INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 - FINAL

Written by Iron-K

"There it is!" Alex held his hand out towards the large circular door on the opposite wall as he strode out into the room that they had started in a couple of hours ago. Nicola padded behind him, leading the other girls again as the door to the entrance room swung closed behind them. As they reached the door, the red wolf stepped aside, fishing in his pocket.

"Okay, you've gone through sixteen games and you've got twelve hundred points to show for it - that's going to give us two minutes to load up the purifier and turn it on," he said, producing the three card keys and offering them with one hand. "Your final challenge is just past this door..."

Nicola stepped forwards to take one of the cards, with Lesley and Kim close behind. As the mouse girl turned her card over to look at it, Alex stepped back, motioning towards the center of the door, where there was a row of three slots. "If you can all get ready to get us in there?"

Nicola lined up alongside the other girls, putting her key up to one of the openings. "Just put them in when your team leader says the word..."

"Er... go," Anneka's voice came from behind them. The three of them made an attempt at sliding the card keys in at the same time, and Nicola couldn't help but smile as the clunk of the door unlocking played just a fraction of a second before they had finished. A moment later, a disappointingly small hatch compared to the size of the rest of the door swung a little open in its center.

"Come on!" Alex beckoned with one hand behind him as he ducked through. Nicola waited for Anneka to follow him, and hearing her gasp as she poked her head through, quickly lined up behind her to step inside. Putting her hand against the jaguar girl's leg to get her to move aside a little, she stooped through after her, straightened up and gasped a little as well.

Instead of the pool of water that she had seen when watching the last season, most of the room was taken up by a massive vat of gunge sunk into the floor, stretching towards the other end of the room where an inflatable ramp rose out of it up towards a cylindrical tank fixed on the opposite wall. As Nicola stepped forwards to get a closer look, she glanced at what was blocking the view from the door - a plastic blowup chair was fixed right on the edge of the vat, with a rusty box-like tank suspended above it. Further above, on the ceiling, was a much larger mechanical prop, with pipes and loops of tubing connected between its surfaces, and a set of nozzles pointed down at the vat below.

Alex gave them a moment to look around before speaking again. "Does it look how you were expecting?" he smiled as they turned back to face him, and paced forwards. "Seeing the plan of it doesn't really do it justice..." Nicola shook her head - they had spent a while in the changing rooms with the aim of the final game being explained to them, but Alex had definitely left some details as a surprise. She turned around again, looking at one of the corridor sections that ran down the sides of the room, which was going to be her position for the game - a set of obstacles behind a wall of plastic panels that led all the way down to a pit of foam next to the ramp at the other end of the room.

"So... Lesley, let's put you in place first..." Alex stepped forwards through the group and slapped the top of the blowup seat. Biting her lip, the slender chipmunk girl padded forward with some encouragement from the others, looking up at the spout of the tank suspended above the chair as she took Alex's hand and slipped around into it. As she flopped down into it she put her hands on the chair's arms to hoist herself upright, and looked down at her feet dangling above the surface of the gunge vat.

"Anneka, team leader..." the red wolf started as he came back to the group. "Can you see where we're putting you?" he asked, turning around to point up at the large cylindrical tank at the top of the ramp on the far side of the room. "Nicola and Kim, if you want to get into your positions inside the cubicles at the sides, then we can get started!"

Nicola glanced over at the jaguar girl's face, which was still a picture of surprise from when she had first seen the room. A little dazed, she reached her hand slowly in his direction, not taking her eyes off the tank he'd just pointed at.

"Come on, you agreed to this at the very start!"

The jaguar girl whimpered a little, but nodded as he led her up the metal stairs to the walkway running a couple of feet above their heads - it circled the room, with a thin connecting bridge across the center of the vat. Nicola and Kim shared a glance before heading to opposite sides of the room, and Nicola stepped carefully into the little space beyond the sliding door on the right hand side.

She turned around to slide the panel closed behind her as she looked up to the ceiling - attached to the bottom of the walkway above was a device about a foot across that looked like a very large shower head. Guessing that she knew what it was going to do, she faced the front to see a keypad with ten numbered buttons on the side of the cubicle that blocked her way forwards, and a set of inflatable obstacles beyond that. She looked up to the left, watching their team leader hesitantly stepping into the big cylindrical tank, encouraged by a gentle push on the back from Alex.

