INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 Round 3  
Written by Iron-K

After the girls had taken half an hour to relax, clean themselves up and put on fresh swimwear, Nicola was the one that led the way out of the changing rooms again. She pushed open the swinging door as she strode out into the waiting area that they had just come from, and looked over to Alex, who was on the opposite bench waiting for them.

"You... gunged Zig Zag!" she exclaimed, pointing straight at him. He looked back along her arm to her face, chuckling as he sat up.

"Yeah... I can hardly believe it either!" he answered. "It surprised me that we got her on, too. I thought we'd have to work our way up after getting a couple of people from this studio's other shows or something at first, but someone on the production team dared to get in touch with ZZ Studios and... well, someone there got her to agree!"

The other girls crowded past Nicola towards the benches, and she took a couple of steps forward, then headed over to the space next to Alex.

"You know, we don't even have a name for that thing yet - though one of the last contestants we had on called it the 'Gunge Tank of Mega Doom'," he enthused as the four of them sat down. "I thought it was pretty appropriate."

"I'd say so." Lesley smiled a little. Anneka nodded with her, then turned to Alex.

"So who else is on the list to go in there?" she asked.

The red wolf put his hands behind his head, leaning back. "I don't know if I can tell you," he said casually, prompting a groan of disappointment from a couple of the girls. "We've got to keep the surprise guests secret, but we've got a whole stack of nominations from people who want us to gunge their high school teachers, or college professors... is there anyone you'd really like to see in there?"

"Leon," Anneka said back instantly. "You know, from Leon's Dungeon?"

"Hah. Yeah, I've seen that." Alex nodded in response, waggling a finger towards her. "I'd like to get him, too - but I'm sure if we did then he'd have me in one of his gunge tanks for revenge..."

"So what's the problem with that?" Nicola piped up with a wide grin. The other girls laughed as Alex held his hands up. "Which one do you think Leon should put him in?" she called to the three of them.

"Maybe the big one they use at the end, with the foam and stuff..." Kim smirked, the others nodding in agreement as the red wolf looked between them.

"Or - did you see the one when they were on tour?" Nicola grinned back, aware that Alex was watching her with an uncomfortable smile. "They had that massive... neck deep dunk tank, with the sprayers," she gestured.

"You'd put me in that?" Alex asked. "I'm trying to save all of you from getting messy..." He laughed at the reaction from the girls. "You don't believe me, do you? I don't think I'm going to find a lot of support here," he said, scratching the back of his neck as he shook his head amusedly. "How's the gunge been for you so far - enjoying it?"

"Great," Anneka replied. Nicola agreed quietly, looking over at the other bench - Lesley was nodding too, but was squirming a little embarrassedly and she was sure she could see her blushing.

Kim leaned forwards on her elbows. "It's... icky, but it's fun," she said.

Alex nodded. "Yeah, that sounds about right. It's weird stuff, isn't it? And I think we were testing your limits in that last round - that has to have been our messiest twenty minutes ever."

"When you put us in the cube I was worried about ever getting it out!" Anneka exclaimed. "But it just... slid off under the shower." She shuddered a little at the unpleasant image.

"That's right," Alex said. "It looks really mucky, but it's made so that it breaks up completely under water - salt water's the best for getting it off. I think it took them a while before they came up with the recipes that they use for it now..."

He grinned to himself. "I was going to tell you about that!" he remembered, and leaned forwards, the girls on the opposite bench doing the same as they listened. "I was telling the others before you came in, Anneka, that at the start they tried using food coloring in the gunge, which was fine in small amounts, but the poor crew member that volunteered for the first big test gunging got this sort of sickly yellow tinge to his black fur that he couldn't get out... he ended up getting an all-over shave, I think, and growing it out again."

Nicola gasped, half in surprise and half in laughter. "Does he still work on the show?" she asked.

"No," Alex shook his head, prompting laughter from the other bench. "No, nothing to do with what happened to him! I think he left after the first series," he thought out loud. "Anyway, we make it with powder paint mix now, with a load of industrial food thickener. I'll show you the stirring vats that we use to make the stuff up after we finish."

He pulled his pocket computer out and looked down at it, checking something. "Speaking of which..." he started as he scrolled through it, "...want to get back in there again?"

Nicola pushed herself off the bench, looking over at the others as they all got up enthusiastically. Alex walked over to the double doors leading into the starting room and pushed both of them open, spinning round to hold one as they all came through.

"Eight more games to go," he announced, pointing down the corridor that they had first gone down when the show had started and walking towards it, the girls following behind him. "Ready to see what we've got lined up for you?" He spun round and walked backwards as he pointed at Nicola.

"Y... yeah," she swallowed, confident but taken by surprise by the question. Alex pointed at the others in turn, and got a nod or cheer out of each of them.

"Then let's go!" He jumped to turn around again and dashed away, leaving the four of them to run to keep up. Nicola was in the lead again when they reached the turning to the circular main room, and walked in to join him while trying to get her breath back, shivering a little as she looked over at the ominous black pod in the center of the room.

"We've got two more rounds to play, team, and you're doing well so far - you've got 525 points out of a possible eight hundred, giving you nearly a minute in the final challenge already. But hopefully we can more than double that in the second half - Anneka!"

The jaguar girl, who was looking around the room's walls at the blank metal doors leading into the game rooms, jerked around and stood straight as her name was mentioned.

"Are we going to go over to the processing wing or stay here?"

"Stay here," she nodded.

"Okay, let's see which rooms are open..." He turned around, pulling the computer out of his pocket as he did so, and the others followed him as he dashed around the edge of the room, counting off the doors with an outstretched finger as he passed them. Nicola looked back across the room over to where they had come in, realizing he was leading them all the way around the circle.

"This looks like the one," he announced as he reached the door they had been standing in front of. He hopped up the three steps leading to it and began pressing out a sequence of numbers on the keypad beside it. "This game's going to need all of you taking part, but we'll need Anneka to pick one volunteer, and I should warn you that as it's the start of the second half..." - he stopped with his finger over the bottom button of the keypad and turned to face them - "...it's going to be a messy one. Who's going to risk it?"

The other three team members kept their eyes on the feline as she looked between them. "Um..." she hummed as she thought. "Well, Lesley was the only one who escaped last time..."

"Picking on Lesley again?" Alex put his arm around to the brown chipmunk girl's far shoulder as Anneka sagged guiltily at the remark. She played along for a moment, pouting a little before breaking into a giggle. "All right, I can tell she's happy with it - Lesley, this is what Anneka's nominated you for!"

He pulled Lesley gently towards him, getting her up to the door before he pressed the button to open it. The door slid aside, and Nicola balanced on her toes to try and see into it as she and Alex moved inside.

