Earlier...

They had ventured through half a dozen more chambers in this weird place. Each room had contained a puzzle more tricky and treacherous than the last.

So far, Charlie had solved them all. Sometimes he had to work on conclusions the Doctor had drawn, particularly those involving alien elements.

All the while, the Doctor was asking him about… stuff. Teasing out answers.

What had he seen? What effect had that dart had on his body, on his mind? What did Charlie think his greatest desire was?

"I don't know," he kept replying.

They were both acutely aware of this game they were playing. An imitation game, if you will.

And Charlie knew that the Doctor was getting worryingly close to asking certain questions.

He wanted the Doctor to help him set things right, but he didn't know how to tell him.

He wasn't sure now was the right time.

Then again, maybe the Doctor could be convinced. Maybe he could change his mind.

Right now, Charlie was examining the floor. Caked in a thin layer of dust, lay a series of slabs arranged in concentric circles. The slabs were engraved with highly detailed patterns.

"What do you make of this, Doctor?" Charlie spoke up, dropping to his hands and knees to study the engravings.

Precise etchings of circles and arcs, connected by lines, crisscrossed between the slabs. Brushing the dust out of the grooves revealed a flickering reflection of the Doctor's flaming torch.

"You tell me," the Doctor challenged him with a grin.

"I'd say the engravings on the floor are lined with metal." Charlie glanced up at the Doctor. He was tracing the circumference of the room, as he had with all the previous chambers, searching for any obvious exits.

It took a moment for the Doctor to realise Charlie was staring at him. "It's silver."

"Silver?" Charlie repeated quietly.

He stood up, examining the room.

"Silver's a highly conductive material." Charlie scratched the back of his neck. "Couple that information with the pattern; those engravings connecting all the stones together… and I'd say this was a giant circuit board."

"That's incredible," the Doctor uttered, glaring at him.

Charlie laughed awkwardly. "It's quite simple really."

"I know," the Doctor mused, "That's why it's incredible. It's almost like this place was designed for you to solve it so easily."

Charlie frowned, trying to work out what the Doctor was getting at. Was he insulting him? "You mean… like it's meant for me? Like I'm meant to be here?"

The Doctor nodded.

"I ask you to pick the one place in the universe where you really want to be, and we end up here? Neither of us knows where we are – but you've waltzed through here like it's a breeze. You didn't even set off any of the death traps."

"Death traps?" Charlie exclaimed. "What death traps?"

The Doctor gestured back towards the archway they had walked through.

"The ones I would imagine you'd set off if you were to fail any of the puzzles. Floor trips, death rays, jets of nerve gas..."

Charlie cast a glance back into the last chamber, alarmed. He hadn't noticed any real dangers.

"Try not to think about it," the Doctor dismissed the notion in what he probably thought was a reassuring manner. It wasn't.

"Right," Charlie croaked, feeling rather unsure of himself momentarily. "Then I guess we'd better make sure we get this right."

Charlie set to work on the circuit, aligning the patterns so everything joined up.

There were unique markings dominating particular stones – which appeared to correlate with electrical components. In the centre, there was a perfect circle, raised slightly above the rest of the circuit. Embedded in this stone was a transparent crystalline structure, like a precious diamond. It appeared to be disconnected from the other components.

The stone slabs were built upon a devious mechanism – moving the stones pushed the other rings around at different speeds.

As soon as one section was lined up, it would break the others apart. This was going to require a lot of skill, and more than a little good luck and judgement.

If only the Doctor would help him out, instead of staring at the closed archway ahead of them, buzzing at it with the sonic screwdriver.

Charlie sighed, burying his head in his hands.

This was going to take a while.


He wasn't sure how long he had been so far – but this puzzle was starting to become a bit of a drag.

You've got to do this, he thought, Don't let all this be for nothing.

He let his arms drop into his lap. He stared at them with bleary eyes for a moment. He noticed his scarred arm for the first time in a while. The cuts that tied him to his past. A past he wanted to forget about – but couldn't.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shut the memories out. In that moment – a pair of yellow irises burned before him. Startled, Charlie's eyes snapped open.

He looked over, but the Doctor hadn't noticed him.

The Doctor travelled through time – all across the universe, trying to make things right. Make things better. He always tried to make things better. The Doctor was even trying to make him better; through all those questions, and all those tests. Charlie shot another glance at his arm.

