Ladies and gentlemen, I've been narrating Rocky and Bullwinkle for a long time, and I've seen lots of cliffhangers, but frankly, I don't know how our heroes will get out of this one. Not only have their enemies succeeded in altering the timeline and transforming the world into a mind-controlled dystopia, but now they, themselves, have been brainwashed as well! Yes, Rocky, Honeysuckle, Sherman, Mr. Peabody, Mr. Peabody's duplicate, and even Fearless Leader have become drones in a totalitarian nightmare state! We might as well end the story now, except that there's one person they haven't assimilated yet. Me! Yes, the Narrator! The time has come for me to step out from behind the microphone and take up arms against this monstrous tyranny, and by opposing, end it! I will overcome! I will...hey, who are you? What are you doing? Keep away from me! No, don't...aaaargh! I am a subject of the Antlered One...

Through the cavernous hallways of the re-education center march Rocky, Honeysuckle, Sherman, Fearless Leader, and the two Peabodys, all of whom have blank, emotionless stares like those of the four staffers who are accompanying them to the work office.

As they pass by a room littered with electronic equipment, Honeysuckle takes a quick glance inside and sees two nerdy-looking scientists examining Fearless Leader's time-travel device with handheld probes. She then turns her gaze forward again. Fearless Leader, however, has noticed her rather unzombielike behavior. The two enemies look at each other through the corners of their eyes while continuing to trudge robotically along...

"NOW!" bellows Fearless Leader.

Moving like lightning, Honeysuckle and Fearless Leader dispatch the four staffers with well-placed karate blows; the battle is over in less than two seconds. Then they face each other proudly, but suspiciously.

"Why weren't you brainwashed?" asks Fearless Leader.

"I conditioned my mind to resist Idiot Waves during my second year of agent training," the she-moose explains. "What about you?"

"I invented Idiot Waves," boasts the spymaster with a smirk.

"No, you didn't," says Honeysuckle incredulously. "Your scientists did."

"But I gave them inspiration."

Rocky, Sherman, and the two Peabodys, all genuinely brainwashed, stare at Honeysuckle and Fearless Leader with fear in their eyes. "The re-education has failed," drones Rocky. "You must be destroyed!"

Honeysuckle raises her fists mockingly. "Are you volunteering? Bring it on, flyboy."

Rather than fight, Rocky flees down a corridor, followed by Sherman and the two Peabodys. "They will bring reinforcements," predicts Fearless Leader.

"So, Fearless," says Honeysuckle, "what do you say we put our differences aside and work together to save the world?"

"Never!" Infuriated, Fearless Leader slugs Honeysuckle in the nose, knocking her onto her back. The she-moose jumps to her feet, dusts herself off, and rubs her bruised nose.

"How about now?" she says calmly.

"Okay."

In the electronics room, the two nerdy scientists are studying the time-travel device. "It's a technology I've never seen before," remarks the first nerd.

"We must take it before the Antlered One," declares the second nerd. "He is all-wise."

"Hand it over!" bellows Honeysuckle as she charges into the room alongside Fearless Leader. The two nerds assume defensive postures.

"It's only fair to warn you," says the first nerd, "I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering!"

Honeysuckle and Fearless Leader make short work of the nerds, karate-chopping them into unconsciousness. Then they both grab the time-travel device at the same time, and try to yank it away from each other.

"I know what you're thinking, Fearless," says Honeysuckle. "You want to go back to 1925 by yourself, kill the Bullwinkle clone, and go forward with your original plan. But what makes you think that future will be any better than this one?"

For the first time in recorded history, fear manifests itself in Fearless Leader's face.

Honeysuckle smiles elatedly. "Good. We're finally starting to understand one another."

Fearless Leader releases his grasp on the time-travel device, and Honeysuckle pulls it away from him...just as a half-dozen armed guards with fake antlers burst into the room, followed by Rocky, Sherman, and the two Peabodys. "That device belongs to the Antlered One!" shouts one of the guards.

Desperate, Honeysuckle glances around the gadget-filled room in hopes of finding an escape route. Then she looks out the door...and sees something that may be useful. Tossing the time-travel device into Fearless Leader's hands, she punches her way past two of the guards, while the other four attack Fearless Leader and try to wrest the device from him.

"Wait! Don't leave me!" the spymaster calls after her.

Once outside the electronics room, Honeysuckle rushes over to a life-size oak statue of Bullwinkle in his Antlered One uniform. Slicing off its head with a precise karate chop, she drags what remains of the statue into the room where the guards have seized the time-travel device and are pointing their guns at Fearless Leader.

"He cannot be re-educated," the brainwashed Rocky tells the guards. "Destroy him!"

"Stop!" yells Honeysuckle.

All eyes turn to the front of the room. Rocky, Sherman, the two Peabodys, Fearless Leader, and the guards see a wooden statue of their ruler and tyrant, its head replaced by Honeysuckle's, who is hiding the rest of her body behind it.

