The Technologists: A Novel

by Matthew Pearl

  “You would take lives for this? You would cause catastrophe in your own city to save your fortune?” Marcus demanded, looming over the man to whom he had owed so much.

  “No, no! What Rogers dreamed of presented danger to every one of us. Imagine the public in control of the railroad. Imagine each citizen with a steam engine of his own, a telegraph wire at his disposal at his parlor table—the vast Pandora’s box that would be opened by the destructive decisions and incompetence. Corporations such as mine manage the forces of science for the benefit—for the safety—of all. To grant free access to technology: That is the fatal danger. I wanted to salvage our city—our country and its citizenry—from that doomsday!”

  “You will answer for every life that has been lost,” Marcus said, unmoved.

  “None of that is my fault,” Hammond complained; then, sheepishly, he added, “Not directly, I mean.”

  “How can you expect us to believe that?”

  “Because my modest plan was never enacted, Mr. Mansfield! I stand here ruined. But I have been your benefactor. If only for that reason, at least listen to what I have to say. Do you think I would blow my own locomotive works to pieces when I was trying with every fiber of my frame to restore its success? I have been trying to stop all of this, just like you! We fight on the same side!”

  The students exchanged freshly confused glances.

  The magnate, emboldened by having gained their attention, continued. “You have it all partially right. But my sole aim in all this was to shake the name of the Institute just enough that their fragile financial circumstances would convince them to grant me permission to control their inventions. Or if the Institute could no longer continue, so be it. The result would be the same; I would apply for the patents, and it would be a benefit to progress and man. I merely wished to demonstrate to the public the confusion that ensued when technology was spread without clear and proper control. It was never my plan to harm a single person!”

  Marcus stared at Hammond, as realization, and a new dread, dawned. “You didn’t act alone.”

  “Listen,” Hammond pleaded, losing the last trace of defiance. “That is what I am trying to say. I engaged an engineer to create a series of demonstrations. Mere demonstrations—harmless exercises, as a sort of counter to those the Institute arranged for the public. That was the beginning and end of my plan. I granted the engineer use of an empty laboratory that a failed commercial tenant had abandoned, leaving it fully equipped, and free use of our yachts and supplies, yes. I trusted him to follow my orders, as he had done in the past. But I hadn’t realized … his hatred, his bile … his actions were beyond my control from the very start, as soon as he had a taste. He said the project was his God-given ‘mission.’ … The manipulation of the compasses was intended merely to be reported by sailors to the police and the newspapers, but he chose to unleash it during a thick influx of fog, and the wreckage was beyond what I could have imagined. I thanked God that no one was killed. I visited the hospitals and paid the bills for the injured individuals. Then, when that poor young actress died on State Street, I was beside myself. Junior, you remember. My nerves grew to a perfect pitch during that very week, and I could hardly hold a conversation or meeting without giving in to my temper. I ordered the madman to stop, demanded it, threatened him, even offered him money. But he refused. He said that if I dared to tell the authorities or anyone else about him he would present evidence to implicate me, and he would do personal harm to me and to Junior. And then, before I could think what to do, he went even further, created an even more horrific catastrophe, exploding the boilers across the city, including my own works!”

  “Give us his name!” Marcus said. When Hammond remained silent, he demanded, “If anything you say is true, why protect him?”

  “If I tell you—don’t you understand, this fellow knows no bounds. He could seek me out, he could find my wife. He could do harm to you, Junior, my greatest fear in the world! With all my resources, I cannot protect everyone at all times, not from him. We are all in danger, even now!”

  For the first time in the encounter, Hammie looked chastened, shaken by the degree of his father’s concern for him.

  Marcus grabbed Hammond by the shoulders. “The name! Now!”

  “He’s falling to pieces!” Edwin said, dropping the rifle and pulling Marcus off.

  Hammond opened his mouth to speak again but shuddered as a multitude of alarms rose outside in the distance. The magnate’s eyes rolled back and his body slumped to the floor.

