Author's Note: Wow... I'm really sorry, I really am. I wish I could give some awesome reason to why I am a MONTH late posting. Something about saving the world or climbing a mountain... Maybe crashing something, although if I hurt poor Charlie or Azura (my car and motorcycle), I could never forgive myself... Nope, nothing like that. I missed the first week due to a camping trip that didn't get me back till Wednesday.

And the proceeded to suffer from writer's block for the next three... And not even the kind of writer's block where you can't think of something to write, oh no. It was the kind where you know what you want to say, but for the ever-loving life of you, you can't figure out HOW to say it.

Quite fortunately, I'm should be passed that. So, even though this chapter was so late, even posted after midnight the day afterwards, I'll be able to get back on schedule. There's going to be another chapter and an epilogue to go with this story. In case you forgot what's going on, due to the length of my... hiatus... feel free to go back and read the earlier stories.

It took several moments for it to sink in. Violet stared at the mercenary, the same one who had sat next to her on the way down, sprawled on the ground. The realization hit suddenly and she felt her knees go weak. She stumbled to one side and immediately began retching.

She wasn't sure how long she spent there, head against the wall, heaving. Long after her stomach had lost everything it had held. Her sides hurt. Her head hurt. Everything seemed to be crushing down on her.

When she finally got a hold of herself, she found she was no long against the wall at all. Instead, she was across the room, sitting down and leaning across Professor Song's lap. Her teacher was running her fingers though the mousy girl's hair. Violet slowly pushed herself upright.

"Are you alright?" Professor Song asked quietly.

She nodded numbly.

Violet glanced around the room. The first thing she noticed was that the arch was open. The cylinder brick was sticking out of the hole. The next thing she noticed was that the dead mercenary had been moved. He was against a wall now. It looked like someone had draped a spare sleeping tarp over him. The final thing that dawned on her was that the room was mostly empty. Besides herself and her teacher, there were only two of the mercenaries, the frowning faced one and a young woman whose hair barely fell past her ears.

Violet felt her face grow warm. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Its fine," Professor Song said, brushing the girl's hair with her fingers one more time before standing up. She offered a hand to Violet, who took it silently.

"Seeing someone die the first time can be rough," the frowning mercenary said. "I've seen highly trained soldiers lose it when it happens." He nodded to the woman next to him who fished a pack out of her satchel.

"Eat this," she said, handing the pack to Violet. "It should help settle your stomach."

Violet opened it up to find several long crackers. She lifted one up and tried to take a bite out of it. Saying it was difficult would be putting it mildly. The cracker finally snapped and she found she had to concentrate very hard on chewing.

"Do you have water?" the woman asked.

Violet nodded, not wanting to speak and spew crumbs everywhere.

"Make sure to drink some regularly." The woman closed her satchel. "If you start feeling weak, faint, or dizzy, make sure to say something." She nodded at the other mercenary and turned to leave.

Violet managed to swallow some of the dry crackers. "Thank you."

The woman paused and she glanced back at Violet as if she was slightly surprised. "You're welcome."

After she had left, Violet's eyes drifted back to the body hidden beneath the tarp. "What was his name?" she asked finally.

"Baker," the frowning mercenary said quietly.

She hesitated. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." The mercenary paused. "He was always thick headed. Good in a fight though. That's all he needed to be."

Professor Song helped Violet up slowly. The mercenary nodded at them and began heading toward the arch.

"Excuse me," Violet said, her voice soft.

The mercenary paused and looked back at her.

She took a deep breath. "What's your name?"

One of the mercenary's eyebrows rose slowly. Violet felt her face grow warm again. "It's just, I never knew his name. I don't know any of your names. I never even bothered to try and learn them."

"You don't need to know our names," the mercenary said. "It's easier that way, the less you know about us. Just in case."

She hesitated. "Still."

The mercenary shook his head. "No, I suppose your one of those rare people that will feel terrible no matter what." He paused. "My names Henry."

"Thank you, Henry."

He made a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a chuckle, before heading through the arch.

Violet glanced at Professor Song. "I'm the only one who got sick, aren't I."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry I'm so weak."

Her teacher gave her a soft smile and placed one arm around her shoulder. "Compassion isn't weakness. Some people would argue that the rest of us are the weaker since we didn't feel as strongly."

The room on the other side of the arch was the exact opposite than the one before. It was enormous. The arch opened out onto a platform with a pair beautiful staircases that descended down in lazy spirals. Beneath them was a maze. At least, Violet thought it looked kind of like a maze. From what she could tell, there were no dead ends. Instead the lines crisscrossed and doubled back on each other, while other curved gracefully around and through them. Dim light seem to sit at regular intervals, bright enough to cast long shadows in the maze itself but so dim that she couldn't see the ceiling.

The platform was surprisingly roomy, larger than the last room simply by itself. Hamilton stood by one staircase, looking down and frowning, tapping his foot impatiently. Two mercenaries, one of them the woman and the other a hulking man who looked like a human tank, stood next to the other stairs. The Doctor seemed to be busy examining a cube or something. It was centered perfectly in the middle of the platform and spanned a meter long in every direction. Jenny was kneeling nearby, staring at the cube as well, but her eyes had that partially glazed look of someone who was extremely bored. Violet glanced to her right as she passed through the arch to spot Henry leaning up against the wall there.