The red wolf closed the door as the jaguar girl crept into the center of the meter-wide booth, looking around her at the pipes pointed down in her direction. A card key dangled by a strap from the middle of the ceiling, and she glanced up at the handle it was looped round as she stepped in front of it.

"We've got one last surprise for you..." Alex announced as he paced away from her, back along the walkway towards the others, then called towards the front wall. "You can come in now!"

Nicola twisted up to look at the sound of a door opening on the upper floor, and shuffled to the side of the tank to see past the walkway as the gray wolf from before came into view. He started towards Alex, who pointed over behind him, and Lesley turned in the chair and gasped as she saw they were headed towards a large lever at her end of the room.

"You got him twice in the last round, Lesley, so I think it's fair that he gets to start you off now..." Nicola couldn't see what was happening on the walkway, but she heard a mechanical clunk followed by a heavy pouring noise from the tank above Lesley's head, and turned to see a column of dark gunge splatting down into the tank.

She turned and watched the chipmunk girl duck down as the noise started, then slowly wriggle back upright in the chair as she looked hesitantly up at the tank. After a few seconds, the glop from the ceiling began to ease off, and as it thinned out, fingers of the murky slime spilled over the tank's brim, dripping stickily from its edges around Lesley's chair. She looked up at the drizzles, shivered and faced the front again, watching Alex move around to the central part of the walkway.

"Okay, do you remember what I told you earlier?" he called down to them. "Like I said, we do the bit for the viewers later on, so if you have any questions, stop me!"

He turned around to point to the ends of the room. "When we turn the room's power on, Nicola and Kim have to find the combination to let themselves out of their cubicles, then race to the other end, hopefully avoiding the pressure pads for Lesley's sake, to the switches. Pulling both of those at the same time will drop the keys from the ceiling - the two of you have then got to search in the foam vats for them, and Lesley's going to have to have a swim in the gunge to retrieve hers. They're going to make a noise like this..." He produced one from his pocket and held it up, a faint triple beep sounding from it.

Anneka looked up again as the red wolf pointed over at her. "Once you've got them, you've got to climb the ramp to your team leader to free her by putting those three keys into the slots on the tank - and if you free her before she's gunged, then she's just got to slide down and get back to where Lesley's sitting now to put that last key in!"

He paused for a moment again, looking between the three girls. Nicola went over what he'd just said again, looking along the corridor then up the ramp.

"And DF, I'm going to give you this..." Alex dashed back over to him and gave him the pocket computer. Nicola tried to lean over to look again as he pointed at something on it. "Just so you can make life a little more difficult down there for Kim and Nicola..."

As the gray wolf nodded, saying something back to him that Nicola couldn't hear, the host sprang back towards the middle walkway again. "Everyone know what they're doing?" she heard him call.

"Yeah," she shouted back, and looked over at the others as they gave their confirmations as well.

"All right! So Anneka, whenever you're ready, just yank on that cord and start us off!" he gestured. "Once it's turned on, you're going to have exactly two minutes to get the key down to where Lesley is now."

With a nervous grin, the jaguar girl looked at the key dangling above her, and reached up to wrap her hand around it. Closing her eyes and cringing down a little, she waited for a second, then tugged it downwards.

Nicola watched the feline jump as a grinding noise played, and the lights on the ceiling swung around to fill the room with harsher blue-white light. A red projected timer appeared on the wall above Anneka, counting down from two minutes. Nicola glanced down as the panel lit up in front of her, and a moment later there was a slurping noise from the ceiling as the sprayer above her head turned on.

She shivered as the translucent green stuff splattered down gently on to her head and shoulders, leaning over forwards so that it sprayed on her back - it felt weirdly like being under a normal shower, but with the stuff clinging and running down her instead of spraying off like water. Trying her best to ignore the way she was getting increasingly coated in slippery slime, she glanced up at the three numbers that had lit on the panel and began tapping them in to the keypad in any order she could think of.

Frustratedly gritting her teeth as she moved her left hand up to her forehead to stop the stuff dripping into her face, she shot a glance sideways at Kim, who hadn't escaped either. Curling her toes in the puddle of translucent slime at the bottom of the tank, she turned back to the gungy panel and stabbed at it with her slippery fingers again, trying to remember to do it in sequence but being met by no reaction each time.

