrelenting timer as the others whispered to each other. Lesley flicked the tiles in the top left around in unsure circles before seeming to abandon all caution and starting to move the tiles around them as well in an attempt to get the first row of the puzzle complete.

"That's it, just get as many as you can into the right place before the time runs out... it's taken you thirty seconds to get that far!" called Alex. Lesley's head came into view of the screen that Nicola was watching as she learned further over the board, looking around it as she slowed down again, trying to decide which of the remaining tiles went where.

As the timer continued, Nicola kept glancing up at the gunge chute above her head, tapping her hands on the sides of the chair as she got more and more sure that she wasn't going to be rescued in time. She swung her legs and bounced in the seat, trying to take her mind off how nervous she thought she looked, but she couldn't help thinking of the first time she'd seen the tank she was now inside, watching a squealing reptilian girl being covered in gunge from above while the booth filled up with foam around her.

The sound of an alarm made her gasp, and she looked back at the screen to see the puzzle was far from complete, the timer flashing red as it ticked down from ten seconds. She squirmed, rocking back and forth a little as she waited, watching Lesley try to speed up only to end up with even more tiles out of place. After what seemed like ages, a harsh buzzer signaled the timer reaching zero, and the three of them jumped away from the board.

Cringing and gripping the arms of the seat tightly, Nicola glanced to her side at Alex, who was looking down at her from the other side of the plastic wall.

"Sorry, Nicola..." he grinned, then slapped the ceiling of the booth as he jumped away.

Nicola gasped as she heard the familiar mechanical whining noise of the gunge tank starting up, and quickly looked downwards. She jumped at a sudden bubbly hissing noise, and the slots at her feet began pushing sprays of thick green foam into the bottom of the tank. Twitching her hands aside as she suddenly felt wetness on them, she watched as foam began spilling out of the arms of the seat as well, floating down to join the rising pool.

Screaming out loud and wriggling upwards in the seat, she gripped the arms of the chair tightly as the stuff bubbled up around her ankles, oozing between her toes. Her yelp was drowned out by a blast from a loud hooter, and she wriggled in the seat, laughing helplessly and kicking her feet through the gooey foam as she watched and felt it steadily rising up her legs. As it reached her knees the klaxon hooted again, and hovering her hands above the stuff, she watched her lower half disappear completely under the foamy layer. She looked up to the gunge nozzle that she knew was about to go off above her head, then quickly to her team mates, looking at their awestruck expressions. Swallowing, she held her breath as the thick foam crept up over her tummy, unsure where to look as she waited for what was about to happen. She glanced up, heard the klaxon for the third time, and just had time to see the pipe above her twitch as a torrent of blue and yellow liquid splurged out of it before she snapped her head back down and closed her eyes.

With a smacking noise, the cold gungy feeling instantly surrounded her head, spilling quickly on to her shoulders and sliding down her chest and back as the level of foam suddenly dropped down under its weight. Her hands instinctively flew up to clutch her ears but she stopped short of them, feeling the edges of the downpour flick across her hands and slither down her arms as she kept her head under the sloppy torrent. The foam began rising again more slowly as it went on, and after a few seconds she wriggled her bowed head upwards away from it, holding her breath as she felt the gunge from above slump over her face and drip thickly around her muzzle. When the foam reached her shoulders it stopped rising, but kept moving and rippling around her as the slime splattered heavily down into it.

As the siren rang again she felt the gunge from the pipe above her beginning to run out, splatting heavy dollops on to her head, and raised her hands out of the gooey mixture. She blew out through her nose to get the foam off the end of her muzzle, and wiped the back of her messy hands across her face to clean herself as best as she could, shivering as the blobs of gunge from above slithered around her neck and crept down her chest. Eventually she slowly opened her eyes again, holding her hands up out of the tank full of foam she was sitting in, and craned her neck forwards to let the last spurts of the gunge splat down her back as she gave a sickly grin out at the others.

