SAT-IZ - Scene 2

Written by Iron-K, 2010

Featuring Anthony

The sound of talking in the Sat-AM studio gave way to a cheer as the lights came up to signal the end of the commercial break, and after a swoop around the raised audience stands, the camera zoomed in to the two presenters on the semicircular raised area of the set. In front of the large composite screen displaying the show's logo loop, a young blue-furred cat with a haircut spiked sideways across his head was seated on the couch next to a black squirrel girl.

"Welcome back!" he called above the noise of the audience, laughing as he put one hand to his ear and acted cringing down at the level of sound coming from them. "And they sound like they're awake - which is great, because it's time once again for our new game section... Kass, are you ready for this?" He clapped his hands together enthusiastically and smiled over at the squirrel.

"Yeah, as long as we're safe in here," Kass said back to him before addressing the cameras. "Last week, you might remember this happening to one of our viewers..." she said, then glanced behind her at the screen, eeping and almost ducking away as it faded to show a slow-motion shot of a huge downpour of bright yellow gunge enveloping an already foam-coated young wolf inside a cockpit-like capsule, his face in a cringing grin as he squirmed underneath the slimy torrent.

"Yeah, I can't wait for this," the male cat added with a grin, twisting up to watch as well, then calling to the screen as it switched once again to show the head of the red vulpine presenter of IZ facing them. "Who have you got for us this time, Alex?"

"Well, I've got to say thanks for sending us that last viewer, Jayce - you saw what happened, but perhaps this one'll do better!" Alex paced along the dimly-lit corridor of the IZ set as he spoke to the camera. "Today, we've got Anthony about to face the gunge..."

He stopped in front of a set of heavy translucent plastic sheeting, arranged as a soundproof curtain across the entrance to the room behind him. The camera swooped down beside him to show a slightly chubby meerkat, light golden-furred with dark patches above his eyes and on his ears, seated in a slightly leaned-back seat with his toes curled nervously around the footrest at the front. As the camera faced him, he gave a weak smile of acknowledgment, shifting the grip of his hands along the chair's arms.

"Anthony, I know a lot of your friends phoned up and nominated you into this seat," Alex continued - "so I hope they're watching - anyone at home you want to say hi to?"

"No, they... don't know I'm here," he said back quietly with a sheepish smile, his eyes flitting between Alex and the camera in front of him.

"They don't know?" Alex grinned back at him, then turned around as the meerkat cringed back in the seat. "Well, Anthony's mom, if you happen to be watching... let me just apologize in advance if anything slime-related should happen to your son here...!" The meerkat adjusted his grip on the arms of the seat as he looked at his feet, breathing out heavily.

"No, we're going to take good care of him. Anthony... here's your situation." Alex stepped away and reached up to a handle on the wall. The meerkat jumped and looked up, but then turned around as the translucent curtain slid away behind him. His eyes widened as the device in the room behind it was revealed - at the far end of the room was a tall yellow frame of girders and pipes with a collection of tanks supported around it. A rail on the floor led backwards from the contestant's chair all the way across the floor and into a six foot tall archway leading into the middle of the device.

"We heard you were a board game fan, so for this one, we've set you up as the playing piece," Alex explained as he dragged the plastic curtaining aside and walked along the rail towards the gunge machine, watched intently by the wide-eyed contestant. He stopped and tapped his toes on one of a row of colored squares fixed to the floor alongside the rail. "You're going to have eight turns, but unlike some games, your aim is to avoid reaching the finish, because I think you know what's going to happen when you do." He came back to the seat as the meerkat nodded silently, staring over at it. Reaching into his pocket, Alex pulled out a paddle with a red button on the top and handed it to him.

"All you have to do is press this to roll the dice, which goes from one to four," he said as the meerkat took it, turning it over and then holding it in his lap. He gestured up at a screen on the wall in front of him, which was flickering rapidly between the four figures. "And whatever number you get, you'll be carried that number of squares back towards the gunge," he pointed, and the meerkat squirmed to look over his shoulder again at the frame at the far end of the room.