  “Stay with him,” Marcus said to Edwin as he eased the man’s head and neck to the floor. Then, to Hammie, “Can you shut off all of the machines?”

  As Hammie complied, Marcus seized a sledgehammer from a rack on the wall and broke through a boarded window, revealing the suddenly blackening sky above Boston and the first signs of the new disaster that awaited them.

  LV

  Thy Sons to the Jubilee Throng

  BOSTON’S JUBILEE WAS IN FULL SWING across the city. Earlier, processions that included uniformed regiments had conveyed flowers and wreaths to the cemeteries to the graves of soldiers. Now, the celebrations had begun, though with only about a third of the attendees than originally planned, since so many families had gone away from Boston in the last month. Bob and Ellen had rendezvoused at the Boston Common, where the programs of plays and brass bands were under way on the outdoor stages.

  “What a stupendous celebration!” Bob cried out. “Pygmalion!”

  “Where?” Ellen asked. She disliked the cacophony of drums and horns and had been covering her ears.

  “On the stage, dear lady, I believe they are beginning a rendition of Pygmalion. Let us go watch. What would you like to eat?”

  Ellen declined the offer.

  “Come now, you must want something on Decoration Day,” Bob said, finishing the contents of his cup.

  “Yes. Cotton for my ears. I do not eat food from a tent. I should prefer to sit somewhere quiet and enjoy our first true spring day.”

  “I shall have more beer.”

  “It is still daylight, Mr. Richards.”

  “ ‘Mr. Richards’? We got on bravely with each other for a while. What happened to ‘Robert’?” he guffawed drunkenly.

  “I am not certain where he is at the moment.”

  “Wait here,” he said, not hearing, or not listening. “I will get us something more to your liking. Say, wouldn’t the Tech boys have enjoyed this, Nellie? Wouldn’t they?”

  Ellen frowned and considered taking French leave and letting him enjoy his drinking alone. She wasn’t certain Bob, in his current state of mind, would care. She watched the other young women, delicate little dolls who were dutiful slaves to Boston society and fashion. They donned bows and ribbons, while she wore her black silk dress with lace sleeves, not a stitch of color. She had spent twenty minutes braiding flowers into her hair, but she did not think he had noticed. She looked at the husbands and wives as they passed, playfully hand in hand, and the shouting children, and wondered very seriously: Would she ever sacrifice part of her life to have that? It was difficult to imagine subjecting herself to the will of a man, especially in light of the current behavior of the one gentleman who, against all her wiser instincts, she thought the most of in Boston.

  Everyone at the jubilee was trying to hide in some way, Bob included. Hide from the fear of what had happened over the last two months, hide from the secret, selfish relief they had felt during the war that violence had never touched Boston directly. On a day when they gave tribute to peace and remembered war, there was something that besieged them, something invisible but palpable in the air, felt powerfully by every citizen who stubbornly remained inside the confines of the city—the unknown future.

  Bob returned and urged her to share his plate of beans, brown bread, mince pie, and watermelon. She declined again.

  “Well, you’re a quiet little thing today.”

  “I am the same Nellie as of old, full of business, never see
ing a leisure hour, never finding time to study or read half as much as I want.”

  “Perhaps you don’t wish to be here with me, then. Perhaps you wish to be reading in your rooms alone, pining away for the Institute?”

  She regretted her implication. “No, it is not that. It is my nature that I always study causes and effects wherever I am, so I must also criticize sometimes, Mr. Richards. I find it to be my greatest fault that I go against the grain even where it is not necessary. Can you understand?”

  From behind her, a large man, his bare head bald except for two bands of thin silver wisps, wearing the uniform of an army musician, portly but long in the limbs, wrapped one of his elongated arms around Ellen’s waist, lifting her off the ground. “The devil’s inside! I know! Force him out!” He spat on her with each word, as Ellen shrieked and struggled to free herself.