"You should see yourself, Nicola - that was spectacular!" Alex called as he stepped forwards. Nicola blinked slowly as she felt more of the thick slime slither down her forehead, bowing her head forwards and shaking it a little to get the drops off her muzzle. Her hands came back to her face to wipe her eyes, but she stopped as she realized they were both completely coated in gungy foam as well. Half-closing her eyes again as the mixed green slime dripped over them, she dipped her hands back into the foam bath and flicked a couple of handfuls out of it out at Alex and at the rest of the team as they gathered around behind him.

"It does mean that we still haven't broken your streak of getting gunged, unfortunately," he said as he batted away the foam being thrown at him. "How many tiles did you get into the right place? I'd say you earned..." he pointed at the screen as he counted, "I'll give you... forty points for the game... but we've still got one last one to go."

He stepped forwards to let Nicola out, and she carefully slithered forwards in the seat, gently lowering herself down to the floor and feeling the bubbles around her burst as she moved around in the tummy deep sticky foam. He opened the door a little, and took her hand as she wriggled out through the gap, dragging some of the stuff out along with her. As he closed the tank, she raised her dripping arms to wipe her face again, holding her gungy hair out the way as she looked down at her foam-plastered legs, wriggling her toes to work some of the stuff off them. Shoulders shaking, she breathed out, half glad to be out of the spotlight again.

"Now, Kim and Lesley..." She looked up as Alex moved towards the two giggling, nervous-looking girls, holding his arms out and putting them around both their shoulders as he walked them back towards the door. "I think it's about time you two got messy again - wouldn't you say so?" he called back over his shoulder.

Gleefully, Nicola joined Anneka in a whoop, clapping her gungy hands above her head as she watched Kim flick her thin tail around behind her. The two of them followed Alex and the two girls out of the room again, and Nicola looked around the hangar area, wondering which door he was going to lead them towards as they turned the corner around the big capsule in the center of the room.

Anneka gasped from beside her. "He's putting them in the shuttle!" she whispered delightedly. Nicola raised her eyebrows and dashed a couple of steps forward around the big capsule herself, seeing that Alex had stopped them next to a wide set of seams on the side of the white surface. She turned back to Anneka with a wide grin on her face as she caught up as well.

"Now, we try to save something extra special for the last game of the show..." the red wolf began, letting go of the girls and stretching up to a complex-looking lock on the side of the doors. The mouse girl, her tail still swishing behind her, put her arm around Lesley, jiggling a little as she waited. "There's no real game to this one, we just offer a free hundred points for a team member or two to face a decently massive gunging..."

The two girls at the front looked at each other, but all four of them jumped as the beeping from Alex's keypresses stopped and a mechanical clank came from the doors. Nicola stretched up to try to see past them as they began to unfold vertically outwards, revealing a gap into the dimly-lit interior. The bottom half of the door had steps on its other side, and as it neared the floor Alex pinned it into place with his foot.

"So, you two, if you'd like to get in there and take your seats..."

Kim glanced at the chipmunk girl again and then cautiously stepped up the stairs first, ducking as she looked around at the inside of the shuttle. Nicola craned her neck to see into the darkness too, watching the mouse girl blink as a couple of dim red lights rotated over her. Cautiously, she tiptoed inside.

"Any last requests before we send you off?" Alex chuckled as Lesley climbed the stairs behind her. The chipmunk girl paused, and turned around.

"Yeah, can DF come in too?" she grinned mischievously.

Alex raised his eyebrows, mouth opening before he thought of a reply. "Ah, I'd like to, but he's - I think..."

He barked and turned away as he tripped over his words, laughing and holding his hand up. Nicola watched delightedly as she realized she was seeing him break character for the first time. She looked sideways at Anneka as he turned to look at the area under the walkway across from them.

"It was her, she threw me off!" he called as he pointed at Lesley, who shrugged, giggling embarrassedly. Trying to gather was going on as the flow of the show was broken, Nicola followed Alex's gaze towards the other side of the room, where a dark-furred canid was walking out slowly from behind a pillar, clapping his hands together with a wide grin on his face.

"The first retake of the season, Alex!" he called as he approached. "And you nearly lasted two whole shows..."