On the opposite side of the room, a wide booth was set in the wall, much like the one they had seen before their shower. From her position slightly down the stairs, Nicola could see three round nozzles spaced along its ceiling, but only the middle one had a plastic chair placed beneath it. Above the recess, a row of three keyhole-like slots were bordered by black and yellow stripes, with a large round light above each of them.

As Alex led Lesley towards the booth, Nicola stepped fully into the room and looked down to the right. Emerging from the same wall as the door and spaced a couple of yards apart off to the right were three lengths of solid thick wire, twisting and turning in awkward shapes as they headed towards the wall with the booth, ending a few feet short of it. At the point where the wires connected to the wall, they each had a rod that dangled off them, hanging by a hoop of metal on their ends. Nicola grinned to herself as she recognized the idea of the game, and turned back to the gunge tank as the red wolf slid the panels of the half-height door aside.

"This is another game where your fate is in the hands of your team-mates, Lesley - are you okay with that?" he asked her as she moved in and sat down, hands next to her legs and gripping the sides of the chair.

"Hmm..." She glanced up to the round opening above her on the ceiling, then just shook her head, smiling edgily and curling her toes to drag them on the floor of the tank.

"Why not? They did it pretty well last time!" Sliding the tank's door closed behind him without waiting for an answer, he turned back to the others.

"I bet you've all seen this game before," he started, indicating the three twisted wires that emerged from the opposite wall. "But perhaps not quite like this. Come over and I'll show you..."

He took a few steps over to the one nearest the door, and picked up the straight handle of the rod attached to it. "Very simply, you've each got to get these rods off the wire by guiding them down to the other end," he said, moving it carefully along off the insulated strip it had rested on to where the exposed wire started. "Once they're off, you have to insert them into the slots just above Lesley there to turn it off and let her out of the gunge tank. But all of these are wired up to the booth, so if you slip... this happens." He brought the loop down on the wire, producing a harsh buzzer noise, and Nicola saw a flash from one of the lights above the tank out of the corner of her eye.

She looked over as the chipmunk girl yelped and clutched the sides of her head, her face screwed up as she closed her eyes and bowed her head down. But after a few seconds of nothing happening, she slowly relaxed, looking back up at the group.

"Don't worry, Lesley, I won't gunge you - it'll be this lot you have to worry about," Alex grinned. She shook her head, then straightened up again, looking up for a moment into the chute above her and bringing a hand up to fiddle anxiously with her hair.

"Get ready, everyone - take a place each," he called as he put the loop back on the plastic rest and stepped away. The three of them glanced between each other, and Nicola stayed still while the others dashed to the middle and far end of the room. "Remember, Lesley needs all three of those rods to get out. I should probably mention, by the way, that if you don't all make it in forty-five seconds, then the whole vat's going to empty on to her..."

Lesley bit her lip, nervously looking up into the opening placed above her head as she flicked her hands through her hair, tucking it behind her shoulders. She wriggled a little in the seat, squeezing her hands between her thighs as she waited for the game to begin.

"All ready?" Alex asked, retreating back to lean on the wall next to the door. Nicola nodded as the other girls replied, then grabbed the handle, pulled it up towards her and tried to hold the loop steady.

At the signal from Alex she carefully shuffled forwards on her knees to guide the loop along the wire. Moving smoothly for the first straight, she slowed down a little for a U-turn, then another one that doubled back on itself. Trying to keep herself steady, she rotated the loop along with the wire as it headed downwards, carefully bringing her other hand in to adjust her grip on the handle. As she turned it around in her hand, the edge of the loop bumped against the wire. She growled under her breath as she heard the buzzer from above the tank, and whipped her head round to look as the chipmunk girl drew her breath in.

The end of the nozzle above Lesley's head jutted down a liitle and released a thin stream of purple gunge that hit her on the side of the head as her mouth dropped open in shock. She bowed her head down as the torrent got wider, quickly covering her hair in purple and splattering off in waves as she raised her hands to her tummy to catch it on its way down. Nicola could just see her gasping at the feeling underneath the covering of ooze.

Shuddering, she turned back to the twisted wire in front of her and kept on going, trying to keep her hand steady though she was shaking with nerves and excitement. As she negotiated another tricky corner, she heard another buzzer sound and saw a flash of pink out of the corner of her eye as the chipmunk girl was covered in another wave of slime.

Concentrating hard on the wire, she tried to ignore the occasional sound of the alarm followed by a wet splattering noise punctuated with squeaks and giggles from her left as either she or another of the girls slipped up and touched the wire. Finally, she turned the last corner and whipped the rod free, then straightened up with a little difficulty and dashed for the tank.

Lesley, now painted with a mixture of slimy colors that matted her hair to her head and oozed slowly down from her shoulders, clapped her messy hands together as she saw her approach. As the nozzle in the ceiling dripped the remains of another murky-colored downpour on to her, she watched Nicola stretch up to slide the key-like rod into position at the top of the booth.

Nicola stepped aside, and stood and watched anxiously as Kim and Anneka concentrated on moving forwards. She looked around at the gunge-spattered chipmunk girl again, who had her hands behind her head to wring out her soaked hair. As the messy chipmunk girl watched their progress, she gave a little jump as two buzzers sounded close together, and closed her eyes as another cascade of murky green started up from the ceiling, pouring down over her already dripping head and shoulders.

She leaned to the side, a squeamish grin on her face and raising her hand to balance as the gunk poured on to her shoulder, staying on longer than before. Squirming as it eased off, the last drizzle slithering down from her shoulder to her back and chest, she looked out to the front again to see Kim straighten up, the key-like metal rod held out in front of her. As the mouse girl moved forwards and reached up to insert it next to Nicola's, Lesley raised one hand in the air in celebration, stroking through her sloppy hair with the other as a curtain of dark purple gunge drizzled from her outstretched arm.

"That's two! But you've only got about ten seconds left..." Alex announced, his eyes on the feline who was still struggling at the far end of the room.

"Come on, Anneka! Hurry up!" Nicola called, getting more anxious as she mentally counted the last few seconds coming off the timer. Despite Kim trying to encourage her to go faster as well, the feline only sped up a little, concentrating hard on keeping the ring from touching the wire as she reached the last S-shaped curve. At last, she whipped the key off the end and stood up triumphantly, but her face fell as a hooter blared over her cheer.

Nicola cringed and turned to Lesley, who whimpered as she realized what was going to happen. Slowly, she began bowing her head forwards into her hands, just as a wide wave of lime green gunge was released from the tank's ceiling.

The three of them watched as the bright gooey stuff spluttered down on to Lesley's head, not falling in a clean column but as a wide muddy rain that splurged off the back of her neck, thick drops of it splashing outwards onto the tank's walls and door. As streams of other colors joined the flow, she stayed still underneath it, the ooze flowing down over her hands protecting her face, the outlines of her fingers visible through the soupy liquid as it slid over them. Streams of it slopped down on either side of her neck, pouring into her lap as she drummed her feet up and down.

