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The sixth IZ continues... and makes up for the relative cleanliness of the first round :) Again, a couple of new games and a couple of revivals.

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INDUSTRIAL ZONE - SERIES 3 EPISODE 2 Round 2

Written by Iron-K

With her flashlight aimed at the jaguar girl's feet in front of her, Nicola descended the stairs, feeling the bumped metal surface underneath her footpads as she took each step. After a short descent through the narrow stairway, the wall on the right opened out into a wider space, in which it was too dark to see anything even when she strained her eyes to see.

Looking back at the floor as the stairs ended, she kept her eyes on the circle of light Alex was shining back at them as he made his way across the darkened room. She heard the other girls whispering a little to each other as they got to the bottom of the steps, and carefully tiptoed her way across the floor after the two vague shapes in the darkness in front of her. This area felt warmer than the floor above, and she could hear a continuous series of indistinct mechanical grinding and hissing noises being played from somewhere behind the rusty walls.

Checking over his shoulder to see they were all there, Alex raised his flashlight up and illuminated a shelf on the wall to their left. "Ah," he said cheerfully, and grabbed something lying on it, holding the rectangular object up in his torchlight to show them. "That's the second of the keys - I hardly ever find them where I leave them!"

As the four of them gathered into a group, he waved his flashlight down the wall towards a heavy-looking door with a valve in the center, and moved towards it, one hand on the wall. Nicola walked along beside him, shining her light around but not seeing anything of interest in the gloom.

"I should really take some time to get the lights fixed down here," he remarked as he flipped a switch next to the door ineffectually, then took hold of the wheel in the middle of the door and tugged it around, the squeaking noise eventually stopping as the door clicked open.

"All right - we're nearly there now. It's just down the end here," he said as he manhandled the door aside. Nicola swung her torch into the gap left by it - beyond it was a rusty corridor lit by dim tube lights on the upper walls. A couple of dribbles of yellow stuff leaked from broken pipes running along the walls or seeped from cracks in the ceiling. Alex stepped through the door, dodging past a leak near the frame, and headed off down the corridor.

Nicola moved to follow him, turning towards the thin yellow trickle falling from the ceiling and putting her hand into it. She smiled, turning her hand over as the smooth slimy stuff poured on to it, letting it drip from her fingers for a while before wiping it on her side as she continued down the corridor after the red wolf. After just a few yards, the passage ended and opened out into a small irregularly-angled room.

Alex turned off his flashlight, though the lighting in the room was still dim, and stooped down to leave it face down on the ground. The others did the same as he hauled over a large piece of junk that looked like it may have once have been a cabinet of some sort, and sat down on it as they gathered round.

"So this is the undersea level," he started, holding his hands up. "As you can see it hasn't held up as well to time as the rest of the place did, but most of it still works. And if I can find out which rooms are open to us, we should have four games for you here..."

He pulled the palmtop out of his pocket and tapped it thoughtfully. "So who's going to risk being our first volunteer?" he asked. "Anneka or Nicola, I think it's your turn by now..."

Nicola saw the jaguar girl look at her for a moment, and seized the opportunity. "Yeah, I'll do it," she spoke up.

"Excellent - let me show you what you've just let yourself in for!" Alex picked himself up off his seat, and reached his hand out towards her. Feeling a sudden pang of nerves as she recognized the indication that she was about to be put into an IZ gunge machine, she fought it down, took his hand and skipped over with him towards one of the metallic doors half-hidden in the shadowy corners of the hub area.

"It's the first time the pump room's been opened in years, so I don't think you'll have seen this one before..." he said to her over his shoulder as he reached out for the valve handle in the center of the door, tugging it downwards sharply to loosen it and then spinning it the rest of the way round with a couple of fingers. After a couple of spins it clunked into place, and Nicola swallowed as he pushed the door open, waving her through.

As she carefully lifted her foot over the hatch's threshold, she took in the contents of the room. A few meters away in front of her, a large cylindrical tank with a narrow window in the front protruded down from the ceiling. Its base was slightly curved, and was tipped by a nozzle that pointed down towards an inflatable plastic chair like the one she'd been sitting in for the first game.

She took a couple of steps towards it as she heard the others come in behind her, moving her gaze round the rest of the room. A number of thick vertical pipes were half-set into the walls on the left and right between the entrance and the chair, curving as they reached the floor to run through grooves cut into it, crossing each other a couple of times before turning again to sink fully into the ground. At some point along each one, a plunger-like trigger protruded up the way.

"Any idea what's going to happen to you?" Alex's voice suddenly came from behind her, getting her attention again, and she began to turn round just as he passed by and put an arm on her shoulder to walk her towards the seat. "Don't worry, we won't keep you waiting for long..."

As they walked towards the chair, Nicola noticed a slight depression in the floor for the first time, round and a couple of yards across, right in front of the seat. She made sure that Alex took the first step on to its surface before she put her footpad down on it, but then skipped forwards as she felt the coldness of the metal and bounced quickly into the chair ahead of him.

"Okay, I'll let you get comfortable while I tell the others what they're going to be doing - you three!" He called across the room, beckoning the other three girls towards him as Nicola straightened herself in the seat, shaking her head to get her loose hair out of her eyes and finally looking up into the spout of the gunge reservoir. Drumming her feet on the metal pad as she imagined the thing splurging gallons of slime down on to her, she dropped her gaze back at the group.

"I hope you're not sick of pipes yet after that game that Kim was in, but there are even more of them down here," he started, pointing up at both sides of the room and turning as the others looked at the foot-wide tubes in the walls and floors. "Each one of these eventually leads to the tank positioned precariously above your friend's head, and if they're all left on, eventually it's going to fill to over its safety level and the valve on the bottom will open up."

Nicola nodded as they all looked over at her, and up at the window at the front of the tank that Alex was pointing at. She wriggled again, pushing her feet off the floor and trying her best to get comfortable - the chair was tilted slightly backwards so she faced a little up towards the tank if she leaned back.

"I think Nicola knows what that means for her! The good news is you can slow that process down - when a pipe turns on, you'll get a warning signal -" he swung his arm around to indicate a rotating red light that winked on and off on the ceiling next to one of the pipes, "and you can use these things to block the flow off temporarily." He traced the route of the pipe down as it crossed over the one next to it, then took hold of the trigger next to him and plunged it downwards, shutting off the light. "The bad news is that if you hit one that's on a pipe that hasn't been activated, it'll turn on instead and fill that tank up even faster."

He looked around at the three of them as they nodded back, making sure they understood. "So... I'm going to turn the system on for a hundred seconds, and your objective is to stop the level of gunge from reaching above the line that you can see on the tank up there. If it does, then Nicola's going to get covered in all of it!"

Aware that their eyes were on her again, Nicola looked back up into the mechanism above her to avoid their stare. When watching the show on TV she'd always tried to catch glimpses of the gunge nozzles that were built into the tops of the cubicles and usually just out of view of the cameras, and it felt slightly unreal to see one up close. It was a round slightly protruding hole, a few inches across, and it looked like it was plugged by some sort of cap that would swing open if it was turned on.

"Oh, and..." Nicola looked back at the wolf as he acted just remembering about something, holding a finger up and dashing towards another wheel on the wall. "There's a little something extra for you to worry about if that happens, too," he said, and tugged down on its handle.

There was a shudder from underneath her feet. She jumped, jerking them off the floor as it jolted and a mechanical grinding noise came from the circular depression below her. As she watched, it split into two halves which slowly parted, with green light and special effect smoke rising from it that made her blink as she looked down into the newly revealed hole. She gaped as a murky dark green pool was revealed beneath the separating halves of the cover, and slowly lowered her feet again to dangle just above the slime as she leaned forwards over it, watching the gunk glisten under the lights set in the edges just above its surface.

Lesley scampered over to look down into the gunge vat as well as the two halves of the cover clicked into place, then raised her eyes to look across at Nicola. She met her excited stare, making sure to form her face into a smile again even though her heart was racing.

"So you're going to have just over a minute and a half to stop the tank on the ceiling from filling up, otherwise Nicola's going to get plunged into there - Kim, you've just avoided a similar fate yourself, so I hope that motivates you to save someone else from it..."

"Yeah," the mouse girl nodded, one hand rubbing the back of her head as she nervously looked up at the machine on the ceiling.

Alex moved across the room to the other side, where another switch was mounted on the wall. "All ready?" he asked, and stayed with one hand on it, waiting for them to answer.