Alex stooped down to take hold of two straps at either side of the seat, and the contestant jumped and glanced down as he clipped them together across his tummy. "Now, depending on which square you land on we might ask you a question, you might be carried further forward or back - I'll explain that when we come to it. But there's one special square in the middle..." He straightened up and walked around the seat, heading for a square marked with a star in the middle of the row.

"If you land on this square, then we'll give you a bonus prize - but we'll get a bonus, too, because placed directly above it is... well, you can see." Alex smirked as he raised a hand upwards towards the dark cylinder mounted on the ceiling, a capped nozzle pointing down at the center of the square. The meerkat managed a weak smile, breathing out heavily as he shuddered.

"So whenever you're ready, push it to take a roll..." Alex pointed up at the screen, and the meerkat turned to face it, squirming to get comfortable. He paused, then took a deep breath before he slapped his hand on the button, and his fur visibly bristled as the colors of the screen inverted to show the number.

"Four! Oh, you're off to a bad start, I'm afraid..." The contestant twitched as the chair jolted, then rattled four spaces backwards. He leaned over the arm to see as it came to a halt, stopping on a square marked with 'Q2'.

"You're on a question square, Anthony - if you get this right, you gain two spaces again, but if you get it wrong, it gets even worse - you'll go back another two spaces instead. Here it comes..." As the meerkat pricked his ears, looking up at him nervously, Alex raised his minicomputer up and read the question out.

"In chemistry, what is the name of the element with the symbol "Ca"?

The contestant paused, his eyes going up as he thought. "Uh, carbon," he answered eventually, shaking his head.

Alex grimaced, and paused before replying. "No, I'm sorry, it's calcium - two more spaces back! You might be going in there sooner than I thought..." The meerkat glanced anxiously over at the device he was being carried towards again as the chair moved two more spaces backwards.

"Okay, Anthony, let's see if matters improve - roll again!" Alex invited him, gesturing towards the button in the meerkat's hands. He nodded, then pressed it a second time.

"A one - that's much more like it," Alex announced as the chair moved another space. And that puts you on..." He ducked to look down. "Forward 2, so you end up better than when you started..." As he spoke, the meerkat was jolted back in the seat as it moved back the way it had come, stopping two spaces ahead.

Alex watched the contestant lean back in the seat after having been pushed forwards against the straps. "Not treating you too roughly, is it?" he asked with a grin. "Let's have your third roll..." This time, the meerkat pressed down on the button immediately, and a figure four came up on the screen behind him.

"Four again!" Alex called as the movement of the chair started up. "But that puts you on a safe square, so we don't have to do anything - come on, let's have a smaller number this time... a one's going to land you on the star..."

He watched as the contestant pushed his button again, and a figure 3 was displayed on the screen. "Oh - well, you've bypassed that, but you're doing much better - that takes you to a chance square, and it's either going to bring you forwards or backwards one space..."

Anthony drummed his fingers on the arms of the seat as the chair stopped above the square marked with 'C1', waiting and closing his eyes as the noise of it faded into silence. Suddenly, a bell sound played and the chair suddenly started up again, jolting him as it moved one space to the front.

"You were lucky!" Alex announced. "That was your... fourth roll, so you've got four more to go before you're saved, and you're just over halfway along... let's hope that you keep them small from here on!"

At a gesture from the red wolf, the meerkat slapped the button again, and turned in the seat to see another 3 come up on the screen. His eyes dropped to the board behind him as the chair started up and juddered to a halt above a question square.

"Okay, another question," Alex started. "And this one's worth two spaces as well. In sports, which team famously won the All Nations last year after getting to the final and losing four times in a row?"

The meerkat had smiled as he started reading out the question. "The Hurricanes," he answered.

"Yes, that's right - you're heading forwards again!" Alex smiled as the chair moved two spaces to the front. "That puts you back on the chance square, but we leave you there because you didn't land on it on a roll of the dice..."

He paused and walked around to the front of the chair. "You're getting pretty close, Anthony..." he announced as he stepped forwards. "Nervous about going in there?" He smiled as the contestant in the seat looked behind him again and then nodded vigorously. "Well, there are no safe spaces now - everything behind you from now on is going to put you forward or back, so... good luck..." As he spoke, another number came up on a push of the button from Anthony.