The gungy downpour finally began to ease off, and the chipmunk peeked out from behind her hands, her expression a mixture of laughter and shock. She eeped as the gloop continued to drip and drizzle on to her head from above, the stuff on her shoulders slithering down her fur. Sticking her tongue out in a mock disgusted expression, she looked down at her messy hands, then leaned down to wipe the front and back of them on her still reasonably clean lower legs.

"Sorry, everyone..." Alex said above the fading siren. "You didn't save Lesley from the gunge, so you start off the third round with one messy team member and only twenty points to show for it. But we can pick that up later on - let me get that for you, Lesley..."

He stepped forward through the watching girls and bent down to open the slime-splattered door, then gently took Lesley's hand as she stepped dripping out of the gunge machine. As he let her go she grinned to herself, tossing her long soaked hair behind her head before jerking her hands to flick the murky green slop on them away. Green drizzles poured on to the floor from all over her messy fur.

"Anneka, what happened?" Alex asked as he slid the door shut again, turning to face her as she looked at her feet nervously.

"I... I forgot that I still had to go over and put it in," she mumbled embarrassedly.

"Oh..." Alex seemed to genuinely sympathize, stepping forward to put a hand on her shoulder. Then he turned around to address the others. "So who's going in the next game?"

"She is," Lesley pointed at Anneka at the same time as Kim and Nicola did. The jaguar girl stuttered for a moment, then just smiled, dropping her head down.

"I love the sort of... cycle of revenge that's built up on this team," Alex chuckled to himself as he raised his hand off her shoulder and held it out towards her. She realized she was still holding the key she had finally got off the wire and put it down hurriedly. "Anneka, ready for the next game?"

"Yeah," she replied, hesitantly.

"Think you deserve it?"

Anneka squirmed again at being the center of attention, and just took his hand defeatedly, her other hand pinching her forehead. Nicola smiled as Lesley nodded enthusiastically.

"Come on, I'll show you. The good news is that we're not going far..."

The jaguar girl ran a little to keep up with Alex as he led her enthusiastically towards the door, and she bounced up and down nervously while he entered a code on its keypad with his free hand. The door slid aside, and as the dark sphere of the pod in the center of the room was revealed, the red wolf pointed towards it.

Anneka whimpered and sagged, giggling a little as she was taken down the steps. Nicola shared a grin with the others and then followed them out of the room, looking up at the softly pulsing lights on the surface of the pod as Alex helped the nervous feline up on to the slightly raised circular platform. This thing had been a feature of IZ from the very start, and she was fairly sure that she hadn't seen anyone escape it.

The jaguar girl took a seat in the plastic chair underneath the sphere, and as she wriggled to get comfortable, looked up into the visible spout inches above her head. Alex reached up to the top of the device to take hold of a large keyboard that was mounted on a metal arm, and swung it down so that it was just above her lap. Jumping down off the platform to join the others again as she glanced between the keyboard and the gunge chute, he pointed up behind them all, and Nicola turned around to see another large projection screen showing a view of the alien-looking keyboard as Anneka's hands hovered over it. It was made up of about ten rows of symbols.

"You all know this game, don't you?" Alex asked, and she nodded, looking back over her shoulder to check that the others were doing the same. "Yes, Anneka's got to find the five buttons on that keyboard that don't have a duplicate anywhere else - if they're all pressed within a minute, then the countdown stops, the Pod doesn't open up and she doesn't get covered in the gallons of gunge held inside it," he emphasized, spinning round to look at her as she shivered once again. "And you can see it up here too to help her try to escape. Lesley, you don't have to help her out if you don't want to, you could give her a couple of false ones if you like..."

"Hey!" Anneka protested from behind them, and the messy chipmunk girl giggled at her outburst, but shook her head, looking up to study the board in front of them as she reached behind her again to neaten her slimy hair. Nicola smiled over her shoulder at the jaguar girl, then turned to Alex as he spoke again.

"All right, you've got one minute - good luck!"

Nicola looked up to the screen just in time to see a timer appear, which she tried to ignore as she scanned the display of the board, leaning subconsciously to the sides a little to try and see past Anneka's hovering hands. The team was silent for a while as they all looked at it, Anneka looking like she was going to press one of the buttons a couple of times but hesitating and eventually withdrawing her finger.

"No, do that one!" Kim said, waving her finger at the screen as she called over her shoulder towards the pod. "I think that one you were just on is one of them..."

Nicola turned around too as the jaguar girl stuck her finger out again, cringing as she pushed down on the key. She jerked her finger back at the noise of a bell sound, but the key lit up to indicate that they had found one of the correct ones.

"That's one!" Alex called. "But you've used nearly half your time already, you're going to have to be faster..."

Bouncing on her heels, Nicola nervously looked over the screen from left to right, unsure of how she should even be looking for the unique keys among the many similar-looking symbols in front of them. She tried picking out one key at random in turn and looking over the board for any identical ones, and eventually saw one that she couldn't see a match for.

"Is that one of them?" she asked as she turned to Lesley, pointing up at the screen. She jumped as the bell sounded again, and glanced back at the screen - Anneka had pressed another button. "The one that looks like a backwards '2'?"

The chipmunk girl looked up at the screen, blinking as a couple of drips of slime from the last game fell across her vision. "I think so," she nodded, and brought a hand up to brush her fringe.

"Anneka! This one here!" Nicola skipped over to the screen and stood on her tiptoes to wave a pointing finger up at the button she'd picked out. She twisted up to look at the screen as the jaguar girl's hand moved towards it, guiding it with her own finger to the correct button. She pumped her fist in the air as the bell sound played again, moving back away from the screen and looking up at it.

The on-screen timer turned red as it dropped below ten seconds, and an electronic beeping noise began sounding every half-second. Anneka's hands moved off the bottom of the screen, and Nicola looked over her shoulder to see that the jaguar girl had placed her hands over her face, squirming as she listened to the sound of the last seconds ticking past.

"Giving up, Anneka?" Alex called out, and she opened her hands a little to peek out from between them. She nodded in his direction, biting her lip nervously. "Come on! Have a last try - what's the worst that could happen?"

The feline laughed a little, knowing exactly what the worst was as she moved one hand forwards again, her other hand staying at her face. The other three girls just watched her as she hovered a finger over the keyboard, picked a key at random and tentatively pressed down. At the sound of a buzzer and a rising klaxon, the jaguar girl's hand shot back to her face, and as the lights on the pod above her sped up, a wide steam of green gunge dropped from its nozzle to splurge out over her head.