Nicola sat up sharply as he pulled on the handle, hearing a pumping noise start up from somewhere beyond the walls. Looking over to the others, she saw two lights immediately start blinking on the ceiling. She shivered as a faint glooping sound started up from above her, imagining the stuff pouring into the tank overhead. Anneka was the first to react, dashing over to look carefully at the route the pipe took down the wall and then pushing on one of the plungers to turn the first light off. As the other girls stood uncertainly, Nicola leaned back and drummed her fingers on the arms of the blowup chair, but then jerked upright again as she saw another alarm light on the opposite side of the room.

"Behind you!" she shouted over the noise from above, waving her arm up to the right. As Lesley dealt with the one next to the pipe that Anneka had turned off, Kim looked over her shoulder, gasped and quickly moved to the switch down the wall from the blinking light. She pushed it down firmly, and a buzzer sounded, making her squeak and almost jump away as the pouring noise from above Nicola got even louder.

"Wrong one!" Alex called from the side of the room. Kim, hands clasped to her mouth, looked over at the tank above Nicola and then quickly back to the pipes, stepping over the switch she had pushed and much more tentatively trying another. Nicola breathed out as this one turned the blinking light off.

"How full is it?" she called, pointing up to the tank above her as the mouse girl glanced over at her.

Alex pushed himself away from his leaning position on the wall before she could answer, and took a couple of steps towards her. "Oh, it's about... just over halfway full and rising," he said nonchalantly. Nicola whimpered a little, knowing that they'd only been going for what seemed like a few seconds, and looked down at the tub of gloop inches beneath her feet, fairly sure that she was about to find out what a gunge bath felt like.

She looked back up at her team-mates as they watched the lights, hesitated and looked at each other as each one came on and eventually dashed from one trigger to another. Nicola was aware of the awful glooping noise that was slowly rising in pitch above her head every time another light turned on. Trying to look calm on the outside, she sank back into the chair, kicking against the front of the chair gently with her heels.

Another buzzer made her jerk up. "No!" Alex called over its noise as a guilty-looking Kim hesitantly turned around to look at Nicola again. The red wolf took a couple of steps away from the vat to look at the level of the tank. "And I think you might have just pushed it over the edge..."

Nicola tensed, raising her feet to instinctively curl up a little in the chair as the sound of the liquid above her got louder. After a couple of seconds she looked up as far as she could without moving her head, just seeing the cap of the gunge chute above her on the edge of her vision. As it stayed closed and the noise subsided, she slowly relaxed again, dangling her feet down and balling her hands next to her mouth.

"She's all right! But you're going to have to work quickly to keep her out of there..." Alex hadn't finished speaking before the next ceiling light turned on.

"Come on!" Nicola encouraged, squirming and adjusting her tail behind her as the three of them stood looking for where the pipe ran down the wall and across the floor. After a couple of seconds, Lesley dived forwards, but jumped at the blare of a loud alarm.

Nicola's mouth dropped open as a pair of red warning lights flashed on the base of the tank she was sitting under. She dared to glance up, only catching a glimpse of the cap snicking aside before she squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head. Before she had time to think, her head was pushed down underneath a heavy wave of thick liquid that suddenly split and glooped outwards on to her shoulders, and behind her closed eyes she was aware of a wave of it splurging out forwards from her head and blocking the studio lights.

She hunched her shoulders and squeaked as she felt the glutinous downpour slithering down the back of her neck and oozing over the strap of her bikini top as it made its way down her back. As it sputtered a little from side to side over her, she raised a hand through the dome to her forehead to protect her eyes, listening to the continuous thick spattering noise that the stuff made as it slapped against the plastic seat.

Leaning back a little in the buckling, bouncing chair, she felt the wave of slime slump over her face, and turned her head to shake the stuff off her muzzle as she instinctively held the hand on her forehead up against the cold gungy torrent pouring relentlessly into her chest and lap, soaking into her fur and swimwear as it splatted outwards. She opened her eyes and flicked them to the side just for a moment to see the slimy green deluge pouring on to her, then closed them again and ducked her head back underneath the flow.

The chair lurched, and Nicola suddenly remembered about the tank in front of her. She pulled her head out from under the slowing gunge, her hands shooting back to grip the arms of the seat as the back of it rose and it began to tip forwards. "W..." she started, but it turned into a scream as she slipped easily off the slick plastic seat, throwing her hands out in front of her and turning her face away as she fell towards the murky green pool.

She felt her hands gloop under the cool surface just before she hit the gunge with a smack, the surface seeming to buckle just before it enveloped her. She squeaked involuntarily at the feeling of the cool slop suddenly soaking into her fur, flailing to keep her head above the surface as she felt the wave she had made falling in glop back from the sides and surround her.

Breathing out heavily and tilting her head as far up as she could, feeling her nose just above the surface of the slop, she kicked her legs in the thick liquid and got her footing on the bottom of the vat before carefully beginning to stand up. Slowly, she rose out of the pool, spitting the gunk away from her mouth and grimacing a little as she felt the cold gloop dripping from the ends of her heavy hair. She pulled her arms out from underneath the surface, and opened her eyes a little, catching a glimpse of the green surface in front of her as she shook blobs of gunge away from her hands. After she had got them as clean as she could, she reluctantly moved them to her face to wipe her eyes, dragging her hands down her soaked muzzle and then dropping them back into the gunge vat again.

Shuddering at the heavy, gooey feeling of the stuff soaking through and lying on her fur, she opened her eyes and saw her team mates gathered a couple of paces away from the pool, Lesley moving forwards and bending down, hands on her knees, to look at her more closely. She managed a weak smile up at her, then jerked her hand up from the pool to slop a wave of the green stuff towards her, taking a couple of paces back as she overbalanced from the movement and resting her head against the base of the gungy chair she had been sitting in.

"Well, girls..." Alex's voice made her head turn as he approached from the left. "Sorry to say it, but I think Nicola would agree with me that you didn't do too well there..."

Nicola nodded, stepping forwards again to reach the middle of the vat. As she moved she wriggled her hips a little, watching as she made the stuff wobble strangely from side to side, and gasping as it lapped up and down her tummy. She dipped her arms a little further down and then pulled them out in front of her, watching the heavy green gunge slither around them and drip in dollops back into the pool.

"You lasted nearly three quarters of a minute, so I can give you forty points for the effort," Alex's voice came from above her, and facing forwards, she watched Kim and Anneka's feet move aside to let him through. Tilting her head gradually up to try and look him in the eye, squinting a little and shielding her eyes from the overhead light, she could just make out his hand reaching down to her. "Want to get out of there?" he asked.

She smiled and nodded as she moved her hands to her shoulders, brushing the goop off them and sliding her fingers underneath the straps of her bikini to get the stuff out from underneath. After dragging her hands down her arms and trying to flick the collected goo back into the vat, she stretched upwards towards him. As their hands connected, she instantly slipped out of her grasp - she stretched upwards and stood on her toes, this time getting a grip on his wrists as he hung onto hers.

Gradually, Alex hauled her upwards, the gunk feeling like it was sucking at her as she was pulled out of it. She tried to keep her sodden tail up, silently hoping that her soaked bikini bottoms would stay on as her hips came free of the pool. As her legs became visible again she bent them upwards, eeping as the green stuff slid down them and dripped in gooey strings back down into the vat, then swung them out in front of her to walk a little up the vat's wall as he helped her over back on to the floor.

He let go of her wrists and she did the same, wobbling a little as she got her balance and making sure to slide her gungy hands down as much of the fur on his arms as she could before he stepped away. Slowly, she looked down at her green-plastered fur, holding her hands out to the sides and watching the muddy blobs of it roll down the gooey layer covering her entire body from the waist down.

"You ever been told you look good in green, Nicola?" she heard Alex say. She looked up to face him again, grinning slyly as she moved her hands back to shove her gungy hair behind her head, then wrung it out and flicked both hands forwards to throw two handfuls of the gunk in his direction. Chuckling a little to himself, he put an arm up to deflect the green spatter, then pointed towards the door and began heading towards it.

With gunge still dripping from her hair and trickling down over her, Nicola squelched towards the room's entrance after him. After hauling it open, he paused, then turned.

"Anneka," he called, clapping his hands together.

"Yeah?" she answered as she came forwards, and Nicola noticed her glancing at her gunge-coated fur.

"We've got a game for the whole team now, but you're going to be the one in the driving seat - are you ready for it?"

