Chapter 27
"Are we good?", River asks him.
He's like frozen.
"Doctor, are we good?", River repeats.
He nods, slowly. "Yeah", he mouths, but his voice is gone for an instant, so he repeats it. "Yeah. We're good".
"Good", she whispers, a sad smile on her face.
By what she told me, she must be dead worried that this is actually the last time she's going to see him.
So what, are you jealous?
I shrug, trying to shake off the voice. I don't even know what she told him.
Well look at him. What do you think it was?
The Doctor stands still for an instant, recovering. He looks sternly at me, taking a deep breath. I search my mind for the mental link with him, but I lost it. I don't know if he's angry, worried, or sorry. Then he strains himself, twisting the screwdriver.
"Know what's interesting about my screwdriver?", the Doctor starts, jumping at the center of the room, as if awaken from a dark sleep. "Very hard to interfere with. Practically nothing's strong enough. Well, some hairdryers, but I'm working on that. So there is a very strong signal coming from somewhere, and it wasn't there before. So what's new? What's changed?". I look up. Everybody is silent as the Doctor circles us. "Come on! What's new? What's different?", he cries.
"I don't know. Nothing. It's getting dark?", Dave offers.
"It's a screwdriver. It works in the dark. Moonrise. Tell me about the moon. What's there?".
"It's not real. It was built as part of the Library", Lux explains. "It's just a Doctor Moon".
"What's a Doctor Moon?", I ask.
"A virus checker. It supports and maintains the main computer at the core of the planet", Lux says.
"Well, still active. It's signalling. Look. Someone, somewhere in this library is alive and communicating with the moon. Or, possibly alive and drying their hair. No, the signal is definitely coming from the moon. I'm blocking it, but it's trying to break through".
An image of Donna appears. She looks surprised and confused.
"Doctor!", I call.
"Donna!", the Doctor cries, as the image disappears again.
"That was her. That was your friend! Can you get her back? What was that?".
"Hold on, hold on, hold on", he franctically says. I point my screwdriver into thin air where the image disappeared.
"I'm trying to find the wavelength. No. I'm being blocked too. But this means Donna's still alive, right?".
"Professor?", Anita calls.
"Just a moment", River cuts her.
"It's important", she insists, her voice shaking. "I have two shadows".
We all turn quickly. "Okay. Helmets on, everyone. Anita, I'll get yours", River says.
"It didn't do Proper Dave any good", she comments, sarcastically.
"Just keep it together, okay?", River tells her.
"Keeping it together. I'm only crying. I'm about to die. It's not an overreaction", Anita bravely says as River puts her helmet on.
"Hang on", the Doctor says, sonicking the visor black.
"Oh God, they've got inside", River notes.
"No, no, no. I just tinted her visor. Maybe they'll think they're already in there, leave her alone".
"Do you think they can be fooled like that?", I ask.
"Maybe. I don't know", he tilts his head. "It's a swarm. It's not like we chat", he comments.
"Can you still see in there?", Dave asks Anita.
"Just about".
"Just, just, just stay back", the Doctor instructs, then places a hand on my shoulder. I nod."Professor, Zoe, a quick word, please".
"What?", River says through her helmet.
"Down here", he invites, as we all crouch down at Anita's feet.
"What is it?".
"Look, you said there are six people still alive in this room", the Doctor explains.
"Yeah, so?".
I look up. "So, why are there seven?".
Another spacesuit is walking towards us at the back of the room. It's zombie Dave. Slowly, but he caught up to us. "Hey, who turned out the lights?"
"Run!", the Doctor screams.
We're running again, until we're standing on a high level walkway between two library skyscrapers. "Professor, Zoe, go ahead. Find a safe spot", he yells at us.
I stop, shaking my head. "It's a carnivorous swarm in a suit. You can't reason with it", I protest.
"Five minutes", he demands.
"Other Dave, stay with him. Pull him out when he's too stupid to live", River agrees. "Two minutes, Doctor".
