The Technologists: A Novel

by Matthew Pearl

  “You’re right. You engineered it in there too well to cut,” Marcus admitted, then began to back away. “You engineered it too well to stop the circuit, because you thought someone—maybe the police, maybe Hammond, maybe me or my friends—might find out the truth about you and try to cut it. But you never thought of stopping someone from reversing the electric current.”

  “What do you mean?” Then he realized. He dug his nimble fingers into the wiring and went to work with remarkable speed.

  “Get away, Frank! Right now!”

  “No, you can’t!” Marcus’s old friend delivered an awful scream, then his eyes went wide. Far across the city, the fiery train was making its passage over a portion of track where, with its wheels hitting the first and last rails, it connected the incomplete portion of the circuit. But instead of blowing half of Boston to shreds, a massive jolt of electricity shot in one direction back through the cables to the origin point and into the sculptor’s fingertips. With an awful buzzing sound, his eyes bulged and his body flew ten feet into the air.

  To Marcus’s surprise, as he fell to the ground aflame, he struggled to get back to his feet, gurgling blood, every inch of visible skin charred. Marcus stood transfixed, as Frank seemed to reach out, to move toward him with open arms. Marcus thought of running, but knew Frank was gone already even as he gasped for a final breath of air, then folded into Marcus’s arms.

  * * *

  THE TRAIN GREW LARGER AND LARGER within the circle as it pushed toward the outskirts of the city, throwing off flames along its wobbly path.

  “It’s coming,” whispered Edwin to himself, lowering the spyglass. Then, to the others, “It’s gone past the end of the circuit and it’s still coming! Marcus did it! He stopped the detonation!”

  Cheers rose up from the four young men. They were at the railroad bridge where the train would have to cross over the Charles River. After the moment of joy for their classmate’s success passed, a flurry of urgent activity resumed. Now it would fall to Edwin and the others. This bridge between Boston and Cambridge was the place of last hope to stop the freight before it could reach another train, or the terminal station, and end in a massive, possibly deadly, explosion.

  Whitney Conant had split off from the group near the police station so he could escort Chauncy Hammond inside to confess his story. The remaining four had divided themselves up once they had reached the bridge. Edwin and Sloucher George worked together on the Boston side. Across the river on the Cambridge end, there were Hammie and Albert Hall.

  Both teams successfully drilled holes into the main braces at both ends of the bridge. They had to study the structure of the trusses meticulously, since, by their calculations, destroying the counterbraces would fail to bring the bridge down. The respective teams were now fitting the holes with the powder-infused cylinders they’d hastily put together. Hammie and Hall finished on their end first, laying out the fuse across the bridge.

  “Are you finished yet?” Albert called out. “We’re ready to light it!”

  “Not yet, Albert!” Edwin called back. He fitted the device into the hole in the brace, then passed the fuse line to his partner. They rushed off the bridge to the safety of the Boston side of the river. “We’re off!” he yelled to their collaborators.

  George took out his cigar lighter and positioned himself flat on the ground with the end of the fuse in his other hand. “All right,” he said quietly, steadying his hand.

  “All right,” Edwin called to the other duo. “George is ready to light it, fellows!”

  “So are we. On my count,” Hammie said. “Three … two … one … go!”

  The fuses on both ends of the bridge were lit and the small flames ate through them. On the Cambridge side of the river, the cylinder gave off a loud pop, the brace immediately fractured, and the whole bridge shook. Hammie laughed nervously. But on Edwin’s side, when the burning fuse reached the cylinder, there was a muted fizzle. Then nothing. The bridge, shaking in an unstable fashion, still remained intact.

  “What happened, Hoyt?” Hammie shouted to them.

  “Something’s wrong with our fuse!”

  “Can we light the cylinder up close?” George asked.

  “No. We wouldn’t be able to get off the bridge in time if it worked,” Edwin said. “The whole thing would come down under our feet.”

  “Stay here—I’m going to try!” George said stoutly.

  “No, George—I won’t allow it!” Edwin cried, physically restraining the larger man.

  “What do you care about it? I was going to lick you an hour ago.”

  “Listen to him, George!” Hammie called out from across the river. “It’s too dangerous to light by hand. The bridge might still come down from the weight of the train alone, even without it.”

  “But it might not, Hammie,” Albert objected. “And if we allow the train to pass over the bridge, there’s nowhere else to stop it for miles. We have to find another way to take this bridge down now.”

  “How much longer do we have?” asked George.

  “Five minutes, maybe four,” replied Edwin grimly.

  Everyone spoke over one another, offering conflicting and desperate ideas about how to complete the task in the allotted time.

  “Greek fire,” Edwin shouted across the river. “Hammie, do you have enough materials in Albert’s case to make your Greek fire, like we used against the Med Fac?”

  “More fire?” Albert asked. “There’s a train filled with flaming petroleum bearing down on us. Fire is the whole problem, Hoyt!”

  “Listen to me! Forget bringing the bridge down—we’ve run out of time—but if we derail the train right here, it will land in the water and be rendered harmless,” Edwin explained.

  The others fell silent and considered. Hammie rummaged through the contents of Hall’s chemical case.

  “Hurry!” Edwin cried.

  “There’s an empty cylinder I can use as the container,” Hammie said. “It’s not ideal, but … yes … I can improvise something, Hoyt!”

  “If we can dislodge just one set of the wheels, the whole train should tip over,” said Edwin.

  “Do you think it will work?” George asked.

  “George, you’re addressing Edwin Hoyt—the smartest fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology!” Hammie answered.