"I guess..." she laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of her neck under her hair. Alex swung the door the rest of the way aside and let her through, then followed her, holding the door open for the others. Nicola moved through it last, sliding her hands around each other and still feeling the green slime slither between them.

Alex led them out of the dark corner of the main room, following the wall around to a second corridor. As they rushed after him down the dimly-lit passage, Nicola's attention was caught by a six foot high booth on the right hand wall, a large lever sticking up from the floor next to it. She kept her eyes on it as they ran past, grinning as she imagined one of them in there.

She turned to face the front again as they rounded another corner to the right, and ducked through an archway of girders to reach a slightly larger space at a dead end, a few meters across from their left to their right. Alex was waiting for them, and reached out to take Anneka's hand as she came through the entrance, leading her off to one side of the room.

Nicola could see where they were going to be put immediately - on their left, a row of three large blowup chairs were arranged in a row inside a large rectangular recess in the wall, making the arrangement look a lot like the first game they had played on the show. To the right, another seat was positioned behind an odd-looking mechanical contraption topped by three upright levers, and the jaguar girl was being led towards it, her tail moving from side to side behind her as she fiddled nervously with her bikini top with her free hand. After seating her, Alex moved back towards the three remaining team members.

"Now, I know I said Anneka was going to be in control," he said as he took his palmtop out again, "but I'm afraid it's you three who are going to be in danger here..."

As he raised the device up, the chairs jolted, and Nicola watched as the entire slightly raised platform they were on, a few yards wide, slid smoothly out of the wall recess towards them. As they slowed, Alex indicated to them to sit down, and with a grin on her face she headed for the middle one as Kim moved around to take a seat on her left and Lesley slid nervously into the one on her right. They all looked ahead at their team leader, who moved her gaze between them and the levers in front of her.

"All right, let's put you into position while we explain the rules of the game," Alex announced, pointing to the back wall just before the platform started moving gradually backwards again. "Here's how it works - I've got five facts here that each apply to one of you three, based on what you told us when you applied to come on. Anneka, what you have to do is pick the correct team member to match up to the fact that I read out from here."

Nicola watched the jaguar girl nod as Alex moved around to stand beside her, then twisted round in her seat to see where they were going. She noticed the others following her actions. As they approached, a grin spread across her face as a set of three large pipes pointed down from the ceiling were lowered into view, each placed right above where each of them were heading. She turned to the sides to watch the others' slightly worried expressions, then looked back at Anneka, who was looking at the newly revealed grimy gunge pipes with her hands cupped over her mouth.

"So..." Alex started again, strolling round to her other side as she shook her head a little. "To say which of your friends you think is the right answer, you've got to pull one of these levers, for Lesley, Nicola or Kim," he explained, pointing to each handle in turn. "If you've picked the right one, then you'll get twenty points and nothing'll happen to them. But if you pull a wrong lever, you're going to activate the gunge above your chosen teammate."

Anneka nodded, more confident than before. Nicola squeezed the arms of her seat as the platform stopped again, looking up for a moment into the barrel of the gunge pipe. She rubbed her feet together, feeling the remains of the gooey stuff from the vat slip around her toes.

"As there's little chance you'll know the answers for these for sure, Anneka, you'll have to use your judgment to guess - how do you think you are at that?"

"Not good," she replied, her hands placed on the device in front of her.

Alex laughed a little. "Well, don't worry - if you get them all covered in gunge I'm sure they'll be very forgiving..."

Nicola shook her head emphatically, making the jaguar girl whimper a little as she straightened up, ready to listen to Alex's first question.

"Ready?" he asked. "First one - when they were in junior school, which one of these girls took ballet lessons for the longest time?" he read out from the screen.

Nicola had never had ballet lessons, and realized that meant that if she was picked then she would definitely be gunged. She tried not to cringe as Anneka looked between them all, one finger tapping over her mouth as she considered.

"Was it Lesley?" she asked. Nicola glanced over at the small chipmunk girl, who winced a little and looked tentatively upwards.

"Don't ask me, pull the lever and find out!" Alex encouraged.

Lesley wriggled up in the chair, arms by her sides with her eyes closed as Anneka grabbed the lever on her left and tugged it towards her. Nicola felt herself leaning and turning away a little as it clicked back into place, and as it moved back upright, an electronic bell sound came from the speakers somewhere above them.

"You were right! She was only in it for a couple of months, but the others never did it at all. That's twenty points, Anneka, and they're all still clean, but there are still four more to go. This one's along the same lines - who out of these three said they could play the most musical instruments?"

Again, all their eyes were on Anneka as she reached for the levers in front of her, her hand hovering between them. Nicola tried to remember if she'd even mentioned any of her keyboard or bass lessons on the application form she'd filled in months ago, and was still thinking about it when the jaguar girl reached over to tug the lever on her right.

Kim gasped, then glanced up quickly before hunching down a little, watching the lever slowly move upright again. As it clunked back into place another noise was played - this time a deep buzzer - and Anneka jumped in her seat as she realized her mistake.

Nicola watched as the mouse girl smiled through clenched teeth, then bowed her head forwards and stared at her lap. A column of purple stuff fell from the end of the pipe above her and she closed her eyes, her mouth opening in a silent squeak, as the gunge splashed outwards from the back of her neck, making a wet smacking noise as it lapped against her fur, the back of the seat and the floor of the recess they were sitting in. Tentatively, she moved her head up again to look back at Anneka, her whole head going under the slimy downpour for a moment before it shut off, leaving the gloop dripping slowly from her hair.

"Afraid not," Alex said simply as the mouse girl ran a hand down the back of her neck, gathering up some of the ooze and flicking it to the floor. "It was actually Nicola that mentioned two of them on her form."

Nicola nodded, then looked to her left again, watching the translucent purple slime drip and slither in strings from the back of Kim's seat. She hadn't been completely under the downpour, and her back and shoulders had taken the worst of it, but the gooey stuff was slowly creeping its way down her large chest from her shoulders as she watched their team leader pick again.

Suddenly, Nicola realized that the host had asked Anneka another question, and quickly faced the front just in time to see her reach a hand out and pull the lever for her gunge pipe. With no idea whether she had answered correctly or not, she tensed herself up and sat straight, knowing it was unlikely that she would be the correct answer twice in a row and hoping that her nerves didn't show to the others as she watched the switch intently.

She drew her breath in as it neared upright, and then felt almost disappointed as the 'correct' bell sounded. She swallowed, rocking back and forward a little as she tried to calm down.

"Another one right, Anneka!" Alex congratulated as the jaguar girl smiled to herself. "I know you got Kim a little messy, but you're doing well so far - can you keep it up? Who's the youngest out of these three?"

Nicola immediately glanced sideways at Lesley, who looked like she was trying her best to ignore the attention, sliding her feet a little back and forward on the surface of the platform in front of her. Looking away from the chipmunk girl to Anneka again, she saw the jaguar girl's hand already tugging on the lever, and even though she thought her choice was fairly safe, she found herself holding her breath as it rose back into position.

At the sound of the harsh buzzer, Nicola's mouth dropped open, and she quickly looked over at the equally surprised-looking chipmunk girl next to her who just had time to clasp her hands over her face before a click sounded from the ceiling and a column of orange gunge splurged down from the overhead pipe. She flinched a little down as it hit the top of her head, messily splattering outwards in an upturned bowl shape on to the floor around her and into her lap. Nicola watched her wriggle in the seat through the slimy translucent curtain, keeping her head underneath the gooey downpour until it subsided to a drizzle that played across her shoulders, beads of gunk slithering around her neck.

"Sorry," Alex said as the slimy chipmunk girl took her hands away from her face, wiping the dripping orange stuff away from her forehead and wriggling her fingers before putting them back on the arms of the seat. "Lesley was born in '89, she's nineteen, and it's actually Kim who's the youngest..."

Kim looked as surprised as Nicola - she would never have guessed that Lesley was older than either of them. But she quickly let the thought go as Alex read out the final question.

"This one's a good one - are you ready for it, you three?" Nicola nodded slowly.

"Anneka, which of these girls... I'm going to have to make sure the others don't hear until you've chosen..." Alex moved towards the nervous-looking feline, crouched down with his hand placed between his face and the others, and mumbled something to her.

Nicola sank back and wriggled a little in the blowup chair, tapping her dangling toes on the floor as the jaguar girl looked between the three of them. Eventually, she raised a hand, and Nicola swallowed as she closed it around the middle lever, the one for her gunge pipe.