Zombie Dave barges through the doors, as we all run through at the entrance at the other building.
We keep going, River checking directions on her tablet, until we're in another big round room with enough light coming from the skywindow. I toss my jacket to a desk, pulling the laser screwdriver to check the shadows around. River does the same.
"You know, it's funny, I keep wishing the Doctor was here", River sighs. I frown at her and walk by her side at the carvings at the center of the room.
"The Doctor is here, isn't he? He is coming back, right?", Anita asks worriedly.
"River", I warn her, as she weights her answer for far too long, according to my standards.
She grabs my hand and turns it to check my wrist, her eyes darting up to the gallifreyan markings at my shoulder. I let out a short giggle, surprised. Nobody has done that in a while. "You're Time Lady Zoe", she states, then smiles, as if relieved from a weight. "Quite young. But we've been through some stuff, me and you, right?".
The Silence. When she told me and Rory how one day the Doctor wouldn't recognize her, and how much she dreaded that moment. I feel so sad for her, just as I did back then.
"I haven't seen you in a while", I apologize. "I'm sorry. I had no way to warn you, I assumed... he was just being rude. I had no way of knowing he didn't know you yet".
She shakes her head.
"Or if you knew me, by the way".
"I always know you. Can't get rid of you", she jokes, bitterly. "Still working on trust issues, then?".
"It's not like my timestream isn't complicated", it's all that I can say.
"Didn't expect to hurt that much", she admits. "To see how much he... cares about you".
"He's the Doctor", I insist. "He cares for everyone". And I believe that, firmly. Even if he's disappointed in me for hiding stuff, or for being gone again, I know he cares. I trust him to care.
"I had to..." River says, bitterly. "He's only listening to me because of what I told him. And I never expected his first meeting with me would be like-".
"You know his name", I say the moment the thought occurs to me. "That's... that's what you told him, isn't it?".
She stays silent. The idea of River having to tell the Doctor his name so abruptly makes me incredibly sad. That she had to prove him she's worth listening to, in the most surprising way, must have been so hard to do. For both of them: being forced to trust someone, and to such a shocking, unexpected lenght... I can't imagine how the Doctor feels. But of course, her silence now is my answer. And it makes sense, how the older, bow-tie Doctor is sometimes weird and suspicious around her. Can't imagine how messy a relationship can start on that basis.
"But you must know what I'm talking about", she sighs, interrupting my thoughts. "You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. and it's like they're not quite finished. They're not done yet", she says, turning to Anita. "Well, yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does. But not my Doctor".
Her voice is so sad. I've never seen River this emotional. "Now my Doctor, I've seen whole armies turn and run away -you'll be there too, Zoe. 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".
"Spoilers", the Doctor says from top of a flight of stairs at the edge of the room. I'm relieved to see him, but I wonder how long he heard us talking. "Nobody can open a Tardis by snapping their fingers", he adds, climbing down the stairs. He jumps over the last steps, walking past River. "It doesn't work like that".
"It does for the Doctor". River states, bitterly, as he passes.
"I am the Doctor", he snalrs, turning back to her.
"Yeah. Some day", she looks down.
He looks at me, then turns to Anita. "How are you doing?"
"Where's Other Dave?", I ask.
"Not coming. Sorry".
"Well, if they've taken him, why haven't they gotten me yet?", Anita asks.
"I don't know. Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference", he says, looking at the floor. She has two shadows.
"It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again", she jokes.
"Can I get you anything?", he asks, standing in front of her.
"An old age would be nice. Anything you can do?".
"I'm all over it", then turns.
"Doctor", she calls him back. He turns again to her. "When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear, and you did. My life so far. I could do with a word like that. What did she say? Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me".
"Safe", he repeats, absentmindedly.
"What?", Anita asks.
"Safe". He's thinking out loud. "You don't say saved. Nobody says saved. You say safe. The data fragment! What did it say?".
