Strains of Brahms' floated by as the gardenia grew wings and flew towards the sun. "Where IS this place?" she wondered aloud. Harsh cackles, like spines, stuck in the air, impaling her bubbles.

"Welcome to MY world!" Sid laughed. "Welcome...home."

**********

She turned, startled, and saw Sid, holding a large red rose and standing on a diving board. It was only then the reality...if, indeed, such it could be called...hit her. She was with Sid...inside a computer!

"It's not so bad," he said, diving off the board and splashing into a large puddle of seagull feathers. Face poking out above the plumage, he added, "And it's not just PaintShopPro, either. I have CorelDraw!"

"You have CORELDRAW??!!" she exclaimed, coming closer, remembering her foot-tall stack of instruction manuals she could never quite seem to open.

"Yes," he said brightly, "and here there is no need for manuals. You just...live...the stuff."

"You LIVE it?" she asked wonderingly, her words becoming tangible in the air, turning aquamarine and swirling like tiny galaxies.

"I've got her now!" Sid thought, grinning. Indeed, the Chipster HAD been magnificently clever. He knew her vulnerability lay in her imagination. Set her down where her imagination could run free and she was a gonner! Never had any of his plans to separate the Pittsburgher from the General showed more promise. A Morpho butterfly with an eight-foot wingspread hovered above her head. Giggling, she grasped its front legs and went flying off through the sunbeams shining down over the Golden Valley. Sid grinned evilly and murmured to himself, "Bye, bye...Maximus."

Maximus led the rest of the cast up the steps of the museum. Trying the large doors, he found them unlocked in spite of the early hour. He knew this was strange, but felt compelled to enter nonetheless. His bootsteps echoed hollowly in the large room. He walked to the center of it and stopped, turning to look at the various doorways. A light shone under the crack of a small door down a long hallway and he moved in that direction, Terry at his side. Jack Black paused to smile down at a mummy. "I remember you," he said...then Juditha dragged him away.

Maximus pushed the door open quietly and as he entered the room, his boot encountered something on the tiled floor. Again he stooped, pressing his palm on the flat surface. He looked up at Terry. "It is the same," he said, "the same as in the park." He lay his other hand atop the one on the floor as though by will alone he could absorb her essence into his being.

"Maximus, come!" Terry said, striding across the room to a large desk.

How the General's fingers wanted to linger at that spot! But he squared his shoulders, stood, and walked toward the K&R agent, only once turning his head to look back at it. "What have you found?" he asked.

"This!" Terry said, the word followed by a low whistle.

"A television device?" Maximus asked, still not completely used to the modern world he so often found himself in these days.

"It's a computer, Maximus," Terry explained, "and from what I can tell, it's really state of the art."

Maximus had no idea what 'state of the art' might mean, but stood next to Terry, looking at a large screen with a purple spiral design turning on a black background. Terry reached down, giving the mouse a slight shake.
            

The purple spiral was instantly replaced by a full-screen view of Sid's leering face. Instinctively, the General's hand found the hilt of his shortsword. Sid laughed. "Good morning, General," he said, his voice dripping poison honey.

Maximus looked at the image, his nostrils flaring, his hand still firmly on the hilt. Sid continued, "Have you been unable to locate your little Cinderella Woman...hmmmmmmm?"

Terry looked puzzledly at Maximus. "Cinderella Woman?" he repeated.

"Dullard!" Sid spat. "Have I not permitted her to leave her slippers all over Toronto as she traveled about in her ruins of a gown?"

Maximus inhaled sharply. Slippers! THAT was what he kept finding!

"Yes, my anachronistic Prince Charming. The classic calling card."

"Where IS she!" Maximus bellowed.

"Hmmm?" Sid said, tapping his forefinger on his sharply-defined chin. "Let me see....what DID I do with her? Oh, yes," he continued as the screen changed to a full-length image of him, "I think she might be...there!" He turned, bowing slightly, making a sweeping gesture with his left arm, and the screen was filled with Joimus. She was laughing in delight as she let go of the legs of a giant, shimmeringly blue butterfly and, wrapping her arms and legs tightly about a sunbeam, slid down to the verdant greenness of a glorious valley.

Maximus sucked his breath in at the sight of her. Terry placed one of his hands firmly on the General's forearm in compassion. Together they watched her walk barefoot through a field of daisies. Growing there, the blossoms were pure white, but as she picked one and then more and more, each of them turned a different soft pastel color in her hands. Each stem made a musical note as it was snapped, and all together formed a melody. Her arms filled, she tossed them joyously into the sky where they wove themselves into a garland then settled back about her shoulders like a shawl.

Sid's face filled the screen again. "It's her imagination, Maximus. I have brought her here where her imagination has life and she is happy...and has quite forgotten...you." Maximus' face sagged perceptively. Sid grinned again. "Perfect, is it not?"