"OK, pull it back and hold it there, and I'll tell the others..." Nicola looked up into the nozzle of the pipe above her as the feline did so, and looked tensely over at Alex, who looked like he was trying not to laugh as he read the question out. "The question was - 'when in school, which of these girls faked being in a plaster cast for two weeks to get out of football in the gym class?' Do you want to deny that now, Nicola?"

"I didn't!" she exclaimed, pulling herself upright on the seat after the brief shock of realizing that she was going to be gunged. She looked to her sides at the other girls, seeing if either of their faces would give them away.

"All right, either you're lying and Anneka's going to earn another twenty points or you're about to get gunged like Kim and Lesley," Alex said quickly, signaling to their team leader and then waiting as the lever slowly clicked back into place. "What's it going to be..." Nicola felt her heart speed up as it neared upright, and though she knew it was coming, jumped at the sound of the buzzer.

"No!" she heard Alex say as she glanced up to the pipe, then closed her eyes, grinning to herself as she heard a slurping noise from above. Half a second later, she yelped as the cool wave of thick slime smacked on to her head and shoulders.

She smiled to herself but made sure to keep her lips firmly closed as she felt the gunge splatter on to her arms and lap, imagining it doming out over her like she'd just seen happen to the others. Jerking her head forwards a little as the deluge slumped down over her face, she bowed down and shook her head as she felt the last of the slop dribble on to her neck and back.

Nicola lifted her feet off the surface of the platform a little as she felt it slide slowly forwards again, taking the three of them out from under the nozzles. Using her forefingers to wipe the thick liquid away from her eyes, she blinked them open and saw her front and lap covered in a layer of bright yellow gunge that was mingling into her green-coated fur, her dripping hair sticking messily to her chest and shoulders. She picked it off and tucked it behind her head again, and as the platform came to a stop, she slithered forwards on the seat and put her feet on the ground.

"No, don't get up yet! Don't get up!" Alex held out a hand towards them. Nicola hesitated, then leaned back again, sliding back in the slimy seat to get upright. "Because..." The red wolf drew the word out, walking over so he was beside the jaguar girl opposite them.

"There's still quite a lot of gunk up there, so we're going to give your team leader a choice," he said, placing an arm around the feline, who whimpered, turning her head away. "Anneka, you can either let your team go free now and take 40 points for the game, or if you want to make up for twenty of the points you lost in your wrong answers..." He pointed down at a button in the middle of the podium in front of her, which was blinking on and off. "You can send them all back under there and start it up again."

Nicola's mouth opened in surprise, and she turned in the seat to look back up at the large pipes a few feet behind them. As her messy team mates looked round to see as well, she faced the jaguar girl again, who was looking hesitantly at the domed button in front of her.

"What's it going to be?" Alex prompted her. Nicola watched Anneka's face, making eye contact with her as she drummed her fingers on the podium. After a few seconds, Nicola cringed a little but grinned inwardly to herself as she watched the jaguar girl cup her hand over the flashing control.

"Sorry, everyone..." she giggled, then thumped it down before she changed her mind. Her hands flew to her mouth to cover her smile as a loud hissing noise played and special effect smoke rose up at the back of the recess opposite her. Nicola looked from side to side at the other two girls, exchanging excited and nervous glances before she twisted around to watch as they were dragged slowly back towards the gunge-spattered machine.

As they got near the edge of the alcove again, a light hissing noise started up, and Nicola turned fully in the seat, getting up on her knees and leaning on its back as she saw three sprays of yellow foam begin pouring in from high on the walls and ceiling, the top one being swivelled lazily back and forwards across the width of the recess as the stuff fell in fluffy piles on the wet floor. Hearing a click from above them, Nicola looked up and gasped as a wide trough that she hadn't seen above the front of the recess slowly tilted down towards them, releasing a wide curtain of green slime that fell to hit the back of her chair with a heavy spattering noise.

She quickly turned around to sit again, getting a glimpse of Anneka's awestruck expression before she yelped as she was carried backwards underneath the shower of cold gunge, feeling it slither over her head then watching it fall across her vision as it splattered into her lap. Hearing the squeaks of the other two girls next to her as the same thing happened to them, she stuck her legs out in front of her to catch the remnants of the slimy downpour on her bare feet, wriggling her toes and feeling the stuff slip between them as they went through.

A wet ticklish feeling started at the back of her neck as the foam spray from the ceiling licked against her, and as she reached around to feel it the spray came back again and lingered on her a little, pouring a mass of yellow stuff on to her head and shoulders that stuck to her already gungy fur. With one hand up on her forehead to protect her eyes, she leaned forwards and looked to the side at the chipmunk girl, who had both hands up to her right hand side to try and block some of the foam flooding down on to her from the wall, shoulders and head shaking as she squirmed underneath the stuff. Suddenly a low alarm blared and a shadow fell across her just before a downpour of heavy blue gunge splurged on to her from the pipe above her head.

Nicola just had time to jump in surprise as the chipmunk girl shrieked, her hands flailing for a moment before she put them to her face, and then the alarm sounded another time. She closed her eyes, felt the foam from above her pass over her again, and tensed up, smiling a little before feeling the wet, heavy smack of another flood of gunge hitting her head.

As the heavy paintlike stuff oozed down her hair, making her bow forwards a little under its weight as it slithered around her shoulders and coated her fur, she was half aware of a third siren and a squeak from her left indicating that Kim's gunge pipe had turned on as well. She tilted her head from side to side a little, raising her arms in the air and whooping as she felt the gunk slither off the sides of her muzzle, moving her head to shake the clinging droplets off. Hearing another alarm, she moved her head to try and guess where it was coming from, then squealed again as she felt another cool gooey torrent slap against the back of her neck, slopping up and around her shoulders a little.

Stretching forwards a little more and picking her hair out of her face as the torrent from above subsided to a drizzle, she wiped at her eyes and then opened them to see she'd been coated in a flood of deep red gunge that was mingling with the green and yellow on her fur to form a murky brown mixture. She twisted a little round, closing one eye as she squirmed against the continuing spray of yellow stuff that was coming from the back of the tank.

With her shoulders hunched as the yellow goo slithered down her back, she glanced towards Kim as the dome of green gunge splurging out from the mouse girl's head gradually came inwards. As she watched she drummed her feet in front of her and moved her hands up from her face to run them over her hair, blinking and looking back at her through the slop on her face. She leaned over the arm of the chair as the last thick dribble of gunge from the ceiling splotted on to her shoulder, joining the gradually subsiding yellow torrent. She laughed through an open-mouthed expression of shock, looking down at the gooey lime green mixture she had been coated with.

Nicola felt the platform start moving again, taking them out from underneath the dripping gunge machine, and she slithered around in the seat to look at Lesley. The chipmunk girl was leaning forwards, her sloppy hair over her face, the two colors of slime she had been coated in mixing together as they dripped down her fur to form a sickly green. As the three of them were carried back out, Nicola got up off the seat and walked forwards, cascades of gunge sluicing off her fur behind her and pointing straight at Anneka with one slimy finger.

"You!" she snarled playfully, hardly able to keep in her laughter as Anneka's shoulders shook even as she was trying to look apologetic. Mouth open in a smile, she glanced back at the other two, who had waited for the seats to stop moving before beginning to push themselves slimily off them. The once clean alcove behind them was now completely coated in gunge and foam, the pipes on the ceiling still dripping the remains of their contents slowly on to the floor.

"You certainly showed them, Anneka!" Alex laughed as they struggled to their feet. "If you're interested, by the way, our plaster-cast faker was... Kim." He pointed at the gungy mouse girl, who cringed a little, not looking up but concentrating on wiping her hands down her messy fur. "But I think that finale gave her her just reward for that anyway..." The mouse girl nodded slowly. As she moved her head, drizzles of gunk poured from all over her face, the fur on her chin and her ears.

Alex spun on his heel to turn to the feline again, strolling casually towards her seat. "Now, speaking of you, Anneka..." he said as he offered her his hand to help her stand up, "I think your team mates are going to want to get you back for that, because I can't help noticing that you got a bit of a splash five games ago and then haven't been in danger since..."

"Yeah..." The jaguar girl looked a little worried, but nodded in agreement as she looked at the ground, dragging one toe around in a circle.

"So... especially given what's just happened to you three, don't you think it's time we made up for that?"