As she bowed her head down more against the shower from above, looking at the firmly closed panel in front of her, she finally heard a confirmation beep and sighed relievedly as the door slid upwards to let her through. Ducking down and yelping as the movement dislodged a curtain of slime from her fur, she crawled messily through to the main passage.

She looked up immediately to check where the gunge nozzles on the ceiling were, then tried to look up to the walkway to see if the wolf boy was watching before she took off through the cluster of hanging punchbags in front of her. Passing quickly under the first nozzle without it going off, she smiled as she slipped easily between the soft but heavy weights.

Parting the last row of them, she jumped as there was a sudden loud buzz, followed by a high pitched squeal from Lesley somewhere behind her. She looked out to her left to see the drizzly remains of a downpour of slime slop on to the chipmunk girl, then glanced back as she ran ahead to see one of the bright orange touch pads stuck on the far side of the punchbag she had touched.

Running with difficulty against the soft floor, she yelped as a wave of thin slippery slime spewed down on her from the ceiling, making her collapse to her knees. Panting, she hauled herself forwards out of the slime puddle, her legs and arms slithering against the lubricated surface, and making for the safety of the covered inflatable tunnel in front of her.

She quickly crawled through, ignoring the orange pads she was sliding over even though she was picturing what was happening to Lesley in the gunge chair. Hauling herself to her feet as she reached the end, she stumbled forwards and finally reached the switch on the wall.

Grasping the handle, ready to tug it down, she looked over to see where Kim was. The gray wolf was walking along the walkway above her, cheerfully hitting a button on the controller each time she moved underneath one of the gunge nozzles as she fought her way through a maze of clear plastic inflatable material. Nicola moved her eyes to Lesley, who was now dripping with murky slop and holding her heavy hair out of the way as she watched the increasingly slippery mouse girl's progress. Nicola bounced on her feet agitatedly, knowing that she couldn't do anything but wait for her as their time gradually ran down.

Finally, Kim made it out of the maze and ran to her switch, nodding at Nicola as she reached it. Together, they pulled their switches down, and as the alarm rang, Nicola immediately sprang back to run to the passageway's exit as a panel slid quickly away slightly back the way she had come. She jumped through, looked up as the card on the ceiling fell into the foam pit in front of her, and out of the corner of her eye saw the chipmunk girl being enveloped once again by a downpour of murky gunk from the top of her chair before she was tipped forwards out of it to splurge into the gunge vat.

Nicola shivered and dove down into the airy white foam, closing her eyes and squeaking as she went down further than she had expected. Getting to her feet, she breathed out heavily to get the blobs of foam off her nose, wiping at her muzzle as she kicked her feet forwards. As she tried to wipe the foam away from her eyes with her slippery hands without getting gunge on her face, she winced as her toe hit against the card underneath the foam, then bent down again to crawl forwards, trying to feel where it might have gone with her hands.

As the card gave the high pitched beep signal she'd heard Alex demonstrate, she dived for it and picked it up in one motion, then continued forwards to the inflatable barrier separating the foam from the room's main vat. She pushed herself off the soft surface underneath her, kicking her legs as she slithered over the two foot high wall, then closed her eyes, turning her face away as she went head first towards the murky surface.

For a moment she felt a chill as the cool heavy gunk surrounded her head. She kicked her feet off the wall behind her as she fell fully in, and moved her legs underneath her as the thick liquid glooped around them. Pushing off from the bottom, she broke through the gungy surface again and coughed to get her breath back as she felt rivulets of the thick goo pour away from her soaked fur.

Doing her best to clean her upper half up as she fought determinedly forwards, she looked up to see where the timer was. At the same moment, she heard Alex announcing from above that they had a minute left, and as she moved round to the front of the ramp leading up to Anneka's tank, saw it count down past it.

Trying to move as quickly as she could against the glutinous liquid, she made sure she had the card's strap firmly around her arm, then took hold of the nearest rope dangling off the end of the ramp. She looked to the side to see the mouse girl still searching in the foam pit, only just visible through the white mass clinging to her, then quickly glanced over her shoulder as she heard Lesley glooping through the slime behind her. With her head and upper body completely coated in thick purple and green gunge that was dripping from her in dollops with each step she took, she shambled slowly forwards, her hands at her head to keep her long heavy hair out of the way.

