When we last left our heroes..... *** They could both hear Barney summoning the last of his strength. Ivy twirled to the rope she had brought down. She yanked it as hard as she could, and a large kitchen sink landed on Barney’s head. Barney fell and didn’t get back up. At that exact instant the music stopped. There was silence for a brief moment, then the audience exploded into clapping and cheering wildly. They all took bows, then hastily exited stage right. "Well, never let it be said that I didn’t throw everything but the kitchen sink at that moron!" Ivy joked. "Let’s just get out of here," Carmen said as Ivy tried to prevent her brother from walking repeatedly into a wall. "I couldn’t have said it better! Could you take his other arm..." "Freeze!" yelled a voice from the other side of the backstage. Carmen and Ivy realized then that they weren’t going to get away that easily... *** And now..... "I said freeze!" screamed one of the demonic Boy Scouts as the rest of his troop loaded some very nasty-looking ‘Nerf’ guns. Carmen grabbed two Roman shields from a cannablized ‘Wishbone’ set and threw Ivy and her brother behind some prop storage boxes before the first volley reached them. Ivy looked into the box they had ducked behind, smiled, then scooped up a shield-full of unnecessarily sharp ‘Sesame Street’ triangles. Using the shield as a slingshot she hurled the razor-sharp projectiles at the demonic boy scouts. "That’s not going to hold them for very long!" Carmen yelled to Ivy over the Scouts howls of pain, "This way!" Holding the shields over their heads and dodging ballistic ‘Nerf’ arrows they dived through a door in the back of the backstage area. "What th’?..." a sophisticated voice bellowed. Carmen and Ivy looked up. They had apparently stumbled into a taping of ‘Masterpiece Theater.’ The Host was speechless. Carmen and Ivy looked around the set, then at each other. They were admittedly a strange site. Zack was still thrown over Carmen’s shoulder and Ivy was still dressed in severally mangled green sequenced ballgown. "Um...." started the host "Don’t worry, we’ll find our way out," Ivy said as she and Carmen hurried off stage. They made for the nearest door and were gone before the Host could speak another word. "What are we going to do know?" Ivy asked as they stepped into a very grimed hall. Carmen propped Zack up against the wall and began gently slapping his face. "We’re going to wake up Sleeping Beauty here before we plan our next move. He may be a genius but he’s not light!" "Huh? Wha...?" Zack mumbled before he drifted back into his stupor. Ivy got a handful of water from a nearby drinking fountain and threw it in her brother’s face. Zack blinked and looked at his sister. "Hey sis, what’s with the dress?" he asked, but then his eyes glazed over again. Ivy sighed aggravated. "There’s got to be an antidote!...But what?" "Well they say that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease..." Carmen offered "....but what’s even worse than Barney?" A nearby group of school children were humming a very famous and highly annoying song. A World of laughter/ A world of Cheer/ A world that’s been ‘round/ A thousand years..... Zack started to snap out of his haze but the children’s chaperone stopped them and he collapsed back into his dementia. Carmen and Ivy cringed. They knew what they had to do. *** "All right, I got the walkman and the tape from the gift shop... ...are you sure this won’t warp him further?" "I know nothing at this point, let’s at least try it..." They strapped the headphones to Zack’s head and pressed play. They watched his face contort in pain, but they steeled themselves and prayed for something to happen. Coherent words began to form on his lips "No.....It’s a...Small World?......Ivy!...Why...Disney?.." "Stay strong Zack! It was either this or Lambchop!" Zack’s only responce was a howl of pain. "Hey you!" Carmen and Ivy turned to see a Mini-Barney with murder on his mind running towards them. Carmen tossed Zack over her shoulder they ran for the other end of the hallway. The mini-Barney caught up with Ivy and grabbed her shoulder. "Gotcha!" Ivy sent him flying across the hallway with a spinning kick. "Not!" Looking down at the beaten Barney she was surprised to see metal gleaming from the gash she had made in it’s cheek. It growled menacingly and it’s plush arm started to transform into a machine gun. "Carmen they’re robots! Toss me something heavy quick!" Carmen made to throw her Zack. "Something else!" Ivy corrected. Carmen pulled a suspicious-looking rope hanging from the ceiling. An anvil smashed the mini-Barney into micro-bits. "O.K.. I think I can understand the Boy Scout Militia and the Robotic Barneys," Carmen confessed, "But why on Earth would PBS put so much heavy, potentially deadly stuff in the rafters with so many little kids around?" "For emergencies maybe..." Ivy suggested, "...you can never have to many Anvils overhead especially with Barney around." There was a shattering noise behind them as the Boy Scout Militia and several Mini-Barney’s poured out of the ‘Masterpiece Theater’ set, all of them armed to the teeth. "I hate to state the obvious, but I think it’s REALLY time we got out of here!" Carmen said. "Oh no you don’t!" chirped a