"Yeah!" Nicola led the shout in response, one hand in the air. The feline's face cracked into a nervous grin, her eyes still on the floor for a moment before she looked up at him as he continued.

"And you've actually already seen where it's going to happen - did you see that gunge tank we passed on the way in here?"

"Oh, no..." she giggled, shivering as he reached down and took her hand.

"Yes, you're going in there - come on!"

Anneka squeaked as he took off, stumbling for a step before her legs caught up and she allowed herself to be led back out of the room through the girder archway. Looking forward to seeing her in a game at last, Nicola did her best to keep right behind them, plodding a little with the weight of the gunk coating her fur.

They headed back around the corner and reached the gunge tank again. As Alex swung its clear plastic half-height door open and showed the jaguar girl inside, Nicola stepped around to look at it.

Unlike the elaborate machines they'd seen so far, it looked much more like the ones she'd seen on the game shows she'd watched when she was younger - it was a perspex box, about six feet high, with a smaller tank on the top that was full of a mixture of red and green slime. Peering up at the gunge chute on the main booth's ceiling, she noticed a couple of extra nozzles on either side, as well as a few wide pipes jutting into the tank from the wall just behind it. Curious, she crouched down a little further to peer into them, then stepped back to join the other two. Letting go of Alex's hand, Anneka sat down on the chair underneath the main gunge pipe, swishing her tail and whimpering a little as the door was closed on her.

"All right, Anneka - now that you're comfortable..." he grinned at her giggling reaction as he moved towards the lever to the side. "The last game tested how good you were at judging your team mates, but this time you're going to have to use your mind to save yourself. I'm going to be putting some logic puzzles and riddles to you..." - the jaguar girl visibly cringed again - "and answering them correctly will keep you clean. But before we start, the first question is... how well do you think you can do?"

He put his hand on the top of the lever, and Nicola saw that an arc on the wall behind it, just below an LED display board, was colored in three sections of green, yellow and red. Anneka turned towards him as he spoke again. "This lever selects what that tank does, as well as how difficult the game's going to be. You're going to get twenty points for each right answer, but you'll lose twenty for getting anything wrong. On the easy setting, you've got to get sixty points or that tank of gunge above your head will open. In the middle, you'll need eighty points to avoid getting a foam bath as well from the pipes behind you... and up here on the hardest setting... there's a bit of a surprise if you fail to get one hundred points."

The team watched the feline wriggle back a little in the seat, looking up at the gunge pipe looming over her and then twisting to glance at the pipes above and behind her head.

"What's it going to be?" Alex prompted.

"Put it on the highest!" Nicola called out delightedly, laughing at the end of the word as Anneka jumped. The other two joined in with her encouragement, and the feline ran her hand nervously through her conspicuously clean hair as she looked over at the red wolf poised beside the lever.

"It's going to have to be Hard," she said, a little twinge of nerves in her voice.

"You sure?" he asked, placing his hand on top of the switch.

"I think they're deciding for me," she answered, pointing at the three cheering girls in front of her.

"Well, normally I'd say here that it's up to you and not them, but on this occasion... I'd agree with them." Anneka gasped, laughing at the remark as Alex tugged the lever towards himself into the red zone. Nicola led the cheer as he paced away from the tank, taking his palmtop out of his pocket.

"Okay - you know how it's going to work. You're going to have two minutes in there, and each correct answer's going to earn you twenty points but every wrong answer or pass will knock points off again. You've got to get up to a hundred to be let out of there keeping your fur clean." He looked up from the screen. "So I think, realistically, you're not going to be able to afford any wrong answers."

The jaguar girl bit her lip nervously, nodding and curling her toes, dragging her feet back across the floor of the tank.

"And just in case you don't make it," he continued, holding out his hand towards her, "I mentioned there was a bit of a surprise, and I think it's only fair for you to know what you're up against..."

He jabbed the device in the air and pressed something on it, and Nicola looked up in surprise as a section of the wall above and behind the tank began sliding away. Anneka turned in the seat, pushing herself around with her feet, and leaned over to look up as the moving panel revealed the rectangular side of an enormous gunge reservoir, about as large as the area of the tank she was sitting in up to the height of the door.

The feline slowly turned back to the rest of the team, and Nicola giggled a little at her horrified expression and exchanged looks with Kim and Lesley. The red wolf moved towards the newly revealed tank, reaching up to it and pulling down a bunch of wide hose-like things that extended off its front.

"I know you might think we're going over the top here, but we just can't let you get away with staying as clean as you've been for this long," he said, connecting one of the thin, wide ends to a slot on the top of the tank, just behind the now much smaller-looking box on its ceiling. Anneka watched him, cringing with her hands held to her mouth and shoulders shaking, as he leaned down to slide one on to the side and then walked around with the last one, flicking it over the tank as he went to connect it on the other side. "It's nothing personal, but if you do lose the game, we don't want to waste the opportunity..." He slid the last flexible pipe on to the side, and straightened. "There. Ready?" he asked, pacing backwards to where he was standing before, holding the computer up in front of him.

"No," Anneka answered simply, but then let out a giggling whimper.

"I'm sure you'll be fine! Let's start." Alex shifted his finger on the pad and the display behind the lever began counting down. The jaguar girl gasped and looked at the timer for a second as he continued, "Remember I was asking Lesley about chessboards earlier? If you put a grain of rice on the first square of one, two on the next, and kept on going like that doubling each time, how many grains would be on the one on the end of the first row?"

Anneka pulled herself together rapidly, and tapped her foot as she thought. "There are eight in a row, aren't there?"

"I'm meant to be asking the questions!" smirked the red wolf in response. "But... yes."

Nicola scoffed a little under her breath, hoping he wouldn't be that soft on her throughout the game. Anneka was holding the fingers of one hand in the other as she mentally counted, nodding her head.

"A hundred and twenty... eight," she risked.

"Absolutely right. That's one!" The feline's hair flew behind her head as she glanced another time at the display on the wall behind her, smiling as the number 20 was displayed next to the timer. "Next question, you might know this one - if you have a drawer full of red, blue and green socks, and you reach into it in the morning when it's pitch dark, how many do you have to pull out before you're certain to have a pair?

The jaguar girl rocked back and forth a little, her eyes fixed on the ceiling of the tank as she moved her fingers along with her thoughts again.

"Er, four?" she said carefully.

"Two correct! You might just be on a winning streak," Alex congratulated as he quickly raised the palmtop back to eye level. "Ah, this is an interesting one - can you name any word in our language that contains all of the five vowels?"

Anneka pursed her lips, then leaned back, closing her eyes as she swished her tail behind her. The others watched as her lips moved in the vowel shapes, running through them in her head while trying to stay calm. After a few moments, she looked back at him again glumly. "No idea. Pass," she sighed.

"Sorry... I'll tell you some of the words I would have accepted later on!" Alex looked down at the screen again as the score display returned to twenty.

Nicola nervously rocked on the balls of her feet as Alex read out another puzzle, their team leader squirming and wriggling in the gunge tank as she thought about her answers. Despite her nerves, she managed to get two more right in a row and the display read 60 as the timer reached forty seconds.

Wandering over behind him, Nicola stood on her tiptoes to try and see over his shoulder as he read from the screen. "You just need two more right in a row now! Here's the first - if you have the digits 4 and 7, what math symbol can you put between them to get a result that's bigger than 4 but smaller than 7?"

"Urgh," the jaguar groaned frustratedly. She seemed to have heard this one before, but couldn't remember the answer to it, and spent a few seconds rubbing her forehead in thought, then thumping her palm lightly against it.

"If it helps..." Alex spoke up again, making the panicked-looking jaguar look straight at him as she waited for him to continue. Nicola shook her head at the idea of him giving another clue, knowing that they were meant to be on the same side but really wanting to see her get gunged. "If it helps," he repeated, "think of... the massive amount of gunge and foam that's above your head ready to splurge all over you if you don't get this right within the next twenty seconds..."

Nicola opened her mouth in a laugh along with the others at the unexpected turn, and Anneka winced, screwing up her face, then looked up at the collection of nozzles above her. "I don't know," she gave up, putting one hand over her eyes and waving the other one in front of her.

Alex drew air in through his teeth. "A decimal point! Which would give you four point seven..."

The jaguar girl sagged, growling frustratedly as the score counter on the right blipped back to forty.

"That's another twenty points off, and I think victory and staying clean are sort of slipping away from you here, but you might be able to get a few points back..."