  As Hammie worked feverishly, a mechanical roar pierced the air. Edwin and George glanced at each other. The train was so close they could even smell it burning. Edwin stood on higher ground with his spyglass raised.

  “I can see it coming!” he cried. Then, bringing down the spyglass, he saw it was close enough that he could see it now with his naked eye, and said, “Oh, no!”

  “Almost through here,” Hammie promised, directing Albert to hand him the various materials. “Another second and … done!”

  “Put it on the tracks, Hammie!” Edwin cried.

  “I can’t!”

  “What? Why in the land not?”

  “I’d say there is a twenty-two to twenty-five percent chance the damage already done to the bridge could cause the train to be raised off the tracks and land on our side of the river without touching the portion of tracks on our end—it would fly over this cylinder and plow right into the heart of Harvard Square before there’s time to do anything else. The cylinder needs to be near the front of the bridge. Your end.”

  “How the deuce could he know the chances so perfectly?” George sniffed.

  “Because,” said Edwin, “he’s the Top Scholar at the Institute of Technology.”

  “I’m going to throw the cylinder to your side,” Hammie called out.

  “Won’t that thing blow up?” George asked with a gasp.

  “I haven’t sealed the cylinder. The pressure should remain stable if you catch it,” said Hammie. “Still, I wouldn’t let it drop, if I were you.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” George muttered.

  “George, are you ready?”

  “You ought to catch it,”
the giant machinist said meekly to Edwin.

  “I?” Edwin laughed morbidly.

  “The vision in my left eye is clouded,” George explained, then dropped to an embarrassed whisper. “That’s why I am slower at the machine shop than the others, why some of them think me a slouch. I’ve never told anyone.”

  The snorting of the runaway train came closer and closer and the ground underneath their feet shook hard.

  “Very well,” Edwin said, wrapping his coat tighter around the wound in his flank, which he had covered during their carriage ride over. “Hammie, on my count, then! Three … two … one … go!”

  Hammie drew his arm back and launched the cylinder in the air. Edwin steadied himself, reached up, and plucked it from the sky, the deep concentration and sudden pain from his wounds almost knocking him backward. He quickly sealed the top of the cylinder tight, then turned around to put it in place.

  Before he could, there was a sound like an animal’s howling, only it was a man. A portly man, military uniform covered in hardened mud and filth, his eyes red as fire, sprang onto the embankment and grabbed Edwin.

  “The devil’s come for us! The devil’s come!” the man shrieked, his strong hands clutching the first thing they could, which happened to be Edwin’s arms.

  “Get away from me!” shouted Edwin, while struggling to hold on to the cylinder.

  “The train’s coming!” Albert screamed from the other side of the bridge.

  “You fool! You’ll kill us all!” George screamed, trying to loosen the lunatic’s powerful hold.

  “I don’t care what you say!” the stranger said in garbled tongue. “I’ll punch the devil right in the face!” He seemed to address this to either Edwin or the cylinder.

  “Hoyt, give me the cylinder!” George said as the three wrestled.

  Edwin pushed against the man’s viselike grip on his wrists as George pulled on the stranger’s arms.

  “Hurry!” was repeatedly shouted from across the water.

  Finally, George screamed and kicked the man hard in the belly. As he was propelled away from Edwin, and tumbled into the trees behind them, the cylinder went flying into the air. The heat of the train was now bearing down on them.

  Edwin and George tumbled down the embankment as fast as they could, and Hammie and Albert did the same on the other end. Just at that moment, the lead carriage of the train slammed across the tracks, remaining in a steady forward charge. The cylinder landed near the threshold and ignited with a brilliant flame across the first carriage’s wheels. The bridge shimmied and shook as the train continued to the halfway mark and across before a single wheel flew off, and the nose of the train turned off the tracks, its flaming freight now lifted in the air, its shadow laid out on the surface of the water and growing fast.

  LVIII

  Twelve Days Later

  HE ROLLED from his toes to the balls of his feet and back as he waited. After a few minutes, the door creaked slightly open and a woman’s slender fingers beckoned him.

  “Be quiet and be quick. Upstairs, the second room on your right.”

  He hurried up the stairs, his friend close behind him. As they entered the room indicated, he froze at the sight of the motionless girl in her bed. She was more beautiful than he had ever appreciated, and his heart raced.

  There was a stool next to the bed where the nuns would sit when feeding Agnes or reading to her from the small Bible that sat on a nearby table. He had waited so long to speak to her, but Marcus suddenly didn’t know what to say.

  Quiet and quick, Sister Louise had instructed, but he didn’t know if he could be either, now that he saw her.

  “Aggie,” he whispered, “I can’t stay very long. I promised. You always wanted to meet Ellen Swallow, our female scholar. Miss Turner, may I present Miss Swallow.”

  Ellen bowed a little.

  “Madame Louise said I could not come to your room without a woman accompanying me, so here we are. Even then, the madame is very bold allowing a visit without informing the other sisters. It is against the rules here.”

  “Miss Turner, as soon as you have recovered your health, I will coach you in science if you wish,” said Ellen softly. “In fact, I intend to speak to our president about admitting students of chemistry without any regard to sex, and would think you might be a candidate.”

  “Miss Swallow, may I …”

  “Of course,” she said, turning her back to give Marcus some privacy.

  “I’ve been wanting to see you, Aggie.” He paused, as if Agnes would reply. Of course, she couldn’t, and as that realization stung him, and she seemed so delicate-looking, the momentary joy at reunion vanished. “I wish more than anything we could talk. I miss you more than I know how to