Disclaimer: Still just building castles in the BBC's sandbox and playing with their toys.
AN: Jenny gets to snap at River a bit now :D Something she's been dying to do since the woman showed up. And we find out just a smidge more about when the majority of River's knowledge of the Doctor in this 'verse happens. And as always, love to tkelparis for betaing this little monster of mine, even though she hates River. *mwah!*
Love to all you reviewers and readers!
Chapter 11 - Chaos and Catastrophe
The group left the connecting corridor, and ran through several more hallways until they found an open room with a second story linked with multiple staircases. Anita and Mr Lux were in the one reasonably-lit spot, and Jenny was scanning shadows along with River Song. Once she'd done her duty, she casually ambled over to the woman who'd been annoying her so much and lightly leaned against a book-cart. "So. You know my dad, but not me or my mum. Why is that? And don't pull the 'spoilers' card on me, because that's long past pissing me off and I will likely slap you for it."
River smirked, just a little, because she could see a hint of the woman she knew in the girl presently in front of her. "I could, you know. Easily and honestly. But...when I know you and your father best, you're a different woman. Not to mention you never told me you'd been blonde previously." River shrugged and absently scanned a shadow. "You're the one who gave me the sonic blaster - the squareness gun - actually. Said it'd come in handy for my lifestyle."
She smirked a bit more, then turned to face Jenny fully. "As for Donna...neither of you ever told me much more than her name. And after the first few times of being slapped down for asking about her, I simply assumed that something horrible had happened to her and stopped asking." She rubbed her cheek and smiled ruefully. "You have a very pointed way of making someone stop asking questions, sometimes...I didn't even know you called her mum until today."
Jenny bit her lip and looked off to the side to see Anita and Mr. Lux start and pretend they weren't eavesdropping. She despised being reminded that her mum was human, and they'd lose her sooner than they could ever want. But what could have happened that neither she nor her dad would never mention her mum? What could be that horrible? Were they going to not be able to rescue her from wherever she was stuck in the Library? Still, apparently whenever she herself died, she regenerated with traits of her mum, so that was a tiny bit of consolation. She knew what River's rubbing her cheek like that meant - she'd been slapped at least once.
Rather than ask further questions in her current confused state, Jenny returned to scanning the shadows, grateful that there wasn't a glass-domed ceiling in this room. The solid ceiling was blocking the signal from the doctor moon enough so she could actually be useful while she thought. And fretted. It had been over five minutes, so where was her dad? She'd almost decided to go look for him when River started telling Mr. Lux and Anita a bit about what she knew about her dad, so she paused in a well-lit spot to listen. It was another clue to decipher when this woman would show up in their future.
"...you know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them? It's like they're not quite...finished, they're not done yet." River smiled wryly, then sighed. "Well...yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor. Now my Doctor...I've seen whole armies turn and run away from him. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor...in the TARDIS...next stop - everywhere."
Jenny frowned, eyebrows nearly meeting with the intensity of her confusion and slowly building annoyance...it might even be anger by now. It sounded like her dad would become a completely different person in the future, and she wasn't sure what to think about that. He stopped armies, yes, but he didn't instil terror in them. Or at least he hadn't on Messaline. Not that she'd noticed, anyway...he might have done something after she'd dropped into coma. Or died and come back, whichever it was she'd actually done. He was certainly against violence of any sort - he even hated it when it was absolutely necessary, and it was a huge burden on him each time violence was the only solution.
So what the blazes was going to happen to her dad that he'd take pride in terrifying people, when he was so against violence of any sort right now? Was losing Mum going to make him such a different person that he'd become someone vengeful and terrifying like that? And opening the TARDIS with a snap of the fingers...how could that work? And why couldn't that annoying woman be more specific on when? Although her recognising Dad was a clue - he'd have to have had the same face when they met first, or she'd not have recognised him now. Or...at least she thought she wouldn't. She was so lost in thought in her bright spot that she didn't even notice her Dad pop up. She jumped in surprise - and, embarrassingly, squeaked - when he suddenly spoke from halfway down the stairs.