Alex sighed, shaking his head and holding his hand out towards him. "I'd like to introduce you to Cliff, everyone..." he said. Kim emerged from the shuttle again, poking her head round the door to watch as well. "He does most of the behind-the-scenes stuff while we're playing the games, so he's been the one gunging you over the last couple of hours..."

"Hey, don't try to shift the blame to me," he chuckled, looking away as Nicola jeered him.

Alex glanced over at the shuttle entrance, and pointed over his shoulder at it. "Can we actually get DF in?"

"Ah, I think he's in the showers," the canid replied.

The red wolf turned back to Lesley, who was still on the steps with one foot inside the shuttle. "Sorry, Lesley, you're going it alone..."

"Hey, I didn't say that that was a problem! Wait here, I'll go get him," Cliff turned and dashed away towards the stairs, dodging around a blue-skinned reptilian who was walking out from where he'd been standing. She turned to watch him go for a moment, then continued towards Alex, smiling as she looked down at her notepad and held the top page up to read underneath it.

"Don't you start as well, Blue..." Alex said as she opened her mouth. She sagged, laughing as she held her hands out towards him, looking round at the contestants. "All right, how much do we need to do again?" he asked her.

"Just from when you put them in. Lesley, once we get set up again can you just ask the same question again when you step inside? And don't let him get to you about asking," she grinned.

The chipmunk girl nodded, sitting down on the shuttle's stairs, and Kim stepped out to sit beside her. Nicola watched as Alex breathed out heavily, pacing towards the reptilian with his arms outstretched.

"Well, usually the team have to wait until the end before they meet the crew, but...!" He turned back to them, dropping one hand around the lizardess's shoulder. "Everyone, this is Blue, my wife of... what is it now, four years? Five years?" - he turned to her, and Nicola smirked as Blue held up five fingers, eyes raised to the ceiling - "...and she keeps me and the camera crews in check while we're recording..."

"Oh, I remember you!" Anneka exclaimed. "Weren't you on the show last season?" The reptilian smiled embarrassedly, cringing a little as she looked to her notepad again.

"Yeah..." she admitted. "So he can't put any blame on me like he did to Cliff, I've already gone through what you're doing! I felt really sorry for you when he dropped you into the vat, Anneka..."

The jaguar girl smiled, spreading her arms as she looked down at her stained and soggy fur. "So did I..." she giggled.

"How'd he rope you into going on?" Nicola asked. She sat down on the edge of the stairs, realizing how heavy the clinging foam and gunge felt on her.

"Well, I kind of got him involved in all this in the first place - didn't I?" she asked, and nodded with Alex. "So I should have guessed it was coming!"

"Couldn't you have done the show and had Alex in the games?" Lesley spoke up. Nicola joined the chorus of approval from the other girls as Alex folded his arms, smirking but looking away.

"That's not a bad idea... what do you think, Alex?" she poked him as the cheer died down.

"Yeah, I'd do it for a crew special or something. I know a couple of guys who I want to see in this thing... not least the man who started all this! He's well overdue for it..."

"I'll hold you to that," Blue smiled, and turned to the girls. "You heard - remember he agreed to it!"

Nicola grinned, but she was beginning to get a little anxious from the waiting. As the others continued talking, she looked to the right, along the rails the shuttle was mounted on towards the big rolltop door at the end of the room, and tried to picture what was behind it, remembering what she'd seen happen in the "Shuttle" game in the last season.

At that moment there was a noise from the walkway in front of them. She turned to see Cliff reappearing through the door from the rest of the set, followed by the young wolf she'd seen before, his hair wet and fur dark from the shower.

"Welcome back, DF!" Alex called over to him as the two of them came down the stairs. "I'm sorry to interrupt your shower to put you back in here again, but Lesley thought you might want to be treated to this as well..."

The gray wolf looked up at the imposing shuttle, looking both awestruck and nervous as Blue dashed over to meet them. She pointed him over towards the far end of the shuttle and followed him there as Cliff went back to the cameras underneath the walkway.