Nicola grinned as there was a prolonged squeak from underneath the gooey dome, and it twitched and splattered across Anneka's shoulders, occasionally parting to give a glimpse of her green-stained hands across her face. Her toes curled as stray streaks of the gunge slopped to the floor and the tops of her feet, forming a wide splatter mark that ran towards the edges of the platform and dripped slowly down its sides.

The gunge flow twitched forwards, and Anneka squealed again as it splattered into her lap, hiding her from the watching team. Nicola watched her lean to the side, putting one hand out and rubbing her eyes with the other, the green stuff dripping to the floor from her gungy hair and muzzle. The heavy slime made a thick, rich glooping noise as it splurted down into her lap, splashing upwards to coat her tummy and chest as she waved her hand around in front of her in an attempt to defend herself.

The torrent of heavy liquid began to ease off, coming back up to Anneka's head, and defeatedly she sat up again and dropped her hands into her sodden lap, letting the goo pour on to the top of her head and roll down her hair. Occasional drips of it slumped down over her face, and she shook her head to get rid of them, specks of green stuff flying outwards in all directions. Giggling and squirming to the side as the last murky drizzles slithered from the edges of the nozzle above her, she raised her dripping hands away from her lap, and opened her eyes to watch the slop dribble from her fingers.

"It looks like the worst happened, Anneka," Alex chuckled as he moved towards the platform and watched the gungy jaguar girl brushing waves of slime off her lap, the stuff making a wet slapping noise as it hit the floor at her feet. "You gunged yourself, but at least you earned sixty points for the team - let me help you out from under there..."

He carefully stepped up on to the platform again and put his hand on Anneka's head as she wriggled and slithered forwards, guiding her out from underneath the metallic sphere so that she didn't hit her head on it. With his hand grasping hers, they stepped down together, and Alex moved away, wiping his hand on the hip of his trousers before taking the palmtop out again.

"We've still got two clean team members - who's going in the next one? Kim or Nicola?" he asked. Anneka reached round to the back of her head and dragged a hand down her sloppy hair as she looked between the two of them. Nicola stood tensely, trying to keep her expression calm and reading the team leader's face.

"I think..." She put her hand on her chin, then suddenly pointed. "Kim," she announced, turning towards the host.

Nicola breathed out, feeling the familiar strange mix of relief and disappointment as Alex stepped forward to take Kim's hand, spinning her around on his way to another of the doors leading off the circular chamber.

"All right, Kim - it's been a while since you were in a game alone, but we've got another new one for you in here!"

The rest of the team gathered behind them as he paused to open the door via the panel, the gray mouse girl bouncing on her heels and swishing her tail behind her nervously as she kept her eyes on the blank metal surface. Finishing with the code, Alex put his arm around her as it hummed aside, and she audibly gasped as he led her down a couple of steps into the room.

Nicola eagerly squeezed through the door after them to look at the game. They were in a fairly large space, featureless on the walls but with prominent large pipes jutting down from the ceiling to end a couple of feet above head height. On the ground, a set of plastic barriers and debris were arranged to form a course that twisted from one corner of the room to another, passing underneath each pipe as it went and ending at a cluster of them at the far end. Each of them had a chain dangling off the end.

She walked down the steps and followed Alex and Kim, the mouse girl looking worriedly at the pipes in the ceiling as they headed towards an odd trolley that lay near the entrance to the course, a cylindrical plastic tub that was a couple of feet high and mounted on castor wheels. She looked down at it as they gathered around, Alex waiting for them all to get there before starting his explanation.

"This is a pretty simple physical game, team - this room used to be used a lot like the Dispenser that you were under at the very start, but once again those pipes are all that are left now..."

He crouched down and grabbed the cylinder between his hands. "Your task's going to be to wheel one of these trolleys around the course, taking it under each of those pipes and dumping the gunge inside them down into it. You'll get more points depending on how much of the stuff you can collect in ninety seconds." He spun the cylinder around in his hands and pointed to indicate the graduated marks on the side. "All you have to do is get it under a pipe and pull its chain to open it up, then move on to the next one when it's been emptied."

Nicola looked to the short plastic chain that dangled off the pipe nearest them - it was looped through a handle on the cap that covered its end. Alex straightened up again, and she nodded.

"So," he said, pacing around the container, "let's have... Nicola and Anneka controlling the trolley. Lesley, you can have the task of opening up the pipes once they've got it under them..." He paused expectantly.

"And what am I going to be doing?" Kim asked hesitantly. Nicola turned to see her wringing her hands in front of her tummy, her mouth turned up at the edges in a nervous smile as she blinked a couple of times.

"Glad you asked," Alex pointed at her as he turned to dash to a sliding metal door on the wall behind him. Nicola snickered a little, fairly sure that she knew what was coming, and watched him slide it aside as Kim looked over her shoulder from behind.

"'Cause you're not going to be dragging that little tub around the course - you're going to be using this!" Alex announced, hauling on the handle of something inside the recess. Walking forwards with it as he pulled it out, he gestured with his other hand towards the much larger container, which was the shape of a large bathtub, with a couple of pads inside arranged to form a reclined seat.

Nicola turned around to look at Kim, who stood wide-eyed with her hands over her mouth, shoulders shaking with nervous laughter as she looked between the vat and the pipes. Alex swung the vat around so that it was in front of him, and kicked the smaller container he'd showed them aside as he walked around the new one to offer his hand. With a little whimper, Kim took it and carefully held on to his arm as she clambered inside the vat, turning around awkwardly to sit down on the gym mat-like pads and eventually leaning back fully on the headrest. She looked over at the looming gunge pipes, arms folded in front of her and tapping her fingers anxiously on her tummy.

Alex stepped around the vat, indicating to the others to take their positions. Nicola grabbed hold of the handles next to Kim's head, smiling down at her as she leaned her head back to look up at her upside-down. Anneka took the other end as Lesley backed away across the room to stand next to the first chain. 

"The aim of the game still applies - you three have to get that vat filled with as much gunge as possible over the next minute and a half. Are you all ready?"

"Yeah," Nicola nodded, looking over her shoulder at where Lesley was standing.

"Kim, are you ready?"

The mouse girl looked over at him, whimpering through a giggle and shaking her head.

"You'll be fine - it's only a bath," he grinned, then clapped his hands together. "Go!"

Nicola jumped backwards in surprise as Anneka suddenly shoved the vat forwards, and twisted over her shoulder to see where they were going as she padded rapidly backwards to keep up with the vat's movement. They turned the corner towards the first pipe, and she pushed back on the handle as they wheeled Kim underneath it. The girl in the vat raised her hands to cover her face as they stopped it so that her tummy was right underneath the pipe.

"Pull it!" Nicola encouraged the chipmunk girl standing to the side, and she reached up and yanked on the chain, stumbling back a little as it came off the end.