"Spoilers! Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that." He skipped descending the rest of the stairs by vaulting over the landing railing, and immediately went to check on his distracted daughter. All right, Little Star?
Yeah, m'fine. Jenny smiled sheepishly at her dad. Just...thinking about some of the things River said to me.
Must have been quite something - you were completely lost to the world there. He gave her a thorough, though quick, going-over, then turned to face River again.
River, not noticing the telepathic conversation, simply replied to the last thing the Doctor had said. Tiredly, as though she were tired of arguing the point. "It does for the Doctor."
Had a lot to think about. Jenny sighed in exasperation, rolled her eyes and muttered. "Oh, not this again."
The Doctor pinned River Song with narrowed eyes. She may know his name, but she obviously didn't properly know him, to say something like that. So why would he keep her around, much less...? "I am the Doctor."
He left to go talk to Anita, and Jenny intercepted River before she could follow to continue whatever idiocy she was planning on. "You know...you may know Dad's name, but you really don't know him as well as you think you do. He's the Doctor. He isn't acting like the smug git you imply he turns into in the future, but he is and always will be the Doctor. You comparing him to his future self...that's like if I went and tracked down your younger self and told her she'd be a stuck up, arrogant, egotistical blabbermouth one day who didn't care about trampling on others' feelings. Highly insulting and really spoiling the future in a very annoying way. And in case you'd forgotten, we're in a rather dangerous situation and neither of us needs the distraction of trying to figure you and your spoilers out. So put a sock in it already before I give you another pointed clue to stop!"
River stared at Jenny, then at the girl's raised right hand. Between the obvious threat and the girl's impassioned description of what she looked like from outside, she was more than a little taken aback. Everything was coming out wrong, apparently, or rather it was coming out right to the wrong people, and she felt rather off-kilter. She took a deep breath and sighed it back out, then nerved herself to try her best to explain her point of view. Hopefully in a manner that wouldn't earn her another painful slap. Before she could speak, though, she was saved by the metaphorical bell. In this case, the Doctor shouting as he left Anita's side.
"Safe. You don't say saved, nobody says saved, you say safe. The data fragment! What did it say?"
Mr. Lux had a puzzled frown as he recited from memory. "4,022 people saved. No survivors."
"Dad?" Jenny went to join her father and the rest of the group, River trailing behind. "What are you on about?"
"Oh, Jenny, haven't you figured it out yet? Nobody says saved, well, nutters say saved. Religious people say saved. You and me, we'd say safe. But you see, the message didn't mean safe, it meant - it literally meant - saved!" He grinned at his daughter, beaming broadly as he saw the light of understanding dawning in her eyes.
"So that means..." She followed her dad over to the information terminal and continued talking as he worked. "...the computer saved everyone?"
"Yes!" He pointed out to everyone the information he'd just pulled up on the terminal. "See, there it is, right there! A hundred years ago, massive power surge, all the teleports going off at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm, the computer tries to teleport everyone out."
Mr. Lux suddenly looked very concerned, but no one noticed as he was behind Professor Song, who was asking if the computer had really tried to teleport all those people. He had a horrible feeling he knew what had happened, and if he was right...
"Succeeded, pulled 'em all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them, nowhere safe in the whole Library, Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. 4,022 people all beamed up and nowhere to go." Unable to stand still any longer, he paced toward a long table, everyone following. "They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?"
Comprehension finally dawned on River Song as it had minutes ago for Jenny. She breathed out, awed. "It saved them."
Jenny grinned as her dad took out a marker and drew a circle to indicate the planet, then filled in a smaller circle. He really didn't need to illustrate...but maybe he thought he had to. After all, he was mostly explaining things to humans that weren't as clever as her mum.
"The Library, a whole world of books, and right at the core, the biggest hard drive in history." The Doctor drew an arrow from outside the circles to the inner one. "The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved 4,022 people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive."
Mr. Lux flinched as an alarm sounded. He'd been afraid the Doctor was right, and the alarm meant something had gone terribly wrong. Now...now he'd have to reveal the secret he'd succeeded in hiding for so long. Still, he had to ask...perhaps it wasn't as bad as he thought and he could keep that secret. "What is it? What's wrong?"