Professor Song stepped past Violet as the girl paused in the archway. She stopped a few steps away from the Doctor and crossed her arms.

"Well?"

"Well, what?" the Doctor replied, not looking up.

Professor Song let out an exasperated sigh. "Have you figured it out yet?"

"Eh, no. Not yet."

Violet took a few steps closer to get a good look at the cube. It was actually made of dozens, maybe even close to a hundred, smaller cubes, each only a few centimeters long and wide. They were packed in tightly but were still far enough away to give the larger cube a tiled or mosaic look. Carved into the side facing her was a perfect triangle. She leaned to the left a bit to look at another side, only to find it had a square cared into it.

"Aw, sweetie, starting to lose some of that creativity and intellectual drive in your old age?"

The Doctor snorted. "My creativity and intellectual drive are still absolutely perfect, thank you very much. It just doesn't make sense. What in the world does a cube made of up of smaller cubes, that has a circle, a triangle, a square, and a pentagon carved into it have to do with that." He waved his hands in agitation toward the maze. "It doesn't make any sense!"

"Still, after all this time, you have nothing?"

The Doctor grunted.

"Have you even tried anything?"

"Oh, yes, because that's smart. We're in a test that kills you if you get the answer wrong, so let's go with trial and error."

"So you've just been sitting here?"

"If you have such a problem with the way I solve things, why did you invite me along!" he snapped.

Violet glanced. "Um, excuse me?"

The Doctor turned to give her slightly annoyed look. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again, the look was gone. Probably hidden. "Yes?"

"If you haven't done anything, then where are the other mercenaries?"

The Doctor frowned. "What?"

"There are four missing."

He looked around wildly. "But, when-" His eyes narrowed and he very slowly turned his attention to Hamilton. "Where are they?"

The large blond man drew himself up proudly. "You were wasting too much time, and since you were so absorbed in playing with your little puzzle, I took care of it."

The Doctor's eyes flashed and nervous chill ran down Violet's spine. "You idiot," he hissed. "You thick skulled idiot, you've sent them to their deaths. Get them back here now!" he roared the last sentence.

Hamilton seemed taken aback, and scowled after a moment. "They are very expensive mercenaries. I'm sure if they're worth their price, they can avoid some simple death traps."

A scream drifted up to them. Hamilton's eyes went wide.

"Report," Henry barked, pressing the communicator at his collar.

There wasn't any answer.

"Is it possible they didn't hear you?" Professor Song asked softly.

Henry shook his head. "If they didn't respond, then they're not alive to do so."

Violet felt her knees grow weak suddenly. She braced herself with an arm against the cube.

"Drink some water," the woman mercenary behind her said.

Violet shook her head weakly. "Not thirsty."

"Drink," the woman ordered.

Violet fumbled with her pack and drew out her water. After a few gulps, feeling started to return to her. She glanced at the woman. "Thank you." She paused. "I don't know your name."

The woman smiled softly. "Sara." She nodded behind her. "This is Bruce."

The tank standing next to her nodded. Now that she was actually looking at him, Violet noticed his eyes were remarkably intelligent.

"Drink some more," Sara ordered.

"I'm fine now."

"It's won't do anyone any good if you pass out again," Bruce rumbled, his voice sounding far too calming and peaceful to be a mercenary's.

Violet dropped her gaze and heat returned to her cheeks, but she took another drink. She felt a hand on her shoulder and realized that Professor Song was there. Her teacher guided her away from the cube as the Doctor settled back down in front.

"So what now?" Hamilton asked in an acidic voice. "We just wait."

"No, you just wait," the Doctor answered. "I'm going to solve this."

Hamilton almost growled. "Enough." He stabbed a finger at Henry. "Get down there and find us a route."

"No."

Hamilton's eyes went wide. "Excuse me?"

"I said 'no'." Henry crossed his arms.

"Are you forgetting who is paying you?"

"I remember it very clearly. I remember our contract too. My men and I are here to lay down our lives for yours. There is nothing about you getting to send us off to die because you're a little impatient. Our contract is broken." Henry turned to the Doctor. "Can you get us out of here alive?"

"Of course."

"Wait a moment," Hamilton snarled. "You can't do this!"

Henry raised his rifle before Violet had a chance to even blink. "Listen very well," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "because you have two options. One, you can shut up, wait, and live long enough to pay me double for every one of my men whose lives you just tossed away, or two, I can extract my payment right here, right now, in blood."

Hamilton's mouth gaped. "Yo-you can't," he sputtered.

"You broke our contract. I can do a lot of things."

"Oh please," the Doctor said, his voice irritable. He didn't even bother to turn his head two the other two men. "Put the gun away, his life is hardly worth it."

For several heartbeats, nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Henry lowered the rifle. "Yeah, I suppose you're right." The mercenary turned sharply and returned to the wall he had been leaning on earlier.