"Four thousand and twenty two people saved. No survivors". Lux repeats.
"Doctor?", River asks.
I see where he's going. Computer. The Doctor Moon.
"Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved. You say safe", he repeats. "You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant-", he turns around, looking at me.
"It literally meant", I continue,
"Saved!" we both say.
I scramble to reach the nearest terminal, and point my screwdriver at it. I hack the system to check the records in the Library Archive File.
"See, there it is, right there", I state, pointing at the screen.
"A hundred years ago, massive power surge", the Doctor explains, his I'm-clever-glasses back on his nose. "All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm".
"The computer tries to teleport everyone out". I add.
"It tried to teleport four thousand twenty two people?", River asks.
"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. Four thousand and twenty two people all beamed up and nowhere to go. 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?".
"It saved them", I smile.
The Doctor runs to a large polished table and starts drawing on it. A bigger circle, a smaller circle on the inside. "The library. A whole world of books, and right at the core", he fills the smaller circle "The biggest hard drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty two people the only way a computer can". He draws an arrow from the big circle to the small one. "It saved them to the hard drive".
The screen blinks and i can't get any more commands to the keybord, as if it's disconnected. An alarm sounds. "What is it? What's wrong?"
The screen blinks again. "Autodestruct enabled in twenty minutes", an automated voice warns.
The Doctor, Lux and River come back to the screen. "What's maximum erasure?" She asks.
I try to laser my way back into the system. "In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg", the Doctor says, looking at the screen as the erasing program run by.
"No. No, it's all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal", Lux says.
The screen goes off. "No, no, no! The Doctor Moon went offline!".
"All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly-", the automated voice states, fading and going off too.
"We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal", Lux states, anxiously.
"What is it? What is Cal?", the Doctor asks.
"We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you", Lux insists.
"It's at the core of the planet", I say.
"Well, then", River smiles. "Let's go".
We turn as she points her screwdriver at the library logo in the middle of the compass rose carving in the floor. It cracks open, revealing a platform engulfed in blue light.
"Gravity platform".
"I bet I like you", the Doctor admits, impressed, as he walks to her.
"Oh, you do", she flirts, stepping on the platform.
We all go down, and it takes a while. Once we've reached the core, the computer announces we only have fifteen minutes left.
We reach a globe, with cables and wires all connected to it, swirling with golden energy.
"The data core. Over four thousand living minds trapped inside it", the Doctor announces.
"Yeah, well, they won't be living much longer. We're running out of time", I warn.
We run around looking for an access terminal.
"Help me. Please, help me", a child-like voice says.
"What's that?", Anita asks.
"Was that a child?", the Doctor frowns.
"The computer's in sleep mode. I can't wake it up. I'm trying", I tell him, tapping at the keyboard. I can't make sense of the readings.
"Zoe, these readings", River says looking at the next screen.
"I know. You'd think it was... dreaming".
"It is dreaming", Lux corrects me, opening a glass cabinet on the wall. "...of a normal life, and a lovely Dad, and of every book ever written".
"Computers don't dream", Anita says, as the voice keeps repeating. "Help me. Please help me".
"No, but little girls do", Lux smiles.
He pulls a lever and a door opens at the back of the room. We follow him to find a courtesy node, wearing the face of the little girl we saw in the screen when we first tried to communicate with the system.
"Please help me", she repeats.
"Oh, my God", River exlaims.
"It's the little girl. The girl we saw in the computer.", Anita adds.
"She's not in the computer. In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is Cal", Lux explains.
"Cal is a child? A child hooked up to a mainframe?", I repeat, dazzled. No wonder the systems all act wild.
"Why didn't you tell us this? We needed to know this!", the Doctor shouts.
"Because she's family!", Lux shouts back, snapping back to a quiet voice. "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. 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".
"So you weren't protecting a patent, you were protecting her", I say.
"This is only half a life, of course. But it's forever", Lux adds.
"And then the shadows came", the Doctor adds.