"Oh..." Anneka put her hands on the front of the seat underneath her and gripped the edge, her knees jiggling as she drummed her feet on the floor. She whimpered as she dared to glance over at the timer, knowing now what was about to happen to her, but she tried to concentrate on the last question as it was read out to her. She listened intently, nodding at each word, then sank back, closed her eyes and thought, her fingers tapping on the underside of the seat. Eventually she opened her eyes, bit her lip and shrugged.

"No idea?" he asked. She shook her head, smiling a little, but shuddered again at the thought of what was about to come. The timer hit ten seconds and an urgent beep began sounding as it steadily ticked closer to zero.

"Well, you did quite well," Alex announced, putting the palmtop away and speaking quickly and loudly over the electronic noise. "You've earned forty points for the team, and I think that's an admirable effort under the circumstances. Wasn't it?" he turned to prompt the rest of the team, who nodded and joined in as he clapped his hands together.

The jaguar shifted nervously, looking embarrassed at the attention. "You've got three seconds left now, so... well, have fun." He stepped back. Anneka bowed her head forwards, bringing her hands up to cover her face as her black hair spilled over her shoulders. A harsh hooter blared over the noise of the timer, and the pretty jaguar girl flinched before being instantly engulfed by a huge wave of foam and gunge spewed from the walls and top of the tank.

Nicola jumped, punching the air as the slimy waves played over Anneka, making the shape of her squirming body just visible through the curtains of green and white stuff as they splattered messily off her. The pipes at the sides of the tank were pouring green slime over the sides of her tummy and into her lap, with a third wide downpour and two gently rotating streams of thick white foam falling on to her head and shoulders from the top of the booth. After a few seconds she jerked her head forwards out of the deluge, her hair painted in a smooth layer of shining thick green stuff and hanging over her eyes above her wide, shocked mouth. The tank was beginning to fill up, and as her hands went out to the sides to balance herself she raised her feet out of the sloppy mixture, the stuff drizzling off her toes before she dipped them back in to the rising pool.

The jaguar girl shook her head a little, raising her arms slowly through the gunge sprays from the sides and bringing them to her head. She tentatively pushed her hair out the way, wiping down her face, but as she took her hands away the downpour from the ceiling twitched forwards and slumped over her face again, slopping down the sides of her muzzle and sliding thickly down her coated hair.

A giggling whimper was just audible above the continuing sound of the klaxon, and the jaguar girl put her hands down again, leaning her head further forwards and letting the green glop rain down on her neck and shoulders and slide down her bare back. She sloshed her feet lazily around in circles, watching as her knees disappeared under the light green foamy gunge mixture and shrieked with laughter as it crept up around her.

Slowly, the green stuff spewing from the sides eased off, sputtering a little as the streams died back. Anneka wiped down her sides with the backs of her hands, looking out at the others from under her slimy hair as she straightened up again. She leaned back as the downpour from above subsided as well, leaving only the sprays of white foam brushing her shoulders and piling up on top of the gooey mixture she was sitting in.

The alarm sounded again, and Nicola jerked her head up to look as the slime in the smaller reservoir on the tank's ceiling bubbled. The gungy jaguar girl glanced up as well, then her hands shot to her ears and she bowed her head down as the shadow of a column of gunge fell over her. As soon as she'd closed her eyes it hit her hair and then splattered outwards in a dome shape that twitched as she squirmed around underneath the downpour. The red and green colors mingled into a sickly brown as the stuff slapped against the plastic walls of the tank and spilled outwards over its front.

The dome around Anneka came inwards as the stream from above slowed a little, and it was joined by two thin streams from the sides of the ceiling that splurged on to her shoulders, trickling down in sloppy streams over her chest and back as they played slightly backwards and forwards across her. Carefully, she leaned forward, one gungy hand sliding around to her forehead to stop the slime flowing over her face as she blinked her eyes open. She looked out at her team mates again, managing a sheepish grin as the last blobs of the gunge from above her glopped on to her messy hair, slithering down the back and sides of her head as she wiped the slime from around her eyes.

Sighing and smiling again as the two diagonal gunge streams also sputtered and slowed to drizzles beside her, the jaguar girl shook her head and then looked up at Alex as drops of red and green gunge rolled down from all over her hair and shoulders to join with the thick surface of the gunge bath. Relaxing, she dipped her arms under the surface, then weakly raised one sloppy hand out of the mixture to acknowledge the rest of the team, all whooping and cheering for her. After a moment, she shook the worst of the gunk off her hand and reached for a strand of her soaked and messy hair, picking it off her face and tucking it back behind her ear with a squeamish giggle.

Alex, smiling from ear to ear, stepped forwards from where he'd retreated when the gunging began. "I think that makes up for you staying so clean until now," he remarked.

Nicola looked at the helpless messy jaguar girl inside the tank, the half of her visible above the green slime bath covered in the same gloopy mixture of red and green that painted the tank's walls beside and behind her. A couple of blobs of foam still sputtered out of the pipes at the back and tumbled down to float on the surface. "Just about," she agreed as she watched her raise her gunge-coated hands to try and clean her head up a little again. She raised her feet through the gunk and pressed them against the front of the tank, making the pads of her toes and tips of her soles just visible behind the plastic door.

"Come on, I'll give you a hand to get out of there..." Alex came forwards again and Anneka wriggled in the gunge as she put her feet back on the floor, her arms held up in front of her for balance and drizzling the thick slime back into the pool as she tried to squirm upwards. Alex leaned in and helped tug her upwards a little, then she squeaked as he put his arms around her waist and pulled her on to his shoulder. Nicola half-grimaced, half-grinned at the muddy glooping noise the slop made as she was pulled out of it.

With a little difficulty, Alex straightened again, the soaked and slippery feline wriggling over his shoulder. Buckling down on to one knee, he deposited her on her feet on the floor, then shuffled back and stood up again. He looked at the multi-colored gunge that had soaked into his fur all down his side as he raised his arm away from himself.

"You've already got some revenge on me, anyway," he said, wiping his other hand down his gunge-coated arm and flicking the slimy stuff away. Nicola watched as the much more covered jaguar girl giggled a little, still moving her hands all over herself to brush the worst of the gunge away.

"Like I said, Anneka just earned forty points for the team," he continued as he moved around to her other side, wandering away from the tank. The jaguar girl raised her hands in the air, and Kim moved closer to her to tentatively pat her on the back in congratulation. "So you're on 140 for the round and we've got one more game to play here before we go up again."

He turned and headed back down the corridor the way they had just come. "And I'm sorry to say it, but you're not exactly out of danger yet - you're not alone, though, because in the next game you're all going to be taking a bit of a risk. We've got something along here that you might have heard of," he grinned, reaching the T-junction and this time pointing to the left. "Want to see?"

Nicola scampered to the front of the group to look round the corner, but there was just a roll-top door blocking the way. As the others watched and waited, Alex undid two bolts on the sides, and then knelt down to begin hauling it upwards.

"As you can see, it's been a while since anyone wanted to go in here," he told them as he struggled to lift it to waist height, then ducked underneath it. Nicola and the others did the same, and she straightened up to see they were in a small five-foot-wide section of corridor between the door that had just been opened and another similar one. This time, Alex headed to a wheel on the wall that was connected to a pulley system overhead. He took hold of its handle and struggled to twist it as it squeaked. "And... you might be able to tell why," he strained in between turns. As the door rolled slowly upwards, Nicola crouched down, and gasped as she recognized what was in front of them.

Alex gave one hard push on the loosened wheel and stepped away, dusting his hands off. "This is what we endearingly call the Sludgecube," he announced. The other girls gasped as the door raised the rest of the way and they saw the grimy metallic mass behind it. Getting up, Nicola nodded slowly - she remembered when it had been introduced at the start of the previous series, when she'd gaped at the TV set as somebody's teacher was gunged in muddy brown stuff from all angles inside it - it was the most over-the-top machine that she'd seen even by the show's usual standards. She could feel her fur bristle at the idea of being covered in lumpy slop inside the thing in front of her, but tried to keep up a cool appearance as Alex stepped forwards, motioning them all further through the door towards the machine.

She couldn't tell how large the room that they were entering was because of the only light being from a button on top of a small podium-like thing in front of them, but a tangle of pipes of various sizes twisted out of the darkness and converged at a large cube, about seven feet on each side. The walls and ceiling of it were made of grungy metal, with various vague panels jutting out all over it, and the side facing them was a clear panel that allowed them to see inside, where the collection of pipes connected on the sides and ceiling were slowly dribbling murky colors of gunge down the walls.