Their eyes all went to the cover as it fell open, releasing a cascade of thick green slime that smacked down on to the mouse girl's tummy. She shrieked from behind her hands as the fluid splurged over her, specks of it licking out to splatter on her legs and chest, most of it slithering down around her to coat her middle and sides in a layer of dark green.

Nicola looked down into the vat as she watched the flow of gunge gradually subside, Kim taking her hands off her face and squeamishly reaching down to her gungy tummy to brush the stuff off to the sides. Nicola began pulling the vat again, and the mouse girl put her hands out to the sides, smearing green stuff on the inside walls of the vat as Anneka ducked away from the last blobs of the stuff still dripping out of the pipe.

Together they manhandled the vat to the end of the room, where another pipe waited. Nicola hauled the vat around as Anneka let go of it, slamming it into the wall a little harder than she had intended. Kim yelped and put her hand out against the side as Lesley skipped over to pull the chain dangling off the pipe above her. The mouse girl's other hand shot to her face as the cover burst open.

This time, a heavier yellow downpour hit Kim right in the chest, and she turned her face away, raising both her hands into the torrent of gunk to defend herself. Nicola ducked back a little as the bright liquid spurted outwards as it splattered off the mouse girl's hands, coating the walls of the vat and most of the floor around it with a thick glooping noise.

The yellow downpour eased off, dribbling gunge over the mouse girl's tummy again, and she looked down at herself, shaking her sloppy hands as she returned them squeamishly to her tummy, sloshing her legs a little from side to side in the gunge that was beginning to collect around her. She looked up behind her again as Nicola stepped into the puddle of gunge that had formed around the vat and hauled it out of the corner, with Anneka tiptoeing over to grab the other end again.

Alex called from the side of the room as he watched them struggle around a pair of tight corners and come back towards him. "You look OK so far, Kim, but the bigger pipes are towards the end - these are just practice runs!"

Nicola heard the mouse girl whimper from below her as they sped along a straight line, stopping under each of a row of three smaller pipes that splattered her with even more gunge. By the time they reached the next corner the vat had filled up a few inches past the top side of Kim's legs, and she squeaked as they jerked the vat forwards again, making the liquid slosh up over her tummy. She brushed it off with her hands, looking up and cringing as she saw yet another pipe approaching.

Nicola panted a little as she maneuvered the tub around another awkward corner, watching Kim prop herself a little more upright, slithering against the slimy padding that she was lying on. Together, they wheeled it over so that the tank was underneath the largest pipe so far. Lesley skipped forwards and took hold of its chain, but she hesitated as Kim pushed herself off the pad she was leaning on and sat up underneath it, biting her lip in a smile before burying her face in her hands in preparation.

"Go on, pull it!" Alex encouraged. Lesley looked to the side at him, then back to the pipe, and yanked on the chain.

This time an alarm sounded from the ceiling as the bottom of the pipe burst open, spewing out a wide downpour of mixed brown and orange gunge that crashed down into the vat right on top of the hunched mouse girl, completely enveloping her. A laughing shriek came from somewhere in the middle of the sloppy torrent as it bulged to the sides a little around her, the edge of her gungy head or shoulders occasionally poking out of the falling slime as she wriggled around beneath it. Nicola looked down to the surface of the vat as it quickly glooped up the way, rippling lazily as the gunge poured in.

Slowly, the murky flood eased back, and Kim reached both hands out in front of her trying to find something to hold on to, her arms completely coated in the mixed orange and brown slop that dripped thickly from the ends of her outstretched fingers. She wriggled forwards out of the slowing downpour, her face screwed tightly up and her soaked ears hanging heavily behind her. As the gunge from the pipe slowed to a set of thick drizzles from its edges, she shook her hands again, and slowly reached to her face, using two fingers on each one to wipe across her eyes before blinking them open. Nicola couldn't help laughing as the mouse girl looked down at her completely coated fur, the whites of her eyes showing up brightly against the gunk that dripped down her face and across her shocked mouth.

"You've still got a few seconds left - it's not over yet, Kim!" At Alex's call from the side, Nicola looked over her shoulder again, stepping out the way as the jaguar girl took hold of the vat's handle again. Kim squeamishly dipped her hands into the gunge bath to steady herself as the vat trundled forwards, and Anneka struggled to the side to get it and its now heavy contents around another tight corner. Nicola ran forwards to take hold of the front of the vat again, and guided it gently around the bend, watching the sloppy mouse girl inside grimace a little as the stuff glooped from side to side around her. They got around the corner and on to a straight to head to another pipe, but as soon as they were picking up speed a klaxon blared from the ceiling.

"Sorry, you're out of time - stop there!" Alex called above the noise, and Nicola tugged on her end of the vat to gently slow it to a stop. "I bet that's a relief for you, Kim..."

As he picked his way over the barriers, Nicola looked down at the mouse girl, who struggled back into an upright sitting position. After the ride in the vat after the last pipe, she was now covered in mixed brightly colored slop and sitting in a pool of it that came up to her waist, hugging herself and rubbing her slimy hands up and down her arms. She nodded a little, twisting around to watch as he approached, and then squeaked as she wriggled to haul herself upwards. The gunge made a thick splashing noise as she dipped her hands in behind her to push herself forwards, and unsteadily she got to her feet, thick drops of gunge dripping and sliding down her coated fur.

Alex put his hands on the edge of the vat as he approached and ducked down to look at the scale on the side, and Nicola leaned around to see too. "I'd say... you were up to the sixty point mark," he decided, squinting at where the gunge surface ended and the splatter marks on the side of the vat began. "But it might go all the way up to seventy if you sit down again, Kim..."

"Oh..." The sloppy mouse girl wriggled her fingers, turning from side to side and looking down at the murky surface again. With some encouragement called from the others, she giggled and gradually eased herself down again, eeping as she lowered herself back into the bath of gunge, and leaned back squeamishly on to the pads, her lower half and tummy disappearing under the thick opaque liquid. She twisted to the side in an attempt to see the scale that Alex was looking at.

"Oh, it's almost there but you're just a fraction of an inch short - I'll give you sixty-five for it!" he eventually announced. He straightened up and offered his hands to the laughing mouse girl. "Come on, bath's over... you've been very brave in there..."

Kim raised her hands out of the gunge, gathering her messy hair and squeezing it out as she rearranged it behind her head, and then reached up to grab on to the red wolf's wrists. Nicola grinned at the awful glooping noise the gunge made as she was hauled up out of it, and moved away from the vat as Alex gently lifted their dripping team mate up and back on to the floor. She let go of him unsteadily, raising her arms to the sides to look as the multi-colored slop oozed down her legs.