The little girl starts rambling again. It's like she tries to communicate with the Doctor. "The shadows. I have to. I have to save. Have to save" Well I understand now why she can't. The system must be overcharged.
"And she saved them. She saved everyone in the library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe". The Doctor keeps on.
"Then why didn't she tell us?", Anita asks.
"Because she's forgotten", I explain. "She's got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. It must be like being...".
"Time Lords", the Doctor cuts me. "Must be like being us", he adds, giving me a wary look. Because I know where his mind is going.
"So what do we do?", River asks.
Autodestruct in ten minutes, the alarm warns us.
"Easy!", the Doctor shouts, running back to the access terminals. "We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer will reset and stop the countdown".
"Difficult", I correct him, looking at the screen. "Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer".
He's already at the wall, opening a panel to expose the cables. "Easy! I'll hook myself up to the computer. She can borrow my memory space".
"Difficult. It'll kill you stone dead", River says, worried.
"Yeah, it's easy to criticise".
"It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate", she says, sternly, almost crying.
"I'll try my hardest not to die. Honestly, it's my main thing".
"Doctor!". My mind reaches for his. I don't honestly know if he can survive that. But one thing I know, we can waste the last ten minutes arguing about it, but he's not letting me do it. And he'd do anything to get Donna back. I feel a warming presence in my mind. He heard me. He shares my concern. He gives me a proud, sad smile before turning to River again, speaking so quickly I can barely understand him.
"I'm right, this works. Shut up. Now listen. You and Zoe, back up to the main library". He turns to me. "Prime any data cells you can find for maximum download", he instructs, then turns to River again, "and before you say anything else, Professor, can I just mention in passing as you're here, shut up".
"Oh! I hate you sometimes", she groans, sprinting away.
"I know!", he flirts back at her.
"Mister Lux, with us. Anita, if he dies, I'll kill him!". River groans. I give the Doctor a sad look and turn away after River back at the gravity platform.
"The self destruct", I whisper. "He'll have to wire himself up timed up with the explosion. It'll improve our chances of a clean download".
And as I say it, I stop running, because I realize his chances of surviving will be very thin. Miracle-sized thin. I look back to where we just came from.
"I'm going ba-" I'm cut off by River, who's holding my jacket.
"I'm going back for him", she states, and I cringe.
"River", I insist. "We're Time Lords. Our best chance is to wire us both together".
She does something unexpected.
She slaps me.
"Don't you dare", she says, sternly, grabbing my arm. "We both know neither you nor the Doctor die here".
I understand what she's saying. If he dies here, she'll never meet him. I'm not sure how she can rule out I don't die here, because time can be rewritten and all.
"River", I repeat, softly, nudging my arm away from her grasp. Is this goodbye?
"Are we going or not?", Lux says. We both ignore him.
"You need to calibrate the teleports up there, rockstar, or this is all for nothing", she says. Her eyes are teary. "Sorry", she softens, "About slapping you".
"Ladies! Let's go!", Lux insists.
"SHUT UP!", we both shout at him.
"Nevermind", I shrug, taking her hand.
"You look after him", she exorts me. "Until we see each other again".
"I'll do my best", I say, as she leans in to hug me. "Watch out for the shadows", I warn her.
"Will do". I wipe my tears away as I break the hug. She presses her squareness gun into my hands. I nod.
The warning sign keeps beeping, and as much as I don't want to send River to her fate, Lux is right. It takes a while to go up there and reach the teleports at the shop. Even assuming there's one little shop in each building, it's going to take a while.
"Once you told me you wish we could have been friends, you and me", I tell her, smiling, as we step on the platform. "I hope it was a long, long time ago for you".
"Hush", she laughs between the tears, before turning away. "Spoilers".
thanks for the follows and the reviews!
little trivia for you:
-I assume River and the Doctor had a real wedding just after "the wedding of River Song". And that's when she learned his name. I don't know if it's considered canon, actually, pretty sure it isn't.