painfully familiar voice, "You haven’t seen the rest of our 125 minute tour!" Carmen and Ivy turned to see the Receptionist wearing combat fatigues and high-heeled Army boots. She had several ammo-belts wrapped around her body and her nails had grown several feet. Carmen and Ivy looked at both advancing armies in awe. "I’d swear but there are little kids around," Ivy commented. Her last words were drowned out by the shouting outside. A huge angry, effigy burning, anti-Barney mob of recently freed parents were gathering outside. The Mob, complete with torches and pitchforks, attempting to tear the front doors down. "This....could be bad," Carmen dryly stated, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. The Pro-Barney Mob behind them, the Receptionist and the Anti-Barney Mob in front of them. The only way not blocked was back into the show’s sound stage.... "What should we do?" Ivy asked "Looks like we can only go right. C’mon, maybe there’s a door...." They were stopped dead when they saw what was coming from the soundstage. Barney, or rather what was left of him after his beating, was coming up the aisle. His plastic eyes were gruesomely half-out of their pseudo-sockets. The rest of his body was horribly disformed and broken from multiple blows. "Well...doesn’t look like that’s an option anymore...." Ivy shakingly commented "That’s it! I’m sick of this!" Carmen exclaimed. She passed Zack to Ivy and pulled a grappling hook gun and fired into the rafters and cinched it tight. She took Zack back, held on to Ivy and reeled them to the ceiling. An ugly fight broke out below them. "And this is what Viewers Like You pay for?" Ivy joked as she swung her brother onto the ledge of a rafter. "Maybe they’d do less pledge drives if they started cutting corners..." Carmen quiped pointing to a half dozen Anvils waiting in the rafters "...and as much as I’d like to try those babies out, I think I see a ventalation shaft that we could use. But we’ll have to work together..." "What do you think we’ve been doing?" Ivy asked, A little insulted. "I mean I’m out of cables, we’re going to have to substitute Zack." Ivy looked down at her barely-lucid bro. "So, what....you want me to use my little brother as a grappling hook?" "Well......" *** "Zack’s going to have a splitting backache when he snaps out of it." Ivy commented as Carmen pulled Zack into the vent. "I think he’s going to be happy that he’s alive," Carmen said before she sneezed. They looked around them. The duct was dusty, dark and, worst of all, filled with cobwebs. "Y’d think that with all the stuff they’ve placed in the rafters PBS would clean out it’s air ducts," Ivy commented as she rummaged through Zack’s coat pockets. "They probably have enought on their minds already..." Carmen said. "What are you looking for?" Ivy pulled out a mangled piece of plastic and metal. "This. It's what's left of Zack's communicater. Mine was taken, and I was hoping his was still intact. It would make getting out of here a lot easier..." "Well, there's a light up ahead, let's try that before we try to repair anything...." *** Two Weeks Later At St. Luke Hospital...... When Zack finally snapped out of it the first thing he saw was the worried faces of Carmen, the Chief and Ivy staring down at him. "Chief?...Ivy?....what's Carmen doing here?" "It's all right Zack, she saved you and Ivy from certain death and mental instability!" the Chief explained. Zack sat up confused and tried to stretch. "Ow!...geez!..." He winched, "....I feel like I've been hit by a Semi!" "Well that's what stilleto pumps will do to your back!" Carmen apologized. "Huh?" "Zack...um...." Ivy started, "You were a little out of it during most of the rescue...we had to use you as a ladder... ....And a decoy....you were pulled through air ducts...various Sound Stages...." Zack groaned as he slowly started to remember what happened. "Oh yeah....I thought that was a dream...." "Nope. It was all real little bro. Sorry." "Y'know It was all so crazy I considered forgeting the whole thing...." Zack confessed. "Zack, how could you possibly forget something like that?" Carmen joked. Just then a very perky nurse burst through the door with a tray of food. "All right now, visiting hours are over! Time for the little patient to have lunch!" Everyone in the room shuttered as the nurses voice reached a pitch usually used for calling dogs. "Actually I need to call Mom and Dad and tell them that you're awake." Ivy told her brother, "I'll guess I'll see you tomorrow then Zack." "Bye Sis, have a good day..." Zack called to his sister as the orderly chased all of them out. Carmen left the door slightly ajar as she exited then turned to Ivy. She had a puzzled look on her face. "You know Ivy, that nurse looked a lot like the receptionist from PBS." she remarked. "It's probably just your imagination..." Ivy commented, but as they turned to leave they heard the TV click on in Zack's room. A familiar voice filled the air- "Hididlyho kids! I'm feeling much better after what happened on last months show! I even feel good enough to sing a little song!...." As the begining strains of 'I Love You' filled the air the Chief, Ivy and Carmen looked at each other in horror and started to scream. The receptionist smiled. The End?