A computer voice answered him, and confirmed all his fears. "Auto destruct enabled in twenty minutes."
"Dad? What's going on? What's happening?" Jenny followed her dad as he ran back to the information terminal and started frantically tapping away at the keys as the screen displayed 'Maximum Erasure'. "And what's it mean, there on the screen, when it says maximum erasure?"
"Twenty minutes," he replied, still frantically working at the terminal. "This planet's going to crack like an egg."
Clinging to the only hope he had left, Mr. Lux shook his head. "No, no, it's all right. The doctor moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect CAL." But his last hope died with the screen of the information terminal.
And, over the Doctor's protests, that computer voice, fairly garbled now, said. "All Library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly..."
"We need to stop this," Mr. Lux cried out in desperation. "We've got to save CAL!"
"You mean you're finally going to tell us what CAL is?" Jenny asked.
At the same time, the Doctor asked. "What is it, what is CAL?"
Mr. Lux sighed. "We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you."
"But it's at the core of the planet," Jenny fretted, worried sick about her mum. How could they get to the computer core in time to save her? Not to mention the rest of the people stuck in there.
"Well, then. Let's go!" River exclaimed, and soniced a symbol at the centre of the room, smirking as it irised open to reveal a platform waiting in an energy field. And silently thanked the luck and providence that had landed them in a room with access to the core. "Gravity platform!"
Despite the gravity of the situation, neither the Doctor nor Jenny could resist a pleased smile. And Jenny even managed something close to her usual exuberance when she said, "Oh you're observant. Bet you'll be fun in the future."
"You better believe I am!" River replied, smiling as they all boarded the platform. It appeared she might finally be winning Jenny over - something that eased her poor heart, as she really liked the Doctor's daughter, and it had hurt for her to be so harsh. Almost as much as the Doctor looking right through her did.
At the bottom of the shaft, they leapt off the platform and ran down a corridor lined with electronic equipment, looking for the central access to the Data Core. As they arrived, that same computer voice informed them that they only had fifteen minutes left before auto destruct, and Jenny was just about as frantic as her dad.
They were both working at a terminal, when they heard that mystery girl's voice crying out. "Help me. Please, help me."
"Dad," Jenny looked up after River's query about the voice, and frowned. "That's that little girl's voice. The one we saw on the terminal screen upstairs."
"I can't get any answers though. The computer's in sleep mode and I can't wake it up." He tugged at his hair in frustration as River came up beside them.
"Doctor, those readings...they look like alpha waves..." River commented after she'd seen the screen.
"I know," he replied. "You'd think it was...dreaming."
Mr. Lux sighed as he interjected himself into the conversation. Revealing this secret hurt, but if they were to save anyone, he had to tell them so they could see that there was one extra life at stake. "It is dreaming. Of a normal life, and a lovely Dad, and of every book ever written."
"But computers don't dream," Anita said from behind her darkened faceplate, while the girl's voice continued to plead for help.
"No," he said with a sad smile. "But little girls do." At that he keyed in a sequence and pulled a lever beside the keypad to open a hidden door to another room. Inside that room was the core of the computer, attached by cables to another Node. A Node that turned it's head as they entered to reveal the face of that mystery girl they'd seen what seemed like so long ago.
"Please help me. Please, please help me."
"Oh my God!" River stared, shocked and disturbed.
"Dad, it's her! The girl in the computer!" Jenny gasped, staring wide-eyed at the disturbing sight.
"She's not in the computer," Felman Lux sighed again. "In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is CAL."
The Doctor rounded on Lux, furious, and shouted. "CAL is a child! A child hooked up to a mainframe! Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!"
"Because she's family!" After he'd shouted back at the Doctor, Lux ran his hand over what remained of his hair. "CAL. Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter. She was dying, so he built her a library and put her living mind inside. With a moon to watch over her, and all of human history to pass the time, any era to live in, any book to read." He smiled sadly and reached up to touch the cheek of the Node. "She loved books more than anything, and he gave her them all. He asked only that she be left in peace. A secret, not a freak show."