Maximus turned from the screen, placing the palm of his right hand over his eyes. Terry gripped the General's other arm, guiding him toward the door. "Don't let him see you suffer, Maximus," he said firmly as they re-entered the hall. "It's what he wants." Indeed, wild laughter, rising and falling in riffs of glee, followed them until Terry slammed the door.

Berti, annsmac, and Wanda saw them, heard the door slam, and came hurriedly toward the two men. Berti stopped, aghast at the expression on the General's face. "What happened?" she asked Terry.

"Sid," Terry replied. "Sid." Always that single word was enough to convey the depths of evil plottingnesses.

Phyllis joined them. "What has he done now?" she inquired. Maximus pulled away, walking alone, shoulders slumped, down the hallway in the opposite direction from the larger room.

Berti would have followed, but Terry said, "He needs to be alone."

"Why?" Berti pursued. "Has Sid done something to Joimus?"

Terry closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "He has done the most perfectly horrible thing he could have done," he answered, looking at her somberly.

"She has need of my services, then? Jack Black asked, arriving on the scene.

"No, Jack," Terry said, "it's worse than that."

"Worse than THAT?" Wanda repeated, her eyes growing large.

"Yes," Terry sighed. "He has taken her into his computer and turned her loose with her imagination."

Berti nearly fell to the floor herself at those words. "Not THAT??" she cried. "Anything but THAT!!!" Everyone knew instantly just how diabolically clever this was. Berti's eyes filled with tears as she looked at the now-distant General. "He has lost her then?"

"Yes," Terry replied. "So it would seem."

Unnoticed by the others, Phyllis had opened the door of the small room and seated herself at the computer chair. The screen danced with a pattern of blue and white checks. Hand shaking, she moved the mouse. Sid was there, smiling at her. "Hello, Phyllis," he said smoothly, sounding a bit too much like the infamous Hal. "I was waiting for you."

"You...you were?" she replied, barely audibly.

"I knew you would come...looking for 'Him'."

"Where...where...is he?" she stammered longingly.

The screen changed to a pastoral scene. Himself was lying on his back, laughing and giggling as several angus licked his toes. His guitar lay near his hand and just beyond was a mound of cigarettes and beer. "He doesn't look particularly interested in creating more obnoxious characters, now does he?" Sid remarked.

Jewelie had come in the room, standing just behind Phyllis and watching Himself's unmitigated delight. "What of Jim Braddock?" she asked, fearing the answer.

The scene switched to a white room with only the vaguest outline of a man in its center, standing alone, doing nothing. "Himself is not bringing Braddock to life. This is all that currently remains of him. Soon he will disappear completely."

"NO!" cried Jewelie fiercely. "You can't DO that!"

"Why, my dear woman," Sid rejoined, "I AM doing it!"     

The deck DID seem stacked in Sid's favor. Maximus and Joimus were separated forever and in such a way as to cause the General untold pain. Himself was not making movies. Braddock was fading away. All the rest of the characters...well, except Terry, and he would attend to that shortly... had left their Russell roles and become characters from other films. Joimus was preoccupied and not plotting against him. The gaggle of 33-year-old females were left to deal with de-Crowed characters. Life was good!

Jewelie dashed out the door, practically running down Terry. "Terry!" she cried. "Save him! You MUST save him!"

Terry looked down the hall at the dejected General. "I don't know what I can do for him right now," he said. "He wants to work through this on his own."

"NO!" she said, practically gasping. "JIM! You must save JIM!"

"Jim?" replied Terry. "You have knowledge of Braddock's whereabouts?"

"Yes! He's in there!"

Terry ran back into the room. Phyllis' forehead was resting on the keyboard, her tears trickling unheeded down amongst the S and D's, the K and L's. Lifting her head at his arrival, she moaned, "It's over. It's ALL over!"

"What?" Terry asked, "what's over?"

She wiggled the mouse and the giggling Himself appeared again. "He'll never make another movie NOW!"

"Yes...yes," cried Jewelie, "and that's making Jim fade away into non-characterhood forever!"

"We have to get into the computer," Maximus said. He'd returned, heard the exchange, and stood there in the doorway, his palms pressed Samson-like flat against each doorframe.

"But...but...HOW?" Julie cried.

Berti's brow crinkled in deep thought. "Well," she said, "we need some sort of a key, I suspect. In stories like StarGate or Krull and such, there is always some unusually-shaped object that serves as a key."

"I think she's right," Sue agreed, her pockets, bosom, and boots stuffed with sonneted napkins.

"But," added Franki, "what possible object has there BEEN in recent epis that might turn out, surprisingly, to be a KEY?"

Just then Budo burst into the room. "Where is it?" he shouted. "It's MINE! What have you done with it? I want it BACK!"

Berti smiled. "Of course!"

"Tell us about the ring, Maximus," Ute urged.

"Terry found it under the sand near the throne," the General began. "It had uninterpretable writing on it, which we have since discovered is Pittsburghese. Joimus read the words, then put the ring in her pale yellow gossamer backpack, taking it with her when she went to the park at 2 AM." He brought forth the backpack from beneath his cuirass where he'd kept it, close to his heart. "Sid left it hanging on the horse, but the ring was no longer inside."

