ActionScript 2.0 :: Adding Mute Button - Passing Variable In SWFs

I have a client who wants to add something to a flash presentation that is almost done. There is a root swf that is pulling in a nav screen swf, which in turn is pulling in the text screen swf of that corresponding nav swf. So at the start, the root swf automatically loads nav1.swf, and nav1.swf automatically loads text1.swf. Once that plays, the next button loads nav2.swf into the root swf, and in turn, nav2.swf automatically loads text2.swf onto it. I hope that makes sense. So all the text is going to be on the screen with pix, etc, and we are going to have a VO speak the text. The VO will be on the text swf files since there is fading of pix, text, etc and we need it to match. With it almost done, the client wants a mute button added to the thing.

The question is, if the mute button is on every text swf file, is there some variable that I can pass that would keep the next text swf file from playing it's VO? The client doesn't want people to have to keep clicking the mute button with every page. I know, I know, if I knew they wanted a mute button, I never would have built it this way. It's going on the web, and I figured for loading purposes, this was the best way. Now I think Im screwed... Or rather, they are. They approved this. But can it be done? Can I pass a variable from either the root swf or the navs swf files that tells the incoming text swf files to stay muted?