As everyone was talking and looking at the Doctor, Master and Harry the Doctor noticed that instead of there being seven people in the room there was eight. It was yet another run to escape.
They ran through bridges, passing other buildings without a pause to put as much distance between the walking skeleton and themselves as they could.
"Keep walking! Find a safe spot." Ordered the Doctor stopping.
"It's a meat-eating swarm in a suit. You can't reason with it!" Protested River Song
"Five minutes." Said the Doctor.
"Other Dave, stay with him." ordered the woman to the man.
"Drag him when he insists on staying. Two minutes, Doctor."
"Go with them, Son."
"I'm staying with you and dad."
"I'll follow in a second, Son. Please, go with them. Master five minutes then I'll be with you"
"You promise you'll follow?" Asked the Master searching into the Doctors eyes
"I swear."
They looked each other in the eyes and, finally, the Master nodded. He turned around still holding onto Harry's hand and followed River Song.
The Doctor waited till who he thought of as his son was gone before turning to the skeleton walking through the door. He approached it.
"Hey! Who turned out the light?"
"Do you hear that? Those words? It's the very last thought of the man that wore that suit, before you entered inside and ate his flesh. It's the soul of a man, trapped inside a neuronal transmitter, walking in circles forever." Stated the Doctor slowly stepping back as the skeleton walked forward.
"If you don't have the decency of letting it go, at least use it. Talk to me. It's easy, it's a neuronal transmitter. Just think, use it. Talk to me."
"Who turned out the light?" Repeated the corpse.
"The Vashta Nerada lives in the worlds of this system but hunts in the forests. What are you doing in a library?"
"We must leave, Doctor." Reminded Other Dave.
"One minute. You came to The Library to hunt, why? Tell me why!"
They saw as the suit stopped advancing and seemed to sway.
"We. Did not." The words were slow, but they undoubtedly weren't Dave's.
"Oh. Hello."
"We did not." The suit repeated.
"Don't worry, you'll catch on quickly. You didn't what?" Asked the Doctor with raised eyebrows.
"We did not come here." The words were still slow but much surer.
"Of course, you did. Of course, you came here."
"We come. From here."
"From here?" Repeated the Doctor confused.
"We hatched here."
"You hatch on the trees. On spores of trees." Stated the Doctor very sure but still confused by what they were trying to say.
"These are our forests."
"There's no forest nearby. Look around you." reasoned the Doctor stepping forward.
"These are our forests." Emphasized the swarm.
"You are not in a forest. You're in a library. There are no trees in a…" For the first time, the man seemed to truly look around and understand. "…library."
"We must leave, Doctor." Insisted Other Dave. The Doctor didn't look back at him, still gazing at the things surrounding them since they entered. They had had the answer in front of themselves all the time.
"Books. You came in the books." Muttered the Doctor in realization. "Microspores in a million-millions, books."
"We should go. Doctor!" But the man wasn't listening. He was looking out through a window at the expanse of The Library. The greatest library in history.
"Oh, look at that. The forest of the Vashta Nerada. Pulped, printed and bound. A million millions books, hatching shadows." Mumbled to himself rubbing the back of his neck.
"We should go. Doctor!" That seemed to make something snap in his head and he turned around to see the black visor of Other Dave.
"Oh. Dave... Oh, Dave, I'm so sorry." He Said taking a few steps in his direction. The fleshless skull fell forward until it was supported by the helmet looking back when he heard the other talk, he saw that they had him trapped.
"Hey! Who turned out the light?" First Dave stepped forward slowly.
"We should go, Doctor." Other Dave did the same.
"I'm silly. I talk too much. I'm always chattering. I don't stop talking for anything. Do you want to know why I'm still alive?" Asked the Doctor talking very fast and looking between them. The man took out his screwdriver and pointed it at the floor.
"I'm always near a door."
A square piece of the floor under him opened and he fell. The two skeletons were left looking down at the overwhelmingly low floor of the planet.
However, the Doctor hadn't really fallen. He was dangling from the building. He had promised, swore, to Null and Koschei, that he would follow them.
It took him about ten minutes to return which was spent with the Master assuring Harry that the Doctor would return.
"He will return for all of us but especially for the Master and the Son. He's the Doctor, I've seen them turn whole armies around at just the mention of their names, then he would take Harry's hand and the Master would take the other then the doctor would snap his finger and the TARDIS would open for them always making sure Harry entered in the middle to keep him safe." River said aloud ensuring everyone heard giving them hope.
"They have so much to do, all of time space and the universes to run through if they lived a liner life they would eventually be older than the original earth. So no matter what, I know he will return to his Husband and son.
"Of course, I would, I promised you both that I would, and we're not together we're still working on the friend thing and both of us consider Harry our son, furthermore no one can open a TARDIS with a click of their fingers, well actually Harry might!" Replied the Doctor to one of Harry questions and there he was standing at the top of a set of stairs only he was alone.
"Yeah, someday but not today, as I said you're just starting out. Anyway where's Dave?" Demanded River song.
"he's not coming I'm sorry." He replied and you could see the pain in his eyes admitting that it hurt him. He had started walking down the steps going over towards where the Master, Harry and River were congregated.
"It would have been as quick as the others death professor." Spoke Harry gently to her
She smiled a little shakily and nodded, thankful.
"Please, call me River. No need for formalities between us, Harry."
Harry regarded her seriously, remembering what she had told him to make him trust her, before accepting. Really, if what he knew for definite was true, they didn't need the formalities.