Nicola shuddered, and looked back at Alex as he moved to a panel that was connected to the cube by a metal bracket and a thick curled cord. He reached up to press his thumb on one of its buttons, and with a creaking mechanical noise, the door in front of the team slowly began to swing up and outwards towards them.

"You might be interested to know something about the dredging process that they used to use here," Alex started as he watched the rising panel. "When the extraction tubes at the bottom of the base were used, all the... mud and grease and horrible stuff they sucked up used to get pumped into the pipes around us, eventually ending up inside there, where it could be sifted through one last time before it was flushed back out on to the ocean floor." Nicola nodded vaguely as the panel reached horizontal and clunked to a halt. "And I don't think that the whole thing's been emptied in quite some time. So... want to step inside?"

The four girls looked at each other, Nicola reading their unsure expressions. Eventually, Lesley was the first to move, padding towards the machine and tentatively pointing her toes to take a step on to the inside surface. Nicola followed close behind the chipmunk girl, feeling the slightly spongy padded surface underneath her feet as she moved into the dark-colored interior, then turned around as the others stepped inside to join them.

"You should see four panels on the floor in there," Alex called from behind them. "If you could take your positions on them, then we can get started..."

Nicola looked down to the floor, and saw the marks that he was talking about - four slightly lighter pads, about a foot and a half across, that went down slightly when she put her foot on them. She moved to the one in the back right as Anneka slipped around to stand beside her, and the others took up their positions in front of them. Leaning round the curvy mouse girl to see what was happening outside, she saw Alex move to the side and press another of the buttons on the control panel, which sounded an electronic confirmation noise.

"All right, don't move!" he started, bounding back to the front of the tank and holding both his hands up in front of him. "The cube's switched on now, and thanks to a couple of alterations we made to it, if any of you step off those panels you're on, then the door's going to close and trap you inside. What you've got to do in this game is get as much of the team out as you can before it closes automatically..."

Nicola shivered again, hugging her own arms a little as she looked at the murky brown and green streaks slipping down the walls from the pipes around them. Small pools of sludgy stuff had formed underneath them.

"You're each going to have to complete a sequence to get back your freedom. If you look up above your heads just now..." Nicola did so, and saw a small grey circle right above her. She thought it was the cap of a gunge chute at first, but then saw that it was just a button with a light in it as it flashed along with the three above the others. "They're going to flash in a random sequence. If you press your button when it's lit, then you can temporarily disable the pressure plate that you're on and run out of there, then through the pipes at the side round to the back of the cube," he gestured in a wide circle with one hand. "There, you'll find another button - when you hit that, this final one's going to turn on..."

He pointed down to the dome-shaped button on top of the small mechanical podium in front of them, which started flashing on and off - usually red but sometimes a bright blue. "Then if you hit this thing when it's blue or just afterwards, then your plate will stay off and you'll have saved yourself - you can stay outside. But if you mistime it and hit it when it's red, you'll have to go back in there and start all over again."

Nicola nodded her head, bouncing on her heels and then suddenly stopping as she remembered the pad underneath her feet. Even though she was fairly sure that the door wouldn't really close if she moved off it, she breathed out and stayed still.

"We've got a random time limit - you'll have around two minutes to get yourselves out of there, but we don't know when exactly it's going to close. So just get yourselves out as fast as you can!"

The girls looked up to the buttons above their heads as Alex moved to the side of the cube again, reaching out to the panel. "All ready?" he asked. Nicola looked down to nod at him, but a mechanical noise made her jump and jerk her head back to concentrate on the light above her.

Seeing it light up, she shot her hand to the ceiling, but stopped suddenly as it darkened again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Anneka's one light up instead, and the feline jabbed up to hit it. A buzzer sounded as she was a split-second too late, and the lights all blinked once before turning off.

"Sorry Anneka, that was a mistake - you're going to have to wait a few seconds now before they turn back on again," Alex called from his safe position outside the machine. The jaguar girl whimpered, trying not to look at any of the others as they all turned to her, then looked back at the ceiling.

The few seconds seemed to take ages, but eventually Nicola saw another light turn on above Lesley. She missed it, and Nicola instinctively jabbed her hand upwards, only just stopping herself as she saw that Kim's light had come on instead. But she'd broken her concentration and missed another opportunity to hit it when it came back to her - she growled and then turned as another buzzer noise came from her left.

"Sorry..." Anneka whispered, lowering her hand from the ceiling and drumming her toes tensely on the ground as Nicola frustratedly looked around again, counting out the excruciating wait.

She closed her eyes, then suddenly heard a confirmation noise and opened them again. Lesley was standing unsurely with her hand next to the ceiling button, which was flashing on and off.

"At last! Lesley, you've done it - now come out here and try to earn your freedom!"

The chipmunk girl dashed out of the tank, her hair flying out behind her, and turned around to the right as Alex directed her. Nicola stood tensely, listening to a couple of squeaks and spraying noises as Lesley made her way around to the back of the cube. There was a sudden beep from behind them, and she looked as the light on top of the podium began flashing like she'd seen Alex demonstrate.

Lesley eventually stumbled into view again from the left, a couple of patches of white foam visible on her fur, and Alex indicated the flashing button to her.

"There it is - just time this right and you'll escape getting very messy..."

She crouched over the button, and Nicola held her breath as she counted out the pattern of its flashes. Lesley suddenly jabbed down on it, and she screwed up her face as it responded with a low buzz.

"No! I'm sorry, Lesley, but get back in that gunge machine - we're starting again!"

The chipmunk girl sagged, but scampered back into the cube, running her hands through her hair and glancing around at the pipes as she took up her position again. Nicola looked up, saw the lights begin to flash over them, and then there was another buzz as Anneka timed it wrongly again. The three of them looked at her, and she covered her eyes with one hand, swinging her other arm back and forth tensely.

"I know you want to get out of there, Anneka, but if you keep missing then you're going to get everyone gunged..."

She nodded, whimpering, and then looked up to the ceiling again, bouncing on her toes. The sequence of flashes began once again, and this time, Nicola was ready with her thumb next to her button. She jabbed it as it turned on, and nearly whooped out loud when her press resulted in the 'correct' noise.

"Nicola, you're out this time - let's see if you have better luck than Lesley..." Alex announced as she pushed past the mouse and chipmunk girl at the front, skidding as she came out of the cube and turned around to the right. A tangle of pipes, padded on the surface, stretched through the few foot wide gap between the wall and the cube, and she made her way through them, trying to be quick but also taking care as she moved her slippery body around them, avoiding occasional sprays of white foam from the walls and nozzles in the pipes.

Eventually she reached the back, and kept her hand on the cube's wall as she turned the corner. The back of the cube was clear - she thumped on the button in the middle and then ducked down underneath another series of pipes around the other side, this time squeezing her eyes closed as foam sprayers splattered her from both sides.

She straightened up as she reached the end, and raced over to where Alex was pointing at the podium. She hovered her hands over it, panicked as it flashed blue earlier than she had expected, and mistimed her press, producing the same harsh buzzer that signaled she wasn't safe. She nearly swore out loud before stopping herself.

"Bad luck, Nicola..." She sighed, shrugged, and walked back into the Sludgecube, curling her toes as she realized they couldn't have much time left.

She took up her position again, noticing that Anneka was just standing beside her, shivering a little as she swished her tail and not even trying to hit her button any more. Almost immediately there was another bell sound. She looked around the ceiling to see that Lesley had timed another press correctly.

"Good, Lesley - come on out here and try again!"

Breathing in and out slowly, Nicola watched the long-haired chipmunk girl bound out of the cube and disappear off to the side again, listening anxiously at the noise of her making her way around. After what seemed to take forever, she completed the circuit and came back into view, this time crouching in concentration over the podium and moving her hands up and down in rhythm with it.

Nicola watched closely, wringing her hands in front of her as she watched Lesley concentrate. Suddenly she smacked her hands down on top of the button, and this time it glowed blue in response. She bounced upwards with a cheer, raising both hands in the air as Alex stepped forwards behind her.

"Yes! You're safe this time - stay here with me, and we'll see if we can get someone else out..." he congratulated her as the others looked up to the ceiling again. Nicola saw her button light up but hesitated, missing her chance and leaving Kim to stab at the ceiling instead.