"No, another four!" Alex called, putting a hand to his head. "You know, if we were playing anything else you'd be really good at this..." He stepped along the board and looked down at the squares behind Anthony. "That'll land you on a... 'forward one', so let's just move you three..."

He watched as the chair moved back to where he was standing, and ducked once again to look down at it.

"Okay, question, ques... no, actually, we don't give you a question, because you landed on the square behind and moved here afterward. It's more complicated than I thought, this..." The red wolf took a couple of paces back and looked down at the spaces in front of him. "So, you can roll again - you've only got two turns to go, but you... want to keep these as low as possible, really..."

The meerkat looked back as well, counting out the squares behind him and looking at what was written on them. Staring up at the monitor, much further away from him than the last time he had looked, he pressed the button and gasped as a figure 2 came up, looking back down and around to the square that would take him to as the chair started moving towards a 'Q4' space.

Alex waited for the chair to stop, scrolling with his thumb as he watched the screen of his pocket computer, then looked at the nervous meerkat. "Okay, Anthony - you're on a square that'll move you four spaces forward or back depending on this question. And there are only three spaces behind you, so getting this wrong is going to mean you reach the end and get covered in gunge - are you ready?"

"Yeah, I... think so..." He smiled anxiously, gripping the arms of the seat a little tighter as he waited for the question.

"Science again - a bolometer measures the thickness of a liquid. True or false?" He held his hand out towards him.

"Uh..." The contestant squirmed, looking back over his shoulder as he bounced. "True...?" he drew the word out as he cringed.

"I'm sorry, that's wrong!" the red wolf announced delightedly as he straightened up. The meerkat in the seat paused, his eyes widening, then he twisted around towards the arrangement of pipes a few yards behind him. "Yes, and you know where you're going - goodbye!"

Alex dashed off to the side as the chair juddered again, and Anthony gripped the handles of the seat tightly, rubbing his feet anxiously against the footrest as he was carried backwards into the framework at the far end of the room. He bounced with the chair's momentum as it suddenly jerked to a halt, and with his ears flattening, tilted his head very slightly up to look into the nozzle of the main tank above his head.

With a sudden hiss, two diagonal pipes at his sides spluttered out jets of thick white foam, and he yelped and looked back down as the stuff sprayed right into his lap, piling up rapidly as more of it was pumped on to him. Tentatively, he slipped his hands off the chair's arms and brought them in to hold the foam pile in place, the white goop beginning to spill off over his arms and splotting thickly on to the floor around him. As the mountain of foam got even bigger, it fell back to slump on to his chest, and he raised his arms up, looking down at the bubbly white substance slipping around him as he squirmed on the backrest.

An alarm blared from the top of the device, and the meerkat's dark ears pricked as he looked up just in time to see two large tanks to the sides swinging inwards. With a squeak, he closed his eyes and cringed downwards, his hands going to his head and then quickly down to his shoulders just before two waves of dark green slime poured down on to him, splashing outwards heavily from the top of his head and hiding him entirely under a huge glistening dome of gunge, his feet at the front twitching as the glop splattered off them to the floor.

As the gloop subsided, the waves from the two massive tanks getting slowly thinner, the twitching dome folded back into the meerkat's lap and mixed with the white foam, dripping in globs around his lap and off the edges of the seat. Finally it parted, revealing the look of shock across the young meerkat's muzzle underneath the opaque slop hiding his upper face. The green streams of slippery slime poured back across his shoulders, and he hunched them up as he leaned slightly forwards, making blobs of the stuff ooze and trickle around his neck to mingle with the remains of the thick white foam plastered on his chest. With his hands frozen at his sides, gunge dripping through his fingers, he shook his head and sent streaks of slime flying outwards from his sodden ears, his shocked expression turning into a wide-mouthed smile.

There was a click from above and behind him, and a wide downpour of mixed dark and bright blue slime spewed down from a tank at the back of the machine. He squealed as it caught him on the back of the neck, two streams of goo shooting out over his shoulders and splashing off the arms of the seat. He leaned forwards under its weight, a slow wave of gloop visible splurging out behind him as he hunched his shoulders, wiping his eyes with his slimy hands as the cold slime slid down his back. With his eyes nearly clear he blinked them open, shuddering as drips of mixed colors of slime dripped in strings from the fur on his face, and looked down at his arms with a laugh as he saw the heavy gunge drizzling from them.