"All right, I think we're all ready to retake..." As Kim and Lesley got up and stepped down to the floor, he peered over at the far end of the room. "We're ready!" he finished, and spun around, thrusting his hand towards the shuttle.

"So, if you'd like to step inside, Kim and Lesley - Kim, you first..."

The mouse girl went up the stairs towards the red warning lights as hesitantly as before, and Nicola didn't think that she was acting. As she disappeared inside, Lesley moved forwards. Nicola could see her counting under her breath as she stepped up into the shuttle, then she turned around.

"Hey, can DF come in too?" she asked.

This time, Alex nodded. "Yeah, I think we can get him for you - can we have DF, please?"

Nicola looked to the end of the capsule as Alex called towards it, and the reptilian appeared from around the corner, arms linked with the long-haired wolf to march him toward the team. Lesley leaned forwards, hands on her knees as she grinned towards him.

"DF, I know she just gunged you, but I'm sure you're enough of a gentleman to help her through this last challenge...!" Alex patted him on the back as Blue let him go and he stepped towards the entrance. Lesley took his hands, excitedly tugging him up the stairs to get him inside.

Alex watched them go, then turned back to the half of the team still outside the capsule. "We've still got room in there - anyone else want to join them?"

Even though she was still covered from the last game, Nicola hardly paused. "Yeah!" she exclaimed as she leapt forwards.

"Anneka, want to complete the team?" Alex asked.

"Oh..." the jaguar girl whimpered, looking up at the top of the machine and dragging her fingers through her own gunge-soaked hair. "Yeah, I guess..."

"Go on, Anneka," Blue encouraged her, barely disguising a smile. "You're going to have company - 'cause you're going in too," she announced, stepping across the entranceway to clap a hand on Alex's shoulder.

"What?!" the red wolf yelped, truly surprised. Nicola spun around from the top of the stairs and looked round the entranceway to see his expression.

"Come on, you know the deal we had - first time you screw up your lines on the last game, you've got to do it!" The reptilian grinned as she poked him. "Hand over your stuff..."

"This isn't fair, you know that?" Alex protested as he shook his head, but had a smile on his face as he looked to the floor and reached into his pockets to hand the minicomputer and the card keys over to Blue. "I was distracted!"

Nicola turned to Anneka, sharing a wide grin with her as the jaguar girl stepped up into the entranceway beside her. With the contents of Alex's pockets in her hand, Blue turned and slapped him gently from behind, pointing up towards the two of them.

"All right, all right..." Alex looked up at them as he came up the steps, and this time Nicola reached out to grab his hand, Anneka taking the other.

Nicola turned round and looked at the inside of the shuttle for the first time as she excitedly pulled him inside - it was a dark cramped space, lit by a slowly rotating red light and a few blinking panels around the walls, with two inflatable couches placed a couple of feet apart facing each other. Kim had seated herself on the one on the same side as the door, and Lesley and DF were on the one opposite, whispering excitedly to each other as Lesley clung on to the wolf's shoulder.

Alex managed to wriggle out of the girls' grasp, and ducked a little as he came fully inside, shuffling forwards as the door began to close behind them. As the strip of light cast on the opposite wall got thinner, Nicola squeezed around the first seat and sat down in the space next to the chipmunk girl. As she wriggled back to get comfortable, Anneka scampered around to sit next to Kim, and the red wolf put a hand on the back of their seat as he moved himself around it.

He waved his hands in a parting motion in front of them, and they scooted out of the way, pushing themselves up against the armrests as he eased himself down on to the seat between them. He put his hands in the air and then dropped his arms so that they were along the back of the seat. "Well, at least we're comfortable for now," he said, looking between them both.

"Okay, everybody ready in there?" the lizard girl's normally soft voice came harshly over speakers in the ceiling, making everyone look up.

"Yeah, we're -" Alex started, then barked as the capsule jolted. Nicola felt the whole thing begin to move, and pictured it from the outside, moving towards whatever was past the large rolltop door that she'd seen.