"So you got Kim fairly messy," Alex chuckled as the completely coated mouse girl moved her hands over herself, dragging gunk off her fur. "And the rest of you aren't looking too clean, either, but we've got one team member who's still nice and dry... Nicola, ready for your turn?"

"Yep," she grinned, looking forward to seeing what they were going to do to her. Accepting Alex's outstretched hand, she walked with him to the door of the room and back out into the main chamber.

"Let's see..." Alex took the minicomputer out of his pocket and fumbled with it with his free hand, tilting it a little from side to side as he looked at something on it. "Hmm," he said, and Nicola craned her neck to see, just before he put it down again. "All right - it's not where I was expecting, but let's give it a look..." Nicola glanced back at her messy team mates just before Alex tugged on her arm again, leading her down the corridor a little towards the sprayers, where they stopped at a door on the right hand side.

The red wolf reached up to enter the combination on the lock, and let go of Nicola's hand as she stepped up to the blank metallic door. "Go on in..." he invited as it slid aside, stepping back to wave them all through.

Nicola put her hands on the door frame and stepped cautiously through the narrow opening to see the contents of the new room as the others came in behind her. It was simple in layout - on the wall opposite the door, ten phone-booth-like cubicles were lined up, with numbers displayed on the middle of each of their doors going from zero to nine across the room. Each one had a large covered section on the top, with areas that looked like they could light up on the front of them.

She paced over to the left, hearing Alex come in and the door humming closed behind him. There was a projection screen on the wall next to the door, but otherwise, the booths were the entire contents of the room.

"So," Alex started. "This is the final game we'll be playing before going to the processing wing, and I should have the details of how it works here..." He raised his minicomputer and looked down at it for a moment, scrolling through something with the thumbwheel on its side. After tapping at it in a couple of places, he looked up at the row of booths again, an unsure frown on his face. "No, this isn't... we're not meant to be here. I've led you into the wrong place, sorry." He waved a hand vaguely behind him. "Let's get out of here..."

Nicola raised her eyebrows and looked around at the others' expressions of confusion as the red wolf spun around and performed the usual routine of tapping out a sequence out on the panel next to the door. But she looked back over at the entrance suddenly as the keypad emitted a harsh buzz in response, and Alex jumped back from it in acted surprise.

After staying frozen for a moment, Alex dropped his hands to his sides. "ROB, where are you?"

Nicola looked to the projection screen as the yellow wireframe face that she'd seen at the start of the show pixellated into view. It appeared quietly amused for a moment before speaking. "Having trouble, are -"

"Come on, you know your directions tricked me into leading them into the wrong room," Alex cut him off, striding over from the door to face the screen and waving the pocket device at it. "Can you not be a good manic self-aware computer and let us out of here?"

Kim giggled at the remark, and even more at the expression that the computer's face made in response. "Actually I'm changing the plan," it leered. "Sure, I'll let you out... but you're going to have to find the code to do it yourselves. Just ask Alex how."

The face vanished, and Nicola and the others turned to Alex, who rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his free hand.

"Hm." He shrugged. "That's never happened before... but..." He looked down at the computer again thoughtfully, turning slowly towards the other side of the room and pacing as he concentrated on it. "Aha..." he said in realization, and it turned into a chuckle as he waved one finger in the air. "All right, I see. I've got to admit, this is a clever one..."

He turned on his heel towards the row of booths, spreading his hands out towards them. "I'm afraid Nicola's comeuppance will have to wait until later - the code to open the door's hidden in how these cubicles are set up. It has four unique digits in it, and the booths with those four numbers won't go off when someone steps into them. The other six... well, I don't need to tell you at this stage, do I?"

Nicola shook her head, smiling as she ran her fingers through her still-clean hair. She laughed inwardly at the various reactions of the others as they realized what that was going to mean for them.

"Before the booths are unlocked, though, you're going to have to answer one of the questions ROB's just given me," the red wolf went on, heading towards the screen again. If you answer wrongly, then I'll come round to you again - if you get it right, then you're going to have to pick a booth to enter, and... well, hope you're lucky in choosing one of the four that'll let you out clean."

"Aren't you going to help us out?" Nicola interrupted, grinning up at him.

She was delighted that Alex hesitated a moment. "Someone's got to stay out here and ask the questions," he smiled back eventually. "Anyway, once you've got all four, you'll have to work out the code on that keypad - those digits in some random order will open the door."

"Right." Nicola was surprised to hear Lesley's voice so confident, and looked over her shoulder at her as she nodded, tucking her still slick hair behind her head.

"The number of points you get depends on how long it takes for you to open the door of the room and let us out. So if all of that makes sense... do you want to start us off, team leader?" Alex asked the jaguar girl, who glanced at the tanks again and then looked back at him.

"Sure," she answered.

"All right - if you're all ready..." Nicola smiled over at the booths on the other side of the room, then casually spun around and joined the line than Lesley and Kim had formed behind their team leader, bouncing from foot to foot eagerly.

"Let's begin! Anneka - what's the only vowel that isn't in the top row of letters on a standard keyboard?"

Nicola leaned to see past the other two, seeing Anneka's hand on her chin and tail swishing as she thought. "A", she answered.

"Absolutely right - get over there and pick a cubicle!" Alex extended a hand to the right, and the jaguar girl dashed a couple of paces over before skidding to a halt and looking from left to right, hands hovering at her sides unsurely. After a moment's hesitation, she spun to the right and skipped over to the far end of the row.

"She's going for number nine..." Alex commented as the three other team members watched the feline. Anneka put a hand out to grab the long vertical handle on the side of the door as she reached the booth, then tugged it open a little and slipped inside. She turned around to reveal a nervous grin on her face as it swung to click closed, the movement of the door blowing her black hair a little. Nicola found herself holding her breath.

Suddenly an electronic chirp-like confirmation sound came from the tank, and the large light on its front lit up in yellow. "Yes!" Alex called over to her, and she looked back at him before letting her breath out. Nicola did the same. "You're safe, you've got one - come out of there..." A relieved smile on her face, Anneka pushed the door of the booth open and began to return to the end of the line.

"Lesley, let's try to speed this up - what's the only metal that's liquid at room temperature?"

"Mercury," she nodded immediately.

"You've got it - let's hope you're as lucky!" Before he had finished the sentence, Lesley had darted to the side, heading behind him to get to the tank labeled with a zero.

"Starting from the other end, maybe it'll pay off..." Alex said after her, then turned back to the others. "Kim, what was..." As he read out the question to the mouse girl, Nicola watched Lesley tiptoe into the gunge booth on the left, standing under the nozzle on its ceiling and curling her toes as the door clicked closed. Smiling anxiously, she looked out towards the others, and then upwards, just as an alarm hooted and a wide green downpour splurged down from the ceiling to hit her in the face. There was a yelp from underneath the gungy dome as the thick liquid splattered outwards to slop against the walls and door, hiding her from view as the tank's light glowed red.

