SATURDAY IZ - Scene 1

Written by Iron-K, 2010

Featuring VARMENT's Bowie

"Come on, Alex!" Blue called from the lower level of the hangar area of the set as the doors above burst open. "We've got him all ready and waiting for you in there..."

"I'm coming..." Above her, the red wolf presenter dashed around the walkway to the nearest set of metal steps, then scurried down the stairs to join the blue lizardette as she smilingly tapped her foot. "You're not the one who's been running around with the contestants for the last two hours!"

"Well, sorry for cutting into your break by getting you to gunge even more people..." she responded. She reached to the top of her clipboard and took off a miniature microphone, opening its lightweight grip as she stooped to put the clipboard down on the base of the nearby camera unit.

"You know I wouldn't pass it up," Alex said back, reaching up to his neck and tilting his head back to expose a patch of his neck fur, closing his eyes as she gently attached the wireless mike then leaned up to kiss his cheek before moving away. "What's his name again? The presenter?"

"Jayce," the lizardette replied, leaning around to check the viewpoint of the camera.

"Jayce?" he repeated back to her as he carefully brushed his fur down again with the pads of his fingers. "Just a few years younger than me, and everyone on TV's got a girls' name..."

"I'm pretty sure you can call girls 'Alex' as well, old man," Blue reached forward to give him a couple of pokes on his tummy, then turned away to retrieve the clipboard from the camera stand as he brought his hands down to defend himself. "They're going out live on Saturday morning, so he'll pass it off to you and they'll run the clip - I'll read you his line to cue you in, and then you can just... be your usual lovable self..."

"Nice to know I'm appreciated," the red wolf grinned back, running one hand over her head before stepping around her to the bottom of the metal stairs. "Is starting from here good?"

"Yeah, that's fine..." Blue brought her clipboard up, looked down at it and cleared her throat.

"Now," she began, "Last week we asked you at home this question, to get into our new game section. We had nearly fifty thousand calls, and one lucky winner..." She smiled down at the clipboard as her eyes moved to the next sentence. "And we've put him into some very good hands for a gungy challenge..."

"That's right, Jayce - I'm down here in the Industrial Zone, and we're very happy to take on the responsibility for you..." Alex dashed up the stairs as he spoke, speaking into the camera to his side at ground level. He turned around as he reached the top, walking backwards and facing the other one as he beckoned it forwards to the wider platform on the walkway. "We've got your winner here, and I hope - for his sake - he's as good at the real thing!"

He reached behind him to pull a switch on the control panel, then stepped back as special effect smoke hissed from the dark domed front of the shuttle next to the walkway. Slowly, the opaque front of the cockpit rose up and outwards to reveal a younger wolf seated behind the dashboard, with red fur giving way to white across his chest and tummy. He smiled nervously as he came into view of the camera, blinking as the lights around the edges of the cockpit turned on to illuminate him.

Alex turned to the camera again as it swung around to view the contestant face on. "This is Bowie, he's seventeen and he's our first challenger for Saturday IZ. Welcome to the cockpit, Bowie - how are you doing?" Alex asked him as he strode back towards the control panel, leaning over it towards the capsule.

"I'm good, yeah..." With his excited and slightly anxious smile frozen on his face, the younger wolf reached up to the back of his neck with one black-furred hand, rubbing at the back of his long mullet-like blond hair as his eyes went up to the round nozzle jutting slightly out of the ceiling above his head.

"Well, as you no doubt know, you might not be all that clean and dry for much longer, but we'll do our best to help you out..." Alex smiled over at him as he kept glancing around at the nozzles and pipes around the edges of the capsule he was sitting in. "Here's our game board..."

Bowie looked up at the wall opposite him as a projected screen turned on, and a set of green tiles flew into the display to form a five by five grid with the show's logo spread across them.

"Now, to get out of that thing clean, Bowie's got to build a path from one end of this grid to the other by selecting squares and answering the questions behind each one," Alex pointed as various paths were highlighted on the board. "If he gets a question wrong, that square will be blocked off and he'll have to find another route - and he's got 45 seconds to do it!" He looked across into the gunge tank as the younger wolf nodded along to the explanation.

"One last thing - hidden in this grid somewhere, there's going to be a mine square..." He waved his hand up towards the projected screen again, and an icon of a spiky ball flipped between several of the cells before disappearing. "And if you select that one, it's going to mean an instant gunging for you - got it?"

"Okay," the wolf in the tank grinned, shifting himself forward on the seat and taking hold of the joystick.

"He's looking confident! Think you can keep that hair of yours clean?"

The wolf's eyes tilted up as his shoulders shook in a nervous chuckle, his hand going up to rub at his fringe.

"I think the gunge can only improve it, honestly..." Alex grinned without waiting for an answer. "Okay, Bowie - we'll start the timer as soon as you choose your first square..."

A blinking cursor appeared at the left side of the board, and the wolf at the controls flicked it down a couple of times to reach the middle before pressing the trigger.

Alex quickly looked down to read from the console in front of him as the middle square on the left hand side was selected. "In soccer, how many players are there on each side?"

The younger wolf hesitated a little, staring up at the board as his time ticked down. "...Eleven?" he asked back.

"Absolutely right - you're on your way!" Alex nodded as the highlighted square turned green and the blinking cursor appeared in front of it. "Quick, select another one, just make sure you don't uncover the mine..."

The wolf boy quickly flicked the trigger on the joystick in front of him again to highlight the square to the right of the first. With his eyes always shifting between the timer projected in front of him to the three inch wide nozzle over his head, he got two more questions right in a row and reached forward to light up the fourth square along.