"Want to tell them how it works, Alex?" Blue asked.

Alex looked up at the source of the voice. "Well, I had thought I was going to be doing this from the outside, but...!" He cleared his throat as the girls next to him on the seat looked round to face him. "When the base was still occupied, this thing was used to transport cargo to and from the shore. Because it sometimes carried hazardous materials, there was a great big power sprayer in the ceiling of its entrance tunnel, so the top could be opened up and... well, given a good soaking... the trouble is that when the fresh water was low they often pumped in sea water instead...!"

As he finished, there was a clank from the roof, and a couple of the girls looked up as the two panels of the ceiling began to part, revealing them passing underneath the door. She squirmed from side to side anxiously as they moved under it, and then, even though she had known what was coming, gasped as two giant tanks of deep blue and bright yellow gunge on the ceiling came into view. A network of pipes jutted down from them, ending in a set of wide slots, two of them placed right over where their seats were heading.

A couple of whimpers came up from the occupants of the shuttle as they got nearer to right underneath the nozzles. Anneka and Kim wriggled away a little, and Alex shifted his arms to drop them around both their shoulders, making sure they stayed next to him. Nicola glanced to the side as Lesley put her arms around the gray wolf's waist, gripping him tightly.

She flexed and curled her toes nervously as the shuttle gave another jolt, and the grinding noise of the movement stopped. Alex looked up, the girls on either side of him wriggling down into the seat as he pulled them just a little closer.

"Get ready, everyone, here it comes...!"

The last word was drowned out by a blare from a siren on the roof, and Nicola glanced upwards just in time to see the tanks bubble as they opened. As the huge waves dropped towards them, she shrieked involuntarily and bowed her head down, clasping it with her hands.

She yelped again as the cool slop smacked on to her head and shoulders, hunching up as it began to pour down her back and slither around her neck to creep over her chest. Closing her eyes, she turned her palms up to catch the streams of it coming from her shoulders, trying to steady herself as the inflatable seat buckled with the weight of the gunge and the movement of the others as they all squirmed underneath the messy downpour. A couple of squeaks and laughs came up over the noise of the torrent crashing into the small chamber, and she wriggled her feet as she felt the level of ooze already rising to her ankles.

Stretching forward out of the flow and twitching as the slop spewed on to her lower back, she grinned to herself, shaking her head as she watched Alex and the two girls underneath the heavy curtain of yellow and blue gunk opposite them. He was still holding them in place as they wriggled, staying upright himself and with a hint of a grin on his muzzle as it poked out of the slimy downpour. The stuff mingled into green as it slid down his fur, soaking into his jogging bottoms as the stuff pooled in his lap. Next to him, Kim had her hands clasped over her face, drumming her feet in the rising slime, and Anneka was flailing her arms above her head trying unsuccessfully to deflect the stuff away from her.

Nicola glanced down the way as the brightly colored slime rose to her knees, and gasped sharply as it suddenly flowed up into the seat beneath her. There was a squeak from Kim too, and Nicola looked just in time to see her slip down the slimy surface of the chair, one gunge-covered foot poking up out of the slime bath in front of her. Shaking her head rapidly as the slime from above poured into her face, she flailed and slithered down again, the outline of her screwed up features just visible before she glooped under the surface.

Alex brought his now free hand up to the top of his muzzle and dragged it up and over his head, stretching forwards like Nicola a little out of the sloppy downpour as he made an attempt to clean his face. He blinked his eyes open just in time to see the mouse girl burst up above the gunge again between the two seats, her mouth wide open with streaks of mixed colors of slime dripping across it. Completely covered even though she was out of the downpour, she stood frozen in the middle of the chamber, her hands held in front of her with her messy fingers spread out.

Nicola put her hand on the arm of the gunge-covered seat to steady herself and looked at Alex again as Anneka shuffled forwards out of his grasp too. He was as plastered in mixed green gunge as the rest of them, the flow from above splattering out from his head and into the still rising pool as he tossed his head a little underneath it. As the level of slime neared chest height, the jaguar girl slithered forwards and unsteadily paddled her hands in the slop to stand upright, and Alex pushed himself off the back of the seat to get up as well.