"Good rundown," Berti said approvingly.

The General might have smiled, but his angst level was just way too high. "Do you suppose Sid took the ring into the computer with him?" Wanda wondered.

"Well," Terry said, "he most likely needs it to get INTO the computer but possibly not to get OUT. He may well have stashed it somewhere in this very room."

A steely glint shown in Maximus' eyes. "I will find it," he stated unequivocally in that same voice he used to say things like, "I will win the crowd." One just believed the man at such times.

Most of the cast hustled back out into the hallway whilst the General set about dismembering the room.

"Wow!" commented Jewelie. "He's GOOD at dismembering, isn't he!"

"Practice," Berti replied. "Lots and lots of practice."

Soon cabinets and baseboards, wall paneling and ceiling tiles were flying out into the hall. Annsmac stood protectively in front of Terry. He had just barely recovered. It was way, way too soon for more splintering. Finally the only thing remaining as it was in the room was the desk and computer. Maximus narrowed his seagreen eyes, grasped the computer and raised it off the desk. There, fastened beneath it by a big duct tape X, was the ring.

Budo made a dive for it but was neatly blocked by Bieben Hood with what, for all the world, looked like a hockey move. Maximus ripped the ring loose, nearly letting the computer itself crash to the floor in his triumph. Andiana slid through the debris-laden floor, catching it just in time. Anna smiled proudly at him as he stood up, his clothes rather shredded, but the computer quite safe in his arms. Jack Black looked at the blank screen. "It's dead," he pronounced.

"It's unplugged!" Juditha corrected, holding up the cord. Once the screen had been reattached to its power source, everyone crowded around, trying to see what might appear on the screen. At first it was black with the purple spiral, but changed quickly to what looked like a flat, desolate plain.

"That's not where Joimus is," Maximus stated. "There's no imagination being used in that place."

"Yes," Berti commented wisely, "and that's why it would be the perfect entry point for us."

"But where does the ring go?" Wanda asked.

"Hmmm?" Berti hmmmmed, leaning over and around the console, running her fingers over its surface. She found the tiniest indentation and tugged on it with her fingernail. A four and a quarter inch slot appeared. She pressed on its end and a small drawer slid out. "Bingo!" she said, grinning ear to ear.

Maximus placed the ring on the drawer and Berti pushed it into the computer. "What now?" Phyllis asked.

Had more of them been familiar with certain Blues Clueish children's shows, they would have been somewhat better prepared for the sudden distortion of their forms and the way they were sucked, en masse and headfirst, into the computer screen. Not more than one or two eye blinks had passed and there they were, strolling across the barren plain as though that were the most normal thing in the world.

"Have you thought," Berti remarked profoundly, "that at this moment, every single Russell character is inside this computer?"

"Sheesh!" blurted Ando. "I hope they're all backed up on disk!"

"I wonder where Sid is lurking?" Jewelie said.

"Stay together," Maximus commanded, "he could be anywhere."

They walked for what seemed like miles across endless nothingness before Berti finally understood what must be done. "There is nothing here," she explained, "because no one has IMAGINED that anything IS here!" When suddenly a huge trunk of Elizabethan garb smacked down, nearly taking off Rhett Eastler's toes, she further commented, "But we must be very careful else we will land our selves in deep doodoo. Do you understand?" she pointedly stared at young Shakescort.

Alas, to their right appeared a vast army of Orcs and to their left a large band of the Sheriff of Nottingham's men rode into view. "NO!" cried Berti with vehemence aplenty. "You must UNTHINK those thoughts and do it NOW!" Berti in full vehemence was a pretty scary thing and the thoughts were, indeed, quickly unthunk. "Let me," she said firmly and proceeded to imagine a field of ripe wheat, stretching to the horizon.

Ando fainted, but Maximus could not conceal his appreciation. "May I?" he asked, then walked a bit ahead, his experienced fingers making soft movements of love over the full heads of grain.

"Why did you have to imagine a FIELD?" Ando complained as she regained what, for a former Welshwoman, passed as senses.

"I've always wanted to watch him do that in person," Berti said dreamily.

"Me, too!" "Me, too!" came a chorus of female voices.

Joimus had walked down to a winding river and sat on the bank, dangling her feet in the pink, fluffy waters. Imagination was a good thing, she admitted, but something was just not...right. She remembered feeling sad not all that long ago and concentrated hard, trying to recall just what that had been about. Her mind was tired. She had spent hours imagining wonder after wonder, just as, indeed, Sid had counted on her doing. She felt somehow as one does when one has eaten a full box of chocolates.

There comes a point when enough is enough. This was not really something the Chipman was capable of grasping as, for him, enough had never even come close to being enough. She leaned back against a giant orange mushroom and closed her lids. Her lips parted with a sudden gasp as in her mind's eye she clearly saw Maximus, wading thigh-high through a field of ripe grain.