"If they've taken him, why haven't they got me yet?" They heard Anita ask. She had been infected between both Dave's but she had two shadows, everyone was staying away from her.
"I don't know." Honestly answered the Doctor looking at her two shadows.
"Maybe tinting your visor has changed something."
"Of course it has. Nobody will ever see my face again."
"Can I help you?"
"Getting old would be good. Can you do something?"
"I'm working on that." The Timelord turned to his companions.
"Harry, do you know anymore?"
"Nothing I haven't already told you. They're not common creatures and there is not much known about them."
The Doctor nodded gravely, looking pensive.
"Do you think you could, you know, create one of those… patronus?"
"Yes," chuckled the younger time traveller.
"Though I don't know if it'll work with them."
"We'll have to try it." Said River.
"It's your choice, Anita. I don't know if it'll work. It could even make them attack quicker killing you."
"What are you going to do if I say yes?"
"I'm going to create light and direct it to the shadows. It should make them try to flee."
"How are you going to create that light?"
"You could say I have… abilities." said Harry after hesitating.
The woman seemed to visibly gather her courage before firmly nodding.
"Are you sure? As I said I don't know what this will do." asked Harry.
"Yeah, do it."
Harry breathed deeply and approached the brave woman. The young Timelord gave a thankful smile to the Doctor when he passed beside him and squeezed his hand.
"Okay. I need you to stay very still, Anita."
She nodded and went still. Harry took out his wand, needing to be as precise as was possible. He took another deep breath and muttered the familiar incantation.
"Expecto-Patronus."
Harry thought on all the time he had spent with Sirius, about him finding his real father, about how much he was loved by both him and Theta. Suddenly a blinding white light shot out of his wand and snaked straight for the infected shadow, he had to pump more power into as he felt them trying to push back suddenly the shadow seemed to explode and Harry cancelled his spell a few seconds later.
Both the Master and the Doctor were checking the other shadow,
"it's benign, they've gone. Its best to keep your helmet on for the time being until we sort this whole mess out. WAIT!" Shouted at the end the doctor to Harry.
"DROP YOUR WAND IT HAS TWO SHADOWS NOW SON!" He sounded truly terrified, at seeing that, Harry actually jumped dropping it without conscious thought then suddenly his dad was pulling him away from that.
"You Ok." Asked Anita.
"How did you do that?" Asked Anita to Harry.
"As I've said, I have abilities which just lost me a lot of power through these bloody Vashta Nerada that is the only conductor in this universe to channel my powers, WHY did they go after a wooden stick?"
"Don't worry about that now we'll sort it!" Exclaimed the Master still holding onto him
"Sorry I know it just cost you something but come on, give a dead girl a break. Your secret is safe with me." Insisted the woman she could not see the devastation in Harry's eyes, or she wouldn't have said anything.
"Safe."
"What?" Demanded the Master
The Doctor's eyes lit up in sudden understanding.
"Safe. You don't say saved. Nobody says saved. You say safe. The second message! What did it say?" Asked the Doctor looking at Mr. Lux.
"4022 people saved. No survivors." Answered the man confused.
"Doctor." Called River standing up.
"Nobody says saved. The crazy say saved. You say safe." Thought aloud the Doctor starting to pace. "You see, it didn't say safe. It meant, it literally meant, saved!" Exclaimed he, gripping his hair with both hands and looking at them as if it were obvious. Even the Master looked confused.
"See? Here it is. A hundred years ago. A massive power surge. All the teleports running at once. As soon as the Vashta Nerada started the hatching cycle they attacked. Someone gives the alarm and the computer tried to teleport everyone out."
"It tried to teleport 4022 people out?" asked River.
"It succeeded. Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere safe in the whole library. Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. 4022 people. All beamed up and nowhere to go. They're waiting in the system, ready to be sent, like emails. So, what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?" Urged the man.
"It saved them?" Questioned the Master in surprise.
The Doctor jumped towards a table and took a marker pen out of his jacket before starting to draw on the table.
"The Library. A whole world of books, and right at the core, the biggest hard-drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved 4022 the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard-drive."
Harry couldn't believe it. this technology… it was astounding the things they could do in the future. He knew a lot of what technology could do through his lessons and engineering course, but this was something new never thought of before.
His awe didn't last for long, however, as suddenly an alarm started to sound and the lights became red. Everyone looked around.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Asked Mr. Lux.
"Autodestruct enabled in twenty minutes." Announced the voice of a computer.
The computer screen showed the count down.
"What's maximum erasure?" Asked River.
"In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg." Muttered the Master annoyed looking at the Doctor.
"No. No, it's all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal." Intervened Mr. Lux.
As soon as the words left his lips, the terminal screen went blank, startling them.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Shouted the Doctor hitting the computer before jumping onto a chair and working on it with his screwdriver.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Asked Harry.
"All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience." Announced the computer voice inadvertently answering him.
"We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal." Urged Mr. Lux.
"But what is it? What is Cal?" Prompted the Doctor.
"We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you." Finally said the man.
"It's at the core of the planet."
"Well, then. Let's go." Said River with a big grin.
They saw her walk to the platform in the centre of the room and use her screwdriver to open it. A blue and white light appeared, and she looked down, still grinning.
"Gravity platform."
"I bet we all get along with you." Said the Doctor walking forward and looking down too.
"Oh, you do."