He leaned back and caught a wave of blue gunge over his head just before it turned off, the heavy liquid splattering out on to his shoulders. With fingers of the gloop running down his face and around his ears, he closed his eyes again, a wide grin visible underneath the thick drips and strings.

The alarm blaring from the top of the device dropped to a lower buzzer, and the meerkat turned his head left and right as a couple of red rotating warning lights played over him. With a heavy clunk, the caps on the last tank above his head snicked open, and released two glutinous columns which slapped down on to the sides of his head, splattering out a dome of black gunge on his left and yellow on his right.

The meerkat's hands broke through the dome covering him as the gunge tank siren rang above the lower alarm, and he parted his fingers to let the thick slop drizzle through them, mingling into dark green as they slithered down his front. As he ducked forwards and wriggled against the slime falling on to the back of his neck, it splashed out over his head to slap on to his lap in front of him, and he drew his knees up a little as the gunge slipped down his leg fur.

An air pocket bubbled out of the tank above him, making the gunge stream slap on to his left shoulder, revealing once again the smile underneath the slime dripping from the top of his head. As the streams from above slowed, the thick liquid slapping on to the floor around him and then folding back on to his shoulders, he struggled forwards in the seat, a smooth dome of sickly green gunge covering his head and slithering down to drip off the edges of his muzzle. The thick drips of goo dripped from his hair and fur down into his foam-plastered lap, and as he shook his head, his mouth cracked into a wide grin, his shoulders still shaking a little as he squirmed underneath the coating of slime.

"Anthony..." Alex started, breaking into a laugh as he stepped towards the messy contestant, stepping carefully through the puddle of spilled gunge on the floor as he took hold of one of the girders of the machine. He ducked halfway into the arch to talk to the meerkat as he ran his hands over his face again, battling against the steady drizzle of thick green stuff still pouring down on to his head and slumping over his face as the murky mixed colors of goo slithered and dripped down from all over his fur. "You did quite well, but you reached the end in style - how are you feeling in there?"

The meerkat couldn't speak for laughing, and just shook his head a little, moving his hands out to his sides and bowing his head, looking to the left and right to watch the curtains of gunge dripping from them.

"Well, thanks a lot for coming on and playing - we're going to get you cleaned up, and we'll give you a fresh IZ outfit to take home with you if that one hasn't survived..."

There was a nod from underneath the mass of gunge, and then the slimy meerkat yelped as the foam sprayers burst into life again, pumping white foam into his lap as he wriggled from side to side in the seat. He drew his hands inward as the sprayers tilted up the way, splattering the white blobs over his chest, specks of it flying upwards as they hit his hands.

Alex ducked away with a smile, and approached the main camera, addressing the studio. "There's another result for you..." he said into it, and glanced back over his shoulder at the blobby drips of gunge still spattering out of the tank on to the meerkat. "Anyone else?"

"Yes!" the feline host drew out the word, gesticulating to get a cheer from the audience around him as the cameras switched back to the studio, starting on a close-up of the monitor they had been watching and then pulling back to pan around the studio again. "Thanks a lot, Alex - you don't take it easy on them, do you?"

"There was so much of it!" the squirrel beside him added. "I feel like I need a shower just watching that..."

"We could send you there and get you to see what it's like close up," Jayce grinned back at her, and sniggered as his co-presenter visibly shuddered.

"I think this lot want to see you covered in that stuff more than me - what do we think?" she recovered as she put her hands out towards the studio audience, waving them up to encourage a cheer from them.

Jayce kept his smile in place as he nodded at the reaction. "Well, I think they used most of their supply on that meerkat just now... but if you want to volunteer yourself and save Kass from the gunge next time..."

"And him!" the black squirrel insisted, poking at Jayce with both of her fingers.

The cat-boy grinned and continued speaking to the camera through a ticklish laugh as he squirmed away, defending himself with one hand. "If you want a chance to go into the Industrial Zone yourself, here's the number to call along with the question for this week..."