She imitates Bullwinkle as she speaks. "Duh, I am the Antlered One, and you are my subjects. You must obey my every command."

Everyone gazes at Honeysuckle and her statue disguise in astonished reverence. Two guards start whispering to each other. "I don't think that's really the Antlered One," says the first guard.

"But what if it is?" wonders the second guard.

"Good point," whispers the first guard, who then speaks out loud. "Command us, great and wise Antlered One, and we will obey!"

"Release that man, and give him the device!" orders Honeysuckle in her Bullwinkle voice. The guards quickly comply, handing the time-travel device back to Fearless Leader and lowering their weapons.

"You are now free from my evil hypnotic influence," Honeysuckle proclaims, still impersonating Bullwinkle.

Everyone who has been brainwashed stares at her in confusion.

"Snap out of it, you stupid gits!" she says impatiently in her own voice.

As soon as she speaks, Rocky, Sherman, the Peabodys, and the guards start to look around in wonderment. Emotion returns to their faces, and life to their eyes.

"I'm free!" exults the first guard. "I can think again!"

"We must overthrow the evil moose dictator!" declares the second guard.

"Let's form a resistance cell!" suggests the third guard.

"No, let's form a rock band!" the fourth guard chimes in.

While the guards debate how to use their newfound liberty, Rocky, Sherman, and the two Peabodys gather around Honeysuckle and Fearless Leader, who are preparing the time-travel device for use. "When I press this button," explains Fearless Leader, "we will all be transported to the exact point in time when I left 1925 Pottsylvania."

"Let's get the heck out of this timeline," says Rocky eagerly.

Fearless Leader punches the button. Before they know it, he, Rocky, Honeysuckle, Sherman, and the Peabodys are standing on a cracked sidewalk that runs along a poorly maintained street. A Model T rolls by, while men and women wearing 1920's fashions stroll past the various shopfronts--Ivan's Spy Supply, Trenchcoats-R-Us, Spybucks Coffee.

"Hokey smoke!" Rocky marvels. "It's the roaring 20's!"

"I've been to this time," says Peabody. "I like to call it the 'boring 20's'."

Honeysuckle pulls the cover from the back of her cell phone and starts to fiddle with it. "What are you doing?" Sherman asks her. "You won't get cellular service here."

"My cell phone also acts as a radio transmitter," Honeysuckle explains. "Fearless, go to Rottenov's HQ with the time-travel device and warn him about the Bullwinkle clone. The rest of us will join you in a few minutes."

"Why should I take orders from you?" asks Fearless Leader petulantly.

Honeysuckle raises a fist. "Do as I say, or fear won't be the only thing you're incapable of!"

Fearless Leader's expression of steely resolve melts. "I will go and find Rottenov," he offers. "The rest of you, stay here." He runs off with the time-travel device under his arm.

Having activated the transmitter in her cell phone, Honeysuckle speaks into it. "To any U.S. intelligence agents who may be receiving this transmission. The Pottsylvanians are conspiring to hoard precious metals, cause a global depression, and take control of the world economy. They must be stopped. I repeat, they must be stopped!"

"So much for Fearless Leader's plan," says Rocky with relief.

"I wouldn't count him out yet," says the Peabody clone.

"Look!" cries Sherman, pointing down the street. A block away, several Pottsylvanian military police officers armed with rifles are running in their direction.

"Radios are verboten!" shouts one of the officers. "You are under arrest!"

"Run, you lot!" orders Honeysuckle, lowering her cell phone.

She takes off down the street, followed by Rocky, Sherman, and the Peabodys, with the military officers in pursuit. Soon they come to an intersection that leads to a bridge over a turbulent river. "Over the bridge!" she instructs the others. "I'll drop my cell phone in the river so they won't have any evidence!"

She and the others run to the middle of the narrow, primitive bridge, which lacks any kind of guardrail. As Honeysuckle tosses her cell phone into the rapids, the Peabody clone confronts his original, who is standing on the edge of the bridge and looking over the river. While everyone else is looking at Honeysuckle, he speaks quietly. "Excuse me, Mr. Peabody, but I need to make a clone fall."

And then the Peabody clone shoves the original Peabody over the edge of the bridge. The hapless dog plunges toward the waves, screaming.

"Great Scott! My clone!" cries the Peabody clone in mock horror.

Honeysuckle, Sherman, and Rocky hurry to the clone's side, and gaze in unbelieving shock at the river below. Peabody is thrashing about frantically, as one strong wave after another sweeps over him. His glasses have been washed from his face, and are sinking to the bottom.

"What happened?" asks the horrified Sherman.

"He jumped!" claims the Peabody clone. "I guess he couldn't live with the guilt of having betrayed his country!"

"We've got to do something...or he'll drown!" exclaims Rocky.

Will our heroes save Mr. Peabody from the raging river? Find out by watching our next exciting episode, "Out of the Depths", or, "Dead Dogs Tell No Tails"!