He was about to raise a question, when the Doctor spoke.

"This is it. This is the last room."

"What do you mean?"

"There's nowhere else to go. This door's false. It's solid stone. No way through."

"You thought the other doors were pretty solid, too," Charlie reminded him.

"Believe me, Charlie. There is no way through this wall, and there is nothing on the other side."

Charlie shook his head in disbelief.

"There has to be. Why else would we have been lead here?"

"Maybe this is where it ends. This is the last puzzle. Solve this, and we'll finally work out this old temple's secret."

Charlie nodded. Maybe.

He got back to his feet, and got back to work.

The Doctor wandered around, observing him as he turned the circuits, and the concentric stone rings all revolved, countering his movements.

Frankly, the Doctor's constant pacing about was a little off-putting.

"Why else would we have ended up here?" the Doctor repeated Charlie's words.

Charlie shrugged, ignoring the Doctor's questions.

"There's something strange in this very room. It's right there, in front of my nose, but I can't see it," the Doctor muttered through gritted teeth, his frustration visibly plaguing his features.

"Can you see it, Charlie?"

"Not sure," Charlie grunted.

Somehow, Charlie knew that the Doctor's hunch was right. He could feel it.

There was something in this room.

It signalled the end of their trials. It tallied with the Doctor's conclusion that this was the last puzzle.

There was a feeling raging through his chest, quickening his pulse. It was a feeling of power. Like he was getting close to achieving a lifelong goal.

"I think I've done it," Charlie uttered in surprise.

"Well, I thought you'd been done for the last ten minutes."

"I had to double check."

"Completely understandable," the Doctor agreed with a wry smile, presumably pondering over the various death traps concealed in the room. "Now, which of these stones marks the location of the switch?"

Charlie pointed it out, still deep in thought.

The Doctor examined it.

"It's hidden beneath the floor. I can activate it with the sonic screwdriver."

"Yeah…"

Charlie was missing something obvious.

The circuit was complete… yet it wasn't.

It was too late for him to raise his doubts. The Doctor had already hit the switch on the sonic screwdriver, activating the circuit.

"Oh wait…" Charlie uttered, earning a fierce glare from the Doctor. Wait what?

There was a gust of wind – a bitter chill that froze his bones. It came from above; a breath from the heavens.

He had made a mistake – and now the ceiling was slowly descending. The ancient booby trap would grind their bones to dust, slowly but surely.

"We're components!" Charlie yelled.

"What?"

"We need to stand in the right place," Charlie called out, looking around the room again.

The Doctor glanced down at his feet. "Otherwise we'd be electrocuted, I assume."

Charlie gulped down a panicked breath, as his mind raced at the possibility.

"Come on, Charlie!" the Doctor urged. "What did you see that I missed?"

"I…" Charlie shook his head, struggling to concentrate, the threat of death whispering anxious thoughts in his mind.

"Come on, hurry up," the Doctor spouted. "We don't want to get locked in. I don't have any spare crystals. And I really don't fancy going back to Metabelis III to get some more. Not after our little Arachnid encounter."

"I have no idea what you just said," Charlie uttered, his eyes darting across the circuit, playing a lightning-fast tracing game.

He needed to concentrate – or they'd both be crushed.

"There!" Charlie pointed to a break in the circuit on the other side of the room.

There were two slabs which could be connected – but no silver lines jumped between the two.

"You need to stand across both of those stones. Complete the circuit with your body!"

"Yes! Good."

The Doctor leapt into position, placing a boot on each of the stone slabs.

"And where do you stand, Charlie?" the Doctor urged, his eyebrows knotted in worry.

Where do you fall?

"What?"

"Where do you need to stand?" the Doctor yelled, gesticulating furiously at Charlie's feet.

"Oh…"

He was drawn to that component in the centre of the room. That one component which sat apart from the rest of the circuit. It shouldn't. He needed to complete it himself.

He raced over to it, studying it in a whirl of panic.

He wasn't sure what he needed to do to complete it.

Instinctively, he reached out, and placed his palm onto the jagged surface of the gemstone.

Had the Doctor looked at Charlie at that moment, he would have seen it.

Just for a second, Charlie's eyes flashed with an intense yellow glow, glaring at the world through pupils that did not belong to him.

"Let me through," a voice uttered.