Time stretched onward and Violet eventually lost track of it. She tried to help in figuring out the puzzle, but had no more luck than the Doctor was having. Eventually, she just found herself staring at the top, tracing the lines of the grid back and forth.

"Well?" Professor Song finally asked.

The Doctor scowled at her. "You are very welcome to try and figure it out. Think of it like one of those puzzles you love so much."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm an archeologist. I work in languages, history, lore, not shapes. That would be a mathematician."

"Well, too bad we don't have one of those along."

Professor Song shifted her gaze to Violet. "What about you, dear? Your old major was Maths."

"Oh?" the Doctor said, turning to look at her as well. "Any ideas?"

Violet's cheeks immediately burst into flame. She shook her head. "Not really."

"Not really? Nothing at all."

"No, I was just-" She hesitated. "Just, thinking about nothing."

"Really? That's quite impressive. In all my travels, I've never met someone who could actually think about nothing."

"Well, no, it's-" Her face grew even warmer, if that were possible. "It's just whenever I see tiles or anything like that, I always think of a graph."

"Ah, graphing." The Doctor shrugged. "That can be a great way to spend a Saturday night. Well, it can be, if you throw in a bit of alcohol." He returned his attention to the cube for a moment, before letting his shoulders sag. He stood up and stretched, glancing around the room with a very deep sigh.

Which stopped suddenly halfway through.

The Doctor's head spun to stare at the top of the cube. It spun back to look out at the room. The second time, his entire body spun as he turned to look at the cube. "No!" he declared. "No, no, no, no, I couldn't possible have been that thick." He turned back to the maze. "How did I miss that? How did I miss that?"

"Sweetie, I know you enjoy being clever, but would you mind telling us what exactly you just figured out?" Professor Song asked in a deceptively sugary voice.

"She's right," the Doctor said. He reached into a pocket and drew out a measure stick that, in all honesty, was far too long to have fit in there. The same pocket also produced a thick black marker. "All this time, it was staring me in the face, and I just didn't see it." He gestured out toward the maze with the stick while also taking four large steps to the edge of the platform. "Those lights, what do you notice about them?" He peered over the edge for a moment before turning around and heading over to the other side.

"They're dim," Professor Song said with a shrug, "but they're placed regularly enough so that we can still see the entire maze."

"They're not just placed regularly, they're placed exactly." The Doctor hurried back to the cube. He pulled the cap off the marker with his teeth and began roughly coloring several of the smaller cubes. "Each light out there is a point, an intersection, X meets Y. And it makes sense. You're testing someone's intelligence, so you start with shape recognition. So, where do you go from there? Geometry. But how do test for that without numbers, because you can't use numbers. How are they supposed to recognize them? How do you know they're even use the same numbering system? They could use base twelve, maybe base seven, or, just to mix it up, they might even just use binary." He finished inking in an eight by eight square. "So, you graph it." He quickly drew horizontal through the two cubes on the opposite sides of the square.

He turned to look at everyone with a grin. "Because no where or when you go, people who use advanced mathematics use graphs. They might not always use straight lines, they may not even use numbers, but they always, always use some kind of graph. And look." He held measuring stick against the grid, so that it crossed one lined cube, through the inked square, and finally the other lined cube. "This is the platform and both sets of stairs, plotted use those lights. And have you noticed it yet?" He lowered the stick to the shape carved below. "It's the exact length of the base of the triangle. Look down below and you'll discover two paths that leave the stairs at the exact same angle to give us this." The Doctor quickly drew two lines. "That meet right here in this four way intersection. And does anyone notice what's special about the other two paths in that intersection."

Professor Song stepped up the edge and looked out. When she turned back, she was wearing a very large smile. "They're curved."

"Exactly!" The Doctor laid the stick across the circle, measuring the diameter. "And if you follow that around, what do you get?" He measure out the diameter again on the top of the cube, starting from the circle. "A perfect circle." His hand whipped around, drawing exactly that.

"But what's after that?" Professor Song asked, looking back out across the maze.

"Look at two-hundred and sixty-eight degrees. The intersection there branches off into our pentagon. And that meets up with our square, whose top line runs right alongside that back wall, all leading up to what's located in that upper right corner."

Professor Song's eyes were gleaming. "The exit."

"Exactly!"

"Doctor," Henry said quietly, "what exactly is it?"

"It's a map. In a maze with no dead ends but so many death traps, it shows us the only way out."

"Are you certain?"

"Oh yes."

The mercenary looked from the Doctor then to Professor Song. "Then let's go."

"Wait a moment," Professor Song said, pulling out her tablet. "It's one thing when we're looking at it from above, but let me make sure that we can actually find our way once we're down there." She held it above the cube for a moment. "Ready."

"Good," the Doctor said, grinning widely. "So, let's-" He paused. "You know, I still haven't come up with a good charge yet. Allons-y is over and done. Run just lacks the proper connotations."

"Sweetie," Professor Song said from the top of the stairs. "You can think of it later, let's go."

The Doctor sighed.