How to do this? Linear slides with a hidden slides interaction.

I have articulate suite 09.  How to make the hidden PPTx slides with slide to slide hyperlinks that work, work in Articulate???

I have basically 20 slides that are linear, from a welcome to a summary finish slide. It is primarily linear. (no engages)

However  in the middle I also have a group of hidden slides that make up a non linear learning interaction. It's a click and explore situation for the learner, the page has multiple buttons, and each one when clicked goes to a different hidden slide. To the viewer it looks like they are on the same slide, but just it has additional text explaining the button they just clicked on. But for each button, there is a different slide, a hidden slide.

I started by creating hidden slides in PPTx. The PPTx works.  I then went into articulate and made those hidden slides hidden and level II in articulate.  The player template allows free navigation, the user must click to advance to another slide. 

I see the hidden slides do not appear in the articulate navigation - that's good.  However when on the slide with the buttons, when clicked, they hyperlink to improper slides, not the slides I defined for the hyperlinks in PPT.

How to make the hidden PPTx slides with slide to slide hyperlinks that work, work in Articulate???