"Oh!" Alex called over the noise of the gunge tank siren as the sloppy torrent subsided, Lesley just about becoming visible again grinning sheepishly out from behind the streaks of green on the door. He turned his attention back to the others. "Sorry Kim, but that was the wrong answer - Nicola's turn..."

Nicola sidestepped nervously towards Alex, then turned to face him as Kim moved to the back of the line and Lesley pushed the door of the gunge tank open from the inside, poking her green-coated head out before she stepped out all the way. She knew she was only a question away from possibly getting the same experience.

"Nicola, who recently brought out the single 'I Believe'?"

"Oh..." Nicola rubbed her forehead and thought, knowing that each second was costing them. "I don't know... was it Wolfstar?", she shook her head eventually, guessing the only recent pop group she knew.

"Sorry..." She growled frustratedly as he shook his head, and moved out of the way to let Anneka in, pacing along past the other two as Kim let Lesley in in front of her, and stood at the back again.

Anneka had answered her question correctly by the time Nicola turned around again, and as Lesley stepped forwards she watched the jaguar girl bound over to the cubicles again, look along the row, then head for the tank next to the one that Lesley had been in.

"She's going for booth one... is she going to get messy this time?" Alex announced after reading out the question to Lesley. Nicola watched tensely as Anneka closed the door on herself, this time squeezing her eyes closed and cupping her hands to her mouth, tapping her fingers together.

The same sound from before played, and the tank's light turned on - yellow again. "No - you're fine!" Alex called to her as she opened her eyes, looking around in surprise. "So you've got half the code already, but there are only two safe booths left out of seven..." He leaned down to Lesley as she quietly repeated her answer to him, and shook his head. The chipmunk girl turned, messy hair swinging out behind her, and dashed to get behind Nicola as the jaguar girl let herself out of the tank.

"Kim, what three flavors make up Neapolitan ice cream?"

"Er... vanilla, chocolate and strawberry?" she asked back uncertainly.

"That's right - go over and pick a booth!" Kim gasped, looking towards the line of cubicles and stepping uncertainly towards them. After a couple of paces she made a decision and jogged to the middle of the row.

"Nicola," Alex continued, making her look round to face him. "The Bloom Tower is the central landmark of which city?"

"Um." Distractedly, Nicola tossed her hair back as she looked to the side at the mouse girl, who had entered the fifth booth along and was standing tensely with her eyes closed, head bowed and her hands hovering in front of her. "Anglia", she said as she moved her eyes back to the host.

A siren and high-pitched squeal made them both jump, and Nicola whipped her head back to see a thick column of dark green stuff pouring on to Kim from the tank's ceiling. She shook her head as the stuff domed off it, slapping down on to her shoulders and dripping down her chest as she shifted her weight backwards, one hand feeling behind her for the back wall.

"Sorry, Kim..." Alex called to the mouse girl above the thick slapping sound that the remainder of the gunge made as it dripped from the nozzle above her on to the tank's floor. "You got it right, though, Nicola - get over there and hope the same thing doesn't happen to you!"

Swallowing as the red wolf pointed towards the row of booths, Nicola ran over towards them. She kept her eyes on the dripping mouse girl as she pushed the messy door of her booth open, one hand adjusting the strap of her bikini top over her slippery shoulder then reaching down to brush some of the slop off her chest fur. "Good luck," she whispered as she stepped out, grinning as Nicola put her hand on the bar to open the booth next to the one she had been in and tugged the heavy door open.

As she stepped into the enclosure, she felt her heart speed up, and looked up at the dark round opening in the middle of the ceiling, a cap halfway up being all that separated her from the slime, if there was any, above her head. She positioned herself underneath it as she turned around to look out at the others, looking at the backwards figure 6 on the door as it swung slowly closed and eventually clicked shut.

She closed her eyes. Alex's muffled words were audible through the door as he asked Anneka another question. As she strained to hear them, there was a click from the ceiling, and she gasped then closed her mouth just before the slime glooped out of the tank above and splurged on to her head.

Nicola smiled as she bowed her head down under the weight of the falling slime, feeling it slither over her head and pour off her hair as it tumbled forwards over her messy shoulders. Balling and unballing her fists as the gunk ran down the outside of her arms, she leaned back into the downpour of thick liquid and tilted her head from side to side to get totally covered, secretly enjoying the feeling of the smooth slop pouring over her.

The shower from the booth's ceiling eased off slowly, and Nicola brought her hands up to her eyes to wipe them as the last heavy blobs of the stuff splotted on to her head and shoulders. She shook her gungy head, opening her eyes to see the walls of the tank around her painted in bright green, the stuff dripping down from the dome pattern it had formed as it had splattered off her head. Shuffling carefully forwards, dragging her bare toes in the collected slime at the bottom of the tank, she pushed the door open again and stepped out again, gripping the edge of the door to keep her balance as the remains of the slimy liquid on her fur slithered over her.

As she moved away from the machine she saw Lesley dashing for the left hand side of the row of gunge tanks again, putting her hand out on to the handle for the second booth. She tugged on it, but then suddenly seemed to change her mind, letting it fall closed and instead stepping over to the one next to it. Nicola kept her eyes on her as she moved towards Kim and Anneka again, watching the chipmunk girl step into the clear box and clasp her hands behind her back as she turned to face the team.

The hooter sounded again, and the slender chipmunk girl closed her eyes and smiled, drawing in a breath as a yellow column splurged down from the ceiling to dome out over her head. As Alex read a question out to Kim, Nicola grinned as Lesley's face poked out of the gungy downpour, her hair now coated in a mixture of yellow and green that mingled together as it dripped in dollops on to the floor. Anneka giggled a little nervously at the sight, running her tail through her hands and bouncing on her heels.

Kim moved to the back of the line after getting her question wrong, and Nicola looked up at Alex again as her turn came round again.

"Nicola - what's the more common name for sodium chloride?"

"Salt," she answered, sure this time.

"Yes! Good luck, because you're going back to the booths..." Alex waved her over, and she listened to him continue as she stepped towards the row of cubicles again. "You've tried six of them now and you've got two of the numbers, so you've got 2, 4, 7 and 8 to choose from with a fifty-fifty chance of getting gunged again..."

Nicola stopped, looking along the row of booths for a second and shivering as she looked at the sixth one along that she had just been gunged in, which was still drizzling green stuff from its ceiling. Turning a little to the left, she headed for the fourth one between two similarly messy tanks, putting her hand out to catch the large handle as she ran towards it.

She pulled the door open, slipped around it and flicked it towards her as she stepped on to the metallic surface of the booth's floor, then spun round to face her team mates, hunching down instinctively as the door swung shut in front of her. As it clicked closed, she shut her eyes expectantly, and ducked down further as an electronic beep sounded.

"You're all right!" Alex called to her. Nicola looked up in surprise, realizing that she had picked one of the correct ones, and after hesitating for a moment, pushed the door open again and stepped out as Anneka answered yet another question wrongly. They reached the end of the line behind the mouse girl at the same time, and Nicola glanced to the fingers of dark green slop running over Kim's back as the chipmunk girl answered another question.

"Well, I hate to do it, Lesley," the red wolf announced, and Nicola leaned around Kim to see, "but you're right, so pick a cubicle again - you've got a one in three chance of staying clean this time..."

The chipmunk girl laughed a little as she scampered over away from the others, looking from the lone tank that hadn't been tried on the left to the two on the right. After a moment of thought, she padded over towards the pair of tanks and hesitated, her hand moving from the handle nearest her and the one further over. As she eventually decided to open tank number 7, Nicola glanced over as Kim made for tank at the other end, having answered her question correctly.

"You might want to stay out of there a moment and see if Lesley gets it right, Kim," Alex called over to the mouse girl as she put her hand on the door of the booth. The chipmunk girl was already inside, and had her hands clasped at her mouth as she waited for the door to close. "Because if she stays clean... no!" He stopped in mid-sentence as the gunge tank siren rang out again, and Lesley was engulfed in a sloppy bright green downpour, putting her hands out in front of her to catch the gunge as it domed off her head.

"Kim, whatever happens now we'll know what the last digit is - let's hope you're luckier!" As Alex quickly called out to her, the mouse girl tugged the door of her booth open and turned to take a step backwards inside it, adopting the same pose that she had stood in before, head bowed and face scrunched up in readiness for the gunge pouring on her head. Nicola gasped as the light at the top of the tank buzzed on - but it was yellow.

"Yes! Kim, you picked the right one - you've got all four of the digits now," Alex announced as the mouse girl looked up, smiling in disbelief. The door of booth 7 opened too, revealing the slippery chipmunk girl as she stepped out dripping gunge on to the floor from all over her fur. "Now, quickly, get over there and find the code to let us out!"

Nicola looked over to the door as he pointed towards it, and she dashed with Anneka over towards the panel next to it as they were joined by Kim and Lesley. She hovered her finger over the buttons for a moment before Lesley slipped past her, leaning in to quickly tap out a combination of the numbers they had worked out on the panel. A low buzzer sounded, making her jump.

"Was it one, two, four and nine?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder as she tried another.

Nicola spun round and looked at the lights on top of the messy tanks again. "Yeah," she nodded, and watched the chipmunk girl try another slightly different combination, about to give advice but stopping herself as she saw she was trying every combination in a sequence.

Alex wandered up behind them as the chipmunk girl stabbed at the panel. "You're getting warm, I think..." he said as she tapped out a four, a one, a nine and a two. "You got two right there, you're almost there..."

Lesley didn't show any signs of listening to him, instead concentrating on the sequence that she had been trying. Nicola was counting the number of tries she had made under her breath, and just as she let out a groan of frustration, the panel suddenly gave a high pitched sound and the door hummed open.

"Yes!" Lesley pumped her hands in the air as she jumped a little off the ground, the gunge she had been covered with in the booths being shaken off her hair as she moved. Nicola raised her hand and clapped it with hers in the air as she turned, then looked back at Alex as he moved to look through the door out at the corridor.

"Well done for that, Lesley - and bad luck! You got the most right answers and you just got three tankfuls of gunge to show for it..." She giggled a little as she crossed her arms and ran them down her messy shoulders. Nicola reached to the back of her own head, twitching a little as her hand touched the wet, slimy surface of her hair.

"If you'd had more right answers to the questions then you'd probably have got there a lot quicker, so I can only give you fifty points for that - but that's not bad at all for a first try at a game we weren't even expecting," Alex announced, and Nicola nodded, only half-listening as she glanced to her sides at the mouse and gunge-doused chipmunk compared to the slightly cleaner feline. "So that brings you up to 195 for the round, and 720 for the whole run so far as we head into the final area that we've got to go to... think you can make a special effort for the last few games?"

Nicola nodded again confidently, even though she hadn't been paying attention to their score throughout the game. All she could think of was how the last round was usually made even messier for the teams, and trying to imagine how they could beat what they'd done to them so far.

Alex turned to Anneka, and motioned towards the door. Smiling, she headed past him and stepped towards it. As soon as she had passed him, he suddenly swung around, scooping her up with one hand on her back and another behind her knees. She yelped and then squeaked as he continued to turn in one motion, heading towards the gunge booth that none of them had entered.

"Actually there's just one more thing to do while we're here," the red wolf called over his shoulder above the feline's protests, adjusting his grip as she waggled her legs and squirmed in his grasp. Nicola clapped her hands together and raced over to the tank, overtaking them and swinging the door open as Alex crouched down to put Anneka back down on the ground again. "Come on, Anneka, the others got messy for the good of the team, and I think it's only fair you get the same experience..." he said as the others behind him cheered, one hand still on her back as he gently but firmly nudged her inside.

"Oh..." The jaguar girl whimpered as she stepped tentatively into the gunge booth, sagging her shoulders as she defeatedly shuffled to get underneath the chute in the center of its ceiling. She put her hands gently over her eyes, staying still as Nicola gleefully let go of the door, allowing it to swing slowly closed.

Nicola scampered around to the front to join the others as Alex stepped aside, one hand out towards the cowering feline, who was looking shyly through her hands as the door clicked into place. The gunge tank hooter blared, she closed her hands again, and squeaked as the machine spewed a column of smooth dark green stuff on to her.

After letting the stuff splurge out from her head for a moment, the jaguar girl leaned a little to the side, a lick of thick green liquid across her head as the downpour slopped on to her shoulder, splatting on to her neck and flowing down the left hand side of her chest. She opened her eyes for a fraction of a second before closing them again, taking her messy hands away from her face and stretching them out in front of her as the gunge poured on to one side of her head, hiding half of her embarrassedly grinning face from view as it twitched and splattered over her.

Nicola led another cheer as the slime from the booth's ceiling subsided, Anneka clasping her hands on her head and drumming her feet on the ground as the last gungy blobs trickled out above her. With a sigh, she stepped forwards out from under the chute again, wiping one messy hand across the clear front of the tank as she looked out at the others.

"Now we're really finished here," Alex grinned back at her. As she pushed on the door, he took a step forward to open it for her, his other hand outstretched as she came out flicking the slop on her hands towards her team-mates. Nicola joined in, reaching around to her back and throwing slime back at her. "There's time to give you a quick shower at the water-sprayers, then we're heading across to get to our last area."