  “Unhand her instantly, you lunatic!” Bob cried, jumping on the man’s neck and pulling him down. The man fell on top of Bob, who only managed to push the bulky assailant off with great effort. The man, his wild eyes bulging, lifted himself to his feet from a puddle of mud and began stumbling through the alarmed crowd, his head twisting to one side, his hands and legs convulsing violently, but his movements rapid, like a wounded animal with nowhere to hide.

  “Who was that man?” he asked, catching his breath.

  “I’ve never seen him! We must find a doctor at once.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Not for me.”

  “You don’t mean fetching a doctor for that lunatic? He assaulted you!”

  “Something was wrong with him, very wrong …” she said, looking through the crowd until she saw a policeman. “Officer!” She beckoned to him, though he had already been coming their way.

  “Ellen Swallow. Robert Richards.” The policeman said their names in a dreary monotone.

  “What?” Bob squinted at him. “How do you know—”

  She interrupted. “Sir, a man needs help over there!” But now she couldn’t locate her assailant.

  “Ellen Swallow? Robert Richards?” the policeman repeated mechanically.

  Bob snatched the circular the officer was holding in his hands and studied it. The piece of paper notified all members of the police department that Bob and Ellen, as well as Marcus and Edwin, were to be taken into custody on sight and brought to the station house for questioning about the death of Joseph Cheshire and the attacks on the city of Boston.

  “Ellen Swallow? Robert Richards? Not so much noise, if you please,” whispered the policeman, putting a hand to his temple. “Softly.”

  “That man over there is in trouble!” she cried again.

  “Softly, softly, young lady. Not so loud. Softly.” The policeman reached out a trembling hand, as his legs suddenly collapsed beneath him. He writhed on the ground, his limbs flailing.

  Another man, and then a woman, and now a second woman were stricken, and soon everywhere she looked in the Common people of all ages were convulsing in similar ways.

  “Nellie, we must find Mansfield immediately …” Bob began.

  She swept her hand violently across Bob’s cheek, sending his food and beer flying. He gawked at her, stunned.

  “It’s the wheat,” she said. “Oh, Robert, it’s ergotism—from fungus in the wheat. I’ve tested it before in my laboratory, and my conclusions showed it causes delusion and hallucination, and even can induce labor in women who are with child. It could be in everything here—the pie, the bread, the crackers, the … the beer. Half of everyone remaining in Boston will be poisoned if the ergot was introduced into the festival wares!”

  People began stumbling about blindly, screaming about demons and shadows chasing them, or that the sky was dissolving into pieces over their heads. A visibly pregnant woman dropped to the ground and gripped her bulging stomach as she screamed.

  “My notes,” Ellen gasped. “My notes on it were among those stolen from my rooms at the Institute.” Then it wasn’t mere vandals who took her notes; it had to be the experimenter—probably days before she found them missing, around the time when the explosive was arranged for Runkle and their diving suits removed. Someone who had been inside the Institute without being conspicuous, but who? Once the villain understood ergot poisoning, all that he would have to do was contaminate the wheat at the suppliers of bread and beer for Decoration Day, and here was the result.

  Even as she stared into them, Bob’s eyes became glassy and his skin dripped with sweat.

  * * *

  AS HE LOOKED DOWN from the roof of the Hammond Locomotive Works, where he had climbed for a better view, Marcus gripped the railing so hard his hands throbbed. Panic-stricken crowds of people with limbs twisting inhumanly stumbled in groups through the street, many falling down along the way. In the distance, a heavy cloud of smoke floated into the sky—and expanded toward them with remarkable velocity.

  He took the stairs back down, two at a time.

  “What’s happening?” asked Edwin as he passed him.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus answered. “We have to get out there and help.”

  “Wait, Mansfield!” shouted Hammie from the far side of the chambers, but Marcus was already plunging out the street door.

  He didn’t go far before he found himself jostled and pushed by swarms of people running in no particular direction. They were not only hysterical but blindly so, shouting out strings of nonsense and strange prayerlike exclamations. Above, the monstrous black cloud was rolling toward them. Edwin and Hammie were close on his heels.