The Doctor stared at CAL, then at Felman Lux. "So you weren't protecting a patent," he murmured. "You were protecting her."
"Yes," Lux nodded. "My youngest aunt." He smiled sadly. "It's only half a life of course, but it's forever."
"So...she's been here all this time, just happily living in the computer. Until the shadows came." Jenny asked, then startled as the Charlotte node replied.
"Shadows. I have to... I have to save. Have to save..."
"She saved them," the Doctor murmured, resting a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "She saved everyone in the Library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe. Couldn't tell anyone, of course, because she forgot so she could stay sane." A wry smile quirked his lips. "Over 4,000 living minds, chatting away inside her head...anyone would have to forget. It'd be like being...well...me. Bit much for a little girl, don't you think?"
"So what do we do?" River asked, and was tempted to roll her eyes at the automated countdown. Yes, they only had ten minutes left to fix this, but did it really have to remind them?
"Easy!" The Doctor shouted as he left his daughter to start taking apart some equipment. "We beam all the people out of the data core, the computer will reset and stop the countdown." Still working away, he saw a bit of information and continued. "Difficult, Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer. But! Easy! I'll hook myself up to the computer and she can borrow my memory space!"
"What?!" Jenny stared at her dad, jaw dropped. "But that-"
River interrupted Jenny to make the point more directly. "It'll kill you stone dead!"
He glanced at his daughter and flashed her a quick smile of reassurance, then turned his attention back to River and his work. "Easy to criticize."
That frustrating man was about to make River start tearing her hair out! How could he take such risks with his daughter stood right there listening? Especially since she was so very young - she had to try and stop him, at least for Jenny's sake, if not for her own. "It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate!"
"Dad!" Jenny cried out, scared and not sure if River was right or he was.
"I'll try my hardest not to die," the Doctor said to both River and his daughter. But mostly to his Little Star. "Honestly, it's my main thing." Why couldn't they just stop protesting and let him get on with this?
"Doctor!" River shouted in exasperation. Blasted man never would listen...she felt her gut clench as he snapped out orders, and couldn't resist snapping at him when he finished. "I hate you sometimes!"
"I know!" He grinned and got back to work, shifting cables with enthusiasm and using the sonic with abandon, obviously not caring what River thought of him.
River took a firm hold on Jenny and started manhandling her back up the corridor "Mr. Lux, with me! Anita stay here - if he dies, I'll kill him!"
On the ride back up the gravity shaft, River pulled Jenny aside and murmured. "You'll have to help Mr. Lux on your own. I'm going back down to help your father."
Jenny glared at River Song and raised her chin. "If anyone goes to help him, it should be me!"
"Not this time." There were tears in River's eyes as she shook her head. "Not yet. You've still got too much ahead of you. And, anyway, it's my turn to do something stupidly magnificent. Something the pair of you, all this time you've known me, knew I'd have to do one day."
Before Jenny could say anything else, the platform reached the top and River pulled her into a quick hug despite that she was hugging a stiff, shocked girl who wasn't returning it.
"Be safe and happy, Jenny. You'll understand it all...one day," River said, then turned the hug into a shove which sent Jenny stumbling into the arms of a very surprised Felman Lux. Before either of them could react, River shouted "Get on with priming the data cells! We're running out of time!" Then she used her sonic on the gravity platform and sent it zipping back down at dangerous speeds, leaving a gaping Jenny and startled Felman Lux behind her.
"But...but...it should be me going back to help my dad! It should be me!" Jenny shouted in frustration.
"Well, obviously she decided it should be her. Now come on, she's right. We're running out of time and we have a job to do. One that won't wait on the gravity platform coming back so you can go argue the point." He lead her over to the terminals and asked, "You do know how to do this, right?"
"What? Oh...yes, of course I know how to do this," Jenny said, frowning at the terminal, still annoyed that it wasn't her going back to help her dad. But Lux was right, they needed to get to work. And so she sighed and worked at the terminal until it booted up enough so she could do what was needed. And, while they worked in silence, she spared a bit of her mind to wonder why that unexpected hug from River felt so much like the woman was saying goodbye...