The high-pitched bell noise seemed to genuinely surprise Kim, who stood tensely with her hand still up in the air before visibly relaxing and stepping towards the door. Nicola looked up at the darkened ceiling buttons again, hoping she would be next out.

There was a clank, and a siren started up as the lights in the room dimmed to red. Nicola's stomach lurched as she looked forwards to see the panel at the front of the cube began lowering, coming into view to trap them inside. After freezing unsurely for a moment, Kim took another step towards it.

"No, stay in there! Stay in there..." Alex repeated, holding out a hand as he and the excited chipmunk girl watched the door close from the outside. Kim stopped again, then turned around to face the two others, an extremely nervous grin on her face as she flicked her tail around and caught it, running it through her hands.

Nicola swallowed as the clear door in front of the three of them clunked into place, locking them in the gunge machine. She whimpered a little under her breath as she looked around at the pipes lining the walls, and the slow dribbles of dark slime that were still pouring out of them to splat against the floor. Alex knocked on the front of the door panel, making her jump and look up, then give an unsure smile back as he waved.

"I think we've definitely made up for the first round, anyway," the red wolf smiled in at them. "And I know Nicola's not having a good round, because she's already been dunked, slimed under those pipes, and now she's inside the Sludgecube..."

Nicola shrugged, then looked to her left at the jaguar girl, thinking about how they might have done better if she had had faster reactions. But her annoyance with her disappeared as she looked at Anneka's nervous expression, and instead she grinned, putting her hand up in the air and then dropping it around the feline's shoulders to keep her next to the nozzles, holding on tighter to the slippery jaguar girl as she tried to wriggle out of her grasp. As Anneka settled, still tapping her toes on the floor but putting a hand around Nicola in return, Nicola reached out to take the mouse girl's hand too and then slipped it round to her side as she spun her round to stand beside her on her right.

"Well, she doesn't seem too worried - at least, no more than the others! Lesley, how do you feel about avoiding this?"

"...Kind of good," the chipmunk girl answered, smiling edgily as she peered into the tank at them all.

"I can tell you - so would I!" Alex chuckled as he pointed to the panel that they had all seen earlier at the side of the tank. "The button to fill the Sludgecube's here, Lesley - as you're out here, do you want to start it up, or try and avoid all the blame for it later?"

"No, I'll do it," she grinned eagerly. Nicola watched her scamper over to the side of the cube, heading for the panel.

"Oh, I'm going to get her for this," Anneka giggled into Nicola's ear as she rested her head on her shoulder. Nicola nodded, smiling to herself as Kim put an arm around her, gripping her waist.

The three girls watched nervously as the small chipmunk girl put her hands up in front of her, and Nicola held her breath as Lesley looked over at Alex one last time.

"Go on, gunge them," he encouraged, pointing over at the button that she was hovering over. Anneka eeped at the word, all three girls hugging a little closer as Lesley leaned forwards and thumped on the button. There was a bass rumble from somewhere in the floor, the whine of machinery getting gradually higher and louder as the three of them waited tensely, their eyes darting around to the pipes on the ceiling and the walls.

They all flinched as there was a hissing noise from beside them, and before Nicola could react, the pipes at the sides burst into life, spewing waves of dark brown gunge into the chamber and splattering violently against Anneka and Kim's sides, slapping on to the floor with an awful splotting noise. The jaguar girl instantly sprang forwards, letting out a prolonged shriek and throwing out her hands for balance, her feet running in the air for a moment before she scurried the couple of steps to the front of the gunge machine and turned around to face the rapidly spreading puddle on the floor. She screamed again as the pool slithered towards her, putting her hands to the sides of her head as the stuff slid between her bare toes and rose around them. She turned her head from side to side, picking her feet up high to step out of the way as more pipes turned on on the ceiling beside her to fill the tank up faster.

As the muddy gunge rose around their ankles, Kim stayed still but turned her face away from the gooey deluge from the side, putting her arm and forehead on to Nicola's shoulder as the sloppy mixture played over her. Nicola felt the lumpy substance slither over her hand and arm as it dripped down the curvy mouse girl's back, and extended her other hand to reach into the wave of gunk splurging against her other side. The cold stuff domed out over her hand and then poured outwards and between her fingers to join the rising pool. She shuddered as some of it splattered against her hip and thighs, lumps of it slithering down her side.

The mouse girl stumbled forwards a couple of steps, one hand coming up to drag the gunge off the side of her face. As she sloshed her feet, kicking up small waves of the brown gunk, she turned around to face Nicola. Her eyes were wide with a shocked smile on her face as dribbles of the gunk crept down towards her chest from her shoulders, covering her gray fur.

Nicola jumped as another alarm hooted and a panel in the ceiling snicked aside, revealing a dark opening right above where Kim was standing. She jerked her head up to look at the same instant a massive torrent of green and brown slop poured down into the tank, and Nicola gasped as there was a prolonged, muffled squeak from somewhere in the middle of the muddy deluge. The downpour bulged a little at the sides as the plump mouse girl wriggled around underneath it, the shape of her head just visible poking out at the front as she ducked down under its weight.

Gaping and leaning a little on the back wall of the tank as the lukewarm muck rose above her knees, buckling and rippling outwards lazily from the main torrent in the center, Nicola watched Kim stumble forwards and out of the downpour, a dripping gungy mass as she half-fell towards her. Quickly, she braced herself and caught the mouse girl, putting her arms around her and keeping her in a hug as she closed her eyes and felt the slop play over both of them as it sprayed from the flood to her front as well as smaller pipes at the sides. Kim screamed again, her shoulders shaking in laughter as she slithered her hand up from Nicola's back to protect her face, twitching as the muck sprayed all over her head and back.

Nicola gasped as the cool gunk slithered up over her hips, shivering and shifting her weight a little as the lumps oozed around her lower body. The main downpour in the center was subsiding, and she could hear Anneka's excited screams from the front of the tank. Opening one eye, she wiped her hand across the mouse girl's back and broke off the hug, trying to clean off her face with her gungy fingers. She froze as another cold shower of muck splattered on to her, and squelched forwards, holding her heavy hair away from her face as she looked down on to the unpleasant green-brown lumpy surface that was still rising around her tummy.

Blinking, she dared to look up, holding her hands above the surface and seeing slimy rivulets dripping across her vision from her fringe as she looked around at the mucky inside of the cube. A continuous rain of gungy drizzles fell from the edges of the main pipe in the ceiling, and a few pipes around the edges were still spewing brown and green gunk into the tank, the surface buckling where it poured in and making a continuous rich glooping noise. Kim was somewhere between shrieking and laughing off to her side as she tried to wriggle through the gloop fast enough to dodge the remaining slime pouring in, and Anneka was hunched over in the front corner, her hair heavy with muck and hanging over her face, cringing and squirming as the pipes above and to her back poured thick green gunge all over her.

Eventually the pipes shut off, dribbling the last gloopy lumps of gunge on to the surface which had reached just below Nicola's chest. She coughed as she wiped at her face again, then dipped her hands under the surface and waded slowly forwards, feeling the lumps of gunk slithering around her with each step as she moved towards the front of the tank to join Anneka. Pulling her hands out of the sludge and eeping at the feeling of the muddy gunge slithering off them, she pressed them against the front panel, and stared at the chipmunk outside the tank who was trying embarrassedly to look innocent.

Nicola glanced over her shoulder as the mucky mouse girl behind her waded awkwardly forwards to join them too, her movement making the gunk ripple slowly around the tank and lap at their shoulders. She yelped as a wave sloshed up her chest, wriggling and pawing at her top to try and keep any more of the stuff from slipping into it. Meanwhile Anneka took her hands off her face, dragging them slowly through her mucky hair, and shivered, bobbing up and down with the movement of the lukewarm muck as she gave a sickly grin.

"I think there was a little more in there than I thought," Alex grinned in at them as they lined up at the window of the tank, glancing down at the churning muck they were wading through. He turned around to the shy-looking chipmunk behind him, and beckoned her over. "Lesley, you're the only one who got out, but by escaping the mudbath your friends got, you've earned twenty-five points for the team, bringing you up to 165 for the round and 525 for the whole run so far. I don't know if that's much consolation to them..."

Lesley giggled a little as he pointed into the messy tank again, Nicola making sure to give her a playful glare as she made eye contact with them all. As she looked away, Alex dropped his finger, put his hands behind his back, and looked in at them too with a smile on his face.

"I think it's time for a shower," he said.