"How many sides does a dodecahedron have?"

"Um..." The contestant wriggled a little in the seat, breathing out heavily. "Twenty...?" he hazarded as he leaned forwards.

"No, I'm sorry, it's only twelve...!" A buzzer sounded from the ceiling, and the wolf boy sagged back, bouncing anxiously in the spring-set seat as the fourth square turned red.

"Quick, choose another one - you've still got two on either side you could use..."

The younger wolf reached to the joystick and flicked it backward, selecting the square below the red one, and Alex spoke more quickly as the timer dropped below fifteen seconds.

"Hydrogen is the lightest element - what's the second lightest?"

"Um..." The contestant broke into a nervous laugh as he saw the timer slipping down past the ten second mark, and a warning beep began to punctuate each second ticking past. Balling his fists on the cockpit dashboard, he flicked his eyes up to the round opening above his head, shifting a little back in the seat as he grinned up at it.

"Yes, I think you might be running out of time here - want to take a guess?" Alex said quickly as the timer turned red, then counted down the last seconds. "Three... two... one..." The timer hit zero and a harsh buzzer noise began sounding repeatedly. The wolf inside the tank flinched, closing his eyes with his grin frozen on his face.

"I'm sorry, but time's up, and that means you're getting the gunge - get ready...!" Alex stepped out of shot, leaving the younger wolf spotlit as he hunched his shoulders a little, rocking from side to side slightly with his ears flattening as two warning lights began blinking above his head.

With a thick spurting noise, two jets of translucent slime spurted from each side of the capsule, and the wolf barked as they splashed thickly on to his shoulders and back, glooping outwards in a wave to lick over him and creep down his chest. A grin spread on his face as he watched the slop slithering down him, deep blue on his right and orange on his left. Tilting his head down as the streams of gunge played up and down him, he brought his hands up to his tummy, catching the goo as it mingled into an off-green color and then raising his arms up, watching the stuff drip from his fingertips in heavy dollops.

He twitched again as there was a hissing noise from above, and two jets of bright green foam spurted in from the top corners of the tank, making him yelp as they sprayed down on to his gungy shoulders, the foam sticking to him and piling up on either side of his neck. He hunched his shoulders, making the thick foam slip down his front as his hands came inwards, then he tilted his head up and let out a whoop, pumping his fists in the air and laughing as the foam was joined by two more streams of orange and blue gunge spewed from diagonal overhead nozzles. He closed his eyes as the two streams criss-crossed over him, the brightly colored gunk splashing off the top of his muzzle and dripping around it with the foamy gunge mixture slithering down to coat his chest.

The foam sprays tilted inwards then began to sputter and die out, blobs of the bright thick mixture dripping in heavy splats on to the wolf's head and shoulders as he shook his head to dislodge the globs of foam. Leaning a little forwards as the gunge began to ease off as well, he yipped as the mixed slime oozed down his back, bringing his slimy hands in to wipe at his eyes, dragging the slop away from his face and then shaking his head as he opened his eyes. Through a laugh, he whooped again as he watched the clingy slime slithering off his fur, the last sputters of the gunge streams drizzling down around him as foam dripped slowly on to his shoulders from his flattened ears.

The alarm noise was joined by a dirty industrial klaxon, and the gungy wolf looked up just as the nozzle directly above him clicked upwards and released a huge downpour of yellow slime from the ceiling. Another bark came up behind it as the slop splurged wildly out from his head, splattering on the dashboard and walls of the tank around him, before it settled into a smooth yellow dome shape that glistened underneath the rotating alarm lights. After a second, the wolf's hands poked through the front of the dome followed by his gunge-coated muzzle, his mouth open in a grinning laugh as he turned his palms upwards, feeling the slop slithering through his fingers. He shook his head a little, making the dome twitch and splatter over his shoulders and lick out over the front of the cockpit.

As the downpour of gloop slowed, the dome of gunge folded inwards over the wolf, slopping back over his arms, splatting on his shoulders and finally slumping over his face, the thick goo hiding his features except for the wide grin on his muzzle as the bright yellow ooze crept down his face, dripping from his chin. The blobby dregs of the slime continued to splat down on to his head as he tilted his head forwards, bringing his arms inward to catch the gunge as it slid over his chest.

As the siren gave a last blare and then died down, leaving only the thick dripping noises of the slime sputtering over the laughing wolf boy, Alex approached the tank again, watching the thick drips of yellow gunge slithering their way in oozing fingers down the front of the cockpit. He grinned as the lights came back up, the slime-doused younger wolf blinking out at him from behind the gunk dripping over his face.

"You had a good start, Bowie, but unfortunately it didn't last," he smiled in at him. "And you got a little messy for it, but you do get the Industrial Zone backpack, T-shirt and... you get a shower, too," he smiled as the laughing gunge-coated contestant dipped his head down, blinking his eyes against the drips of yellow goo still splotting from the ceiling on to his head and muzzle. "Sound good to you?"

"Yeah, great," he replied, his grin still not having faded. He reached up to his head, about to drag the gunge off himself, but flinched as he touched his matted hair and took his hands away, squinting up to his left and right as the thick slime drizzled away in strings from his palms and fingertips.

"Jayce, I hope that's the result you were hoping for..." Alex called into the camera as he spun round, and left a pause as the gungy wolf behind him laughingly raised a slippery hand to wave at it. "So who's next?"