As she felt herself beginning to float a little in the slime bath, Nicola gripped the seat tightly and watched the slop sliding down Alex's fur, dripping in thick rivulets into the pool as he wriggled up out of the gloop. She poked her head back under the downpour behind her as the hooter blared again, feeling the flow from the ceiling slow gradually to a drizzle. Breathing out, she ducked down a little, taking care to keep her mouth above the surface as a couple of heavy drops splatted on to her head and the surface of the gunge around her.

She coughed and shook her head, flapping her hands above the sloppy surface before wiping her face and opening her eyes. The once clean inside of the shuttle was nearly four feet deep in blue and yellow gloop that was slowly mixing into green, up to over waist height on Alex and the girls that were standing up. Nicola struggled forwards out of the gooey strings still dripping from the ceiling to try and get up too, turning to look at the others on her seat - the young wolf's head and shoulders were completely covered, with just the whites of his eyes visible behind the ooze coating his fur, and Lesley had somehow got up on to the top of the couch behind him, her slimy legs dangling around his shoulders with just her feet in the gunge.

Nicola braced herself on the chair's arm and heaved herself up the way against the heavy slime, feeling the ooze slide and pour away from her hair and shoulders as she came up out of it. Accepting Anneka's slimy hand to help her up, she looked around as the wolf next to her struggled to his feet as well. Lesley pushed herself off the back of the seat behind him, wading unsteadily forwards knee-deep on the chair, then clambering on to his shoulders again just as he stood up.

"How are you feeling in there?" Blue's voice echoed again, not even trying to disguise her laughter. Nicola whooped at the unseen speakers in the ceiling, the others following her lead, but they all yelped as the movement of the shuttle started up again, sending a gentle wave of the thick gunge lazily rippling from one end of the chamber to the other. The young wolf, who had almost overbalanced when the movement started, reached up to take Lesley's hands and wriggled her off his shoulders. She gave a high pitched squeak as she glooped into the slime up to her tummy, sending a small ripple outwards from where she had splashed in as she shivered and hugged herself.

"We're just great, Blue," Alex chuckled, running his hands down his arms to brush the bright slop off his fur and flinching as a couple of the others splashed more slime towards him. Blobs and gooey strings of the mixed green stuff slithered and dripped from all over him as he moved. "Do you want to come and join us?"

There was just laughter in response. Nicola grinned widely herself as she watched him look down at himself, raising his gungy hands up in the air before flicking them both down at the surface, then rubbing up and down his arms again.

"Well, I'd love to tell you your score, but someone took my computer - for putting everyone into this thing I think you deserve your hundred points, giving you... how many for the round, Blue?" he called to the ceiling.

"Two hundred and forty," came the reptilian's voice.

"Which doubled gives you four-eighty for the last round, bringing you up to a grand total of..." He swept his arm up towards the roof, a splash of gunge flying out from his hand.

"Twelve hundred exactly," Blue filled in.

"Yes!" he clapped his hands together, and Nicola led the cheer once again, bouncing in the slime to make it ripple around them. Alex grimaced a little as the wave splashed up on his already gunge-coated side, shuffling around to face her. "So you've broken the thousand mark, and with the keys being kept safe and clean for us outside, you're about to get the chance to use those to give you time in our last challenge, the purifier room. Are you all ready?"

He raised his hands in the air at another cheer from the girls, stumbling as the capsule stopped again and dipping his hand back into the gunge as he steadied himself. He pulled it out, looked down and watched the slime drip off it once again.

"We'll give you the chance to get cleaned up first..."

Industrial Zone 6 - Round 4

Iron-K

Industrial Zone 6 is a complete fanservice episode, featuring a team of college-age furry girls :) After the previous few main characters had been quite shy, I wrote Nicola as a lot more confident (at least at first!) - and I really ended up liking her along with the rest of this cast.

Yet another guest appearance - Darkness Falls features as himself (with some coercion from me!)

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