Nicola turned back to the ramp. Putting one foot on the step below it, she hauled on the rope she was holding, the stuff tugging on her bikini bottoms as she wriggled herself upwards out of it. After she had got far enough forwards to rest her hips on the ramp it became much easier, and she hauled herself up on the rope, soggy tail dragging behind her, her arms beginning to throb as she flailed her legs to find the footholds.

Eventually she found a notch with her foot, and wriggled her toes into it as she tried to get her breath back. Looking up at the relentlessly ticking timer once again, she took a breath and hauled herself upwards as the jaguar girl cheered her on in front of her. As she moved towards her, she was dimly aware of one of the others collapsing on to the ramp behind her.

She pulled herself up the knotted plastic rope in a strange motion of throwing herself forwards and up the ramp, slipping easily against it with the slime coating her fur. Nicola panted for breath as the movement quickly tired her out, and tried to struggle forwards hand over hand instead. She gasped as another siren rang from the ceiling, then looked up and immediately closed her eyes as she saw a dark curtain of slime falling from above and in front of her. Clinging tightly to the rope, she held her breath as specks of the downpour spattered off the inflatable ramp and landed on her face.

As soon as she was sure it was over, she opened her eyes and began moving up again, sliding through the spreading green puddle of gunge that had been dropped from the ceiling. Slipping madly against the slime underneath her, she had to use all her arms' strength to keep going and not let go, eventually collapsing face down on to the slick surface.

Dimly, she felt around with one foot as she slipped it up the ramp, and relievedly found another notch. She buried her toes into it and pushed, slithering herself another couple of inches and finally getting within reach of the three slots at the front of Anneka's tank. The feline shouted encouragement as she slowly moved her hand over and slid the card she was holding into the rightmost slot, smiling breathlessly as a confirmation beep played.

"That's one!" Alex shouted from above, and she twisted back to see him standing with DF on the nearby walkway. "Lesley and Kim, you just have to get your cards up to Nicola..."

Nicola looked down the ramp at the other two girls, who were sliding themselves slowly upwards, then struggled to see the timer above the tank next to her. She was pretty sure that they only had about thirty seconds left, and cheered as enthusiastically as she could with her short breath to encourage them onwards. Lesley, making good progress as she crawled hand over hand up the slippery surface, wriggling her hips from side to side to slither her legs up behind her, kept a steady climbing motion even as more downpours of slime fell from the ceiling around her, splashing off her back and Nicola's toes.

Nicola let go of the rope with one hand and reached down as Lesley approached. Weakly, the chipmunk girl extended her hand upwards in a throwing motion, getting the card just far up enough for Nicola to grab it. Unsteadily, she turned back around with the strap in her hand, wriggling her fingers to grab the actual card and grinning as she slid it into the second slot.

Anneka bounced up and down, hands in the air but looking nervously at the looming diagonal gunge pipes to her sides as Kim slowly moved up towards her. She had given up on the rope and was crawling up, carefully digging her hands and feet into the notches on the ramp before every movement. Heart pounding with excitement and exhaustion, Nicola glanced up at the timer again to see they had fifteen seconds remaining.

Suddenly, Lesley slithered down a little on her rope so that she was in line with the mouse girl, and gestured to her to hand the card over. Kim carefully pulled one hand free of the ramp and picked the strap off from around her neck, staying still to keep her balance as she passed the card to the chipmunk girl. Making eye contact with Nicola and tossing her heavy hair out the way, Lesley slowly threw her arm up from behind her and sent the card flying up towards her.

A look of shock crossed Lesley's face as Nicola braced herself to catch the flying card key's strap, and she realized the throw had made the chipmunk girl lose her grip on the rope. As she slid away from her, flipping herself over on to her back and squeaking as she slithered back down towards the pool, Nicola caught the strap and turned around. As she heard a thick gloop from the bottom of the ramp as Lesley fell into the gunge, she jammed the final card into the third slot and heard a high pitched confirmation beep as the doors of the tank Anneka was trapped in slid aside.

"Come on!" She joined in Kim's exhausted cheer even though she knew they had nowhere near enough time, and the jaguar girl stepped forwards, hesitating at the edge where the floor of the cylindrical tank jutted out above the inflatable ramp. She crouched down to swing her legs out in front of her and got into a sitting position, then carefully pushed herself forwards with her hands.

As she gingerly slipped on to the ramp, she squeaked as she slid on the slimy surface, trying to grab at the rope next to her as she began to slither uncontrollably down towards the gunge. When she was halfway down, Nicola flinched as she finally heard the time-up buzzer ring, and at the same moment, a downpour of thick red slop was released from the ceiling in front of the helpless jaguar girl. She raised her hands up to her face as she slid through it at the same moment it smacked on to the ramp, and Nicola heard her shriek from behind it as she dropped into the vat of gunge at the bottom.

The curtain of slime stopped after a few seconds, becoming a dripping shower from the ceiling as Nicola leaned around to see the surface below swell and part as Anneka slowly picked herself up again. Gradually, her head rose out of the gunk, the stuff pouring off her hair and bowed muzzle as she shook it a little. As she got her arms above the surface again she held them out to her sides, waiting for the gunge to slide and drizzle off her fur, then brought her hands to her face to part her green soaked hair.

Nicola smiled to herself, trying to calm herself down as the rush of the game faded away. She was disappointed that they had come so close to winning, but knew that it didn't really matter either way. Turning and allowing herself to slip slowly back down the ramp, lowering herself hand over hand, she smiled exhaustedly as she remembered what the show always did to losing teams.

She heard Alex laughing to himself from above, and faced upwards, bracing her feet against a foothold inches from the bottom of the ramp. He was leaning on the walkway beside the other wolf, and both of them were amusedly watching the dripping chipmunk and jaguar girls sloshing in the gunge vat. "Well, team," he began, "you came really close to finishing, and you saved your team leader from her slimy fate in there - but I don't think the alternative she experienced was much better!"

They looked at Anneka again, who was wiping her eyes with her forefingers. She dragged her dripping hands across her brow before flicking them downwards and tilting her head up, blinking a little against the lights, to look at the walkway. Her hands dropped down again, and she rested the tips of her fingers on the surface of the gunge before relaxing further and hesitantly allowing them to gloop underneath.

"I'm afraid that means we've got one last thing to do to you - you didn't quite manage to turn this thing on," - he slapped the side of the big tank suspended at the other end of the room - "so we're going to have to empty it out - if you'd all like to come down to this end of the vat...!"

Nicola grinned up at it, watching the other girls' heads turn to look at the massive tank and then glance excitedly or nervously back at each other. Slowly, feeling behind her for the rope, she lowered herself down the slimy ramp a little more, dangling her feet into the cool glop and eeping as she gradually let herself sink to her waist. Suddenly there was a yelp from beside her as Kim lost her grip while trying to do the same, and she slithered down the last couple of inches of the ramp and plunged into the pool, bouncing up as her feet touched the bottom and holding her dripping hands out in front of her, squeaking at the sudden coldness as the surface heaved up and down lazily from where she'd fallen in.

With Anneka leading the group, the four of them slogged through the gunge as Alex paced over to a projection screen on the wall. Nicola twisted up to look behind her at it, wading backwards in the stuff as she watched.

"If it's any consolation..." he started as a scoreboard came into view, and their team's entry faded into place just below the single other entry on it, "your score of twelve hundred puts you in second place on our scoreboard, although that's not exactly a difficult achievement right now..."

Nicola half laughed, sloshing a handful of gunge up in his direction as she turned away again, joining the huddle that the other three girls had formed below the widest nozzle of the tank above them. Slipping her arms around the two girls next to her, she twisted up to watch as Alex led the other wolf over to a large switch on the wall.

"This going to be the last time this happens to us?" Kim whispered, keeping her head bowed but her eyes looking up towards the spout as Alex faced out towards the room, delivering his last piece to the camera.

"Think so," Anneka laughed, clapping a slimy hand on to the mouse girl's back and pushing her just a little more towards the center, the others forming a group hug around her as she whimpered nervously. She looked up sharply as she saw the wolf boy reach up towards the lever, then she ducked back down again, putting her gungy hands hesitantly to her face.

Nicola bounced eagerly as the wolf tugged the giant switch down, triggering an alarm and a shower of sparks from the wall. Glancing up for a moment at the multiple nozzles looming over them, she saw the whole machine twitch as its chutes opened and wide fingers of dark green gunk spewed down towards them.