  Hammie caught up with Marcus and grabbed for his arm. “Mansfield, my father—”

  “Hammie, your father’s engineer did this. He has found a way to assault people directly now—men, women, and children alike.”

  Hammie shook his head that Marcus did not understand him. “Father woke from his fainting spell while you were up on the roof. He told me more. He came here today to remove all traces of his involvement and then to find me. He planned for me to leave Boston with him before anything else happened—that’s why he wanted me to go to Nahant in the first place. I believe what he has said. He’s not in any control of what has been happening, not since the very beginning, and by the time of the boiler disaster he knew nothing at all of what was planned!”

  “So you believe your father has no idea what is happening now?”

  “None. But I made him tell me who the engineer was.”

  “Who is he, Hammie?” Edwin asked, trying to keep up between his two classmates while applying pressure over his abdominal wounds.

  “He has been working for my father, and was engaged secretly in this. Father says he was stationed at Smith Prison during the war and was notorious among the Rebels for the damage his clever devices and inventions did to Union troops.”

  “Smith Prison,” Marcus repeated, his eyes filling with rage, as though Captain Denzler stood before them. “Impossible.” Denzler had vowed he would destroy the Yankees himself if he had to do it with his own brain. “I look out and see his face,” Frank, his fear visible and increasing, had told Marcus at the beer hall about spotting Denzler in Boston, and he hadn’t listened.

  “He had gained experience planning attacks against the Federal army during the war, before my father hired him.… Hold a moment. Heavens above, Mansfield!”

  “What is it?” Marcus asked.

  “There!” Hammie said, pointing. “He’s here! That’s him!”

  Marcus burned with anticipation. For a moment, he actually looked forward to laying eyes on Denzler and unleashing years of slumbering rage; years of trying to repair all that had been broken in that hellish place. He turned and scanned the crowd for the hated figure before his eyes stopped on a different familiar face.

  “That’s him!” repeated Hammie. “Your friend from the machine shop, Mansfield. The blasted machinist my father sent to war to fight in my place.”

  There stood Frank Brewer, clad in his army tunic and trousers. He seemed to be looking right at them, sm
iling slightly.

  “What do you mean?” Marcus asked. He grabbed Hammie by the collar and pushed him hard against a lamppost. “Damn you, Hammie, what do you mean that’s him? I’ll break every bone in your body!”

  “Brewer is the engineer!”

  “Hold your tongue! You’re a miserable, lying cheat, just like your father! You hate Frank, hate him for fighting in your place, you made him sculpt you in uniform as if you had been a soldier. You were humiliated that he beat you in whist on Inspection Day at Tech! I saw what you wrote about making everyone eat their words. Tell me the truth!”

  “It’s Frank Brewer!” Hammie choked out, struggling for breath and prying Marcus’s hands from his neck. “The Ichabod Crane machinist from the locomotive works. That’s who Father found to help him with his plan! I didn’t ask him to sculpt me, and he didn’t beat me in whist! He left the study room just a few minutes after you did, and when he came back he told me to come with him to the basement!”

  “What?”

  “He said you told him that you needed help cleaning your supplies, and after I let him into our laboratory in the basement he took one of those machine suits you had been working on, and I said I could use some material from the other one for my steam man, so he said I should take the other one. That you had told him you didn’t want them any longer. It was the skeptics about my steam men I wanted to eat their words. Let go of me, you gump!”

  Marcus gradually loosened his grip and Edwin caught Hammie as he stumbled backward. Marcus turned in to the crowd, but as he pushed through the tumultuous pack of distorted faces, he lost sight of Frank. His head swam as he felt himself carried away by the masses, stepping left, then right to avoid being trampled. Frank. He wasn’t playing whist because he was planting the explosive in Runkle’s office, before stealing the diving suit to use in order to introduce his compound into the city water supply. Now he had managed to poison half the city. Frank. How could it be him—why would he?