Hunching down and closing her eyes, she joined in the whoop from the other girls which rapidly turned into shrieks as the massive wave of slop crashed down over them. Nicola wriggled her shoulders upwards, grinning through her screwed up face as the wave settled into a steady downpour that she could feel sliding off the top of her head, against her shoulders and creeping down her chest and back to gloop on to the surface of the pool she was standing in.

The others around her slithered out of her grasp, and she stepped back a little, clasping her hands against her forehead to shield her eyes as the gunge continued to spray over her. For a few seconds, all she could hear was the splattering noise it made around her as it slapped on to the surface of the vat, and then she felt the stuff gradually begin to ease off.

She sensed the lights in the room coming up again as she dragged both her hands down her face, wiping her forehead a few times before opening her eyes and blinking in the sudden light. She laughed as she saw the others slowly recovering as well - Kim, who had been right in the middle of the deluge, was standing frozen in place, her hands clasped to her head, and plastered from head to toe in dark and light green gunge. The others, who had both drifted away a little from the center, were in nearly the same state, with just their eyes and patches of their faces visible through the slimy covering.

Raising her dripping arms to the sides, Nicola smiled as she looked down at herself and saw she was as covered in the green stuff as the rest of them, and she circled her hips a little in the gunge, watching it gloop and ripple against her as she realized that this was going to be the last time she felt it. She glanced around the room again at the slime-covered ramp, the dunk chair and the still dripping gunge tank overhead, then over to the side of the vat in front of her - Alex and DF were standing watching them from the pool's edge, with a few crew members coming out of their positions to join them. Slowly and just a little reluctantly, she began wading through the glop towards them.

"How are you feeling - enjoyed yourselves?" Alex asked with a grin as the girls approached. Nicola gave a tired attempt at a whoop, pumping one arm in the air, as the others nodded exhaustedly. "You've been a great team - let's get you out of there..."

She glanced sideways as the gray wolf grinned down towards Lesley, who had reached the side of the vat and put her hands on the edge for support. She gasped as the tired-looking chipmunk girl suddenly sprang forwards and wrapped her slippery arms around his legs, pulling him towards her - his arms flailed for a moment, then with a yelp he toppled forwards, hitting the surface of the gunge vat face first with a heavy smacking noise.

Nicola raised one hand instinctively against the wide splash of colorful slime, ducking to look under her own arm as the wolf's gunge-coated head poked a little above the surface. Slowly, he began to stand upright, shaking his head rapidly and wiping his eyes, mixed gunge oozing from all over his fur as he hauled himself into a standing position again.

"You're not showing him any mercy, Lesley - he only signed up for that happening to him once!" Alex said above the laughter of the others behind him. Nicola looked over to see him crouch down at the side of the vat, his hands stretched out towards her. Glancing over her shoulder at the slop-coated wolf, who was defending himself against a further barrage of gunge sloshed at him by Lesley, she grinned to herself and reached up to Alex's hands, ready to tug down.

"Oh, I can see that coming a mile off..." Alex stepped backwards suddenly, holding a finger up as he smiled knowingly. "Come on, you already got me in the last game!"

Nicola dropped her hands back into the pool of gunge and settled for splashing a couple of armfuls of the stuff out towards his feet instead, before wading a little closer and letting him gently take hold of her wrists. She eeped as she was lifted out of the pool, kicking her legs against the wall as she felt the thick liquid slither down her legs and drip off her toes.

As Alex put her carefully down on the poolside, she looked up to see Blue approaching with a large towel. Gratefully, she took it and wrapped it around her shoulders, picking up the corner to wipe at her face and looking down as Anneka was pulled out as well.

"He's learned to look out for that trick," the reptilian laughed as she watched the jaguar girl wriggle in Alex's grasp, the gunge sliding down from all over her as he turned to set her down on the floor. "You already got your own back on him more than most people do!" Grinning as she remembered the shuttle, Nicola stepped out of the way as Blue turned to pass another towel on to the soaked feline.

"And we're going to make sure we get him again soon," she added, smiling sweetly at the red wolf as he glanced over at her, hands still stretched down towards the pool as Kim approached. Nicola cheered with the others, surprised but happy to see a little bit of nervousness on his face. "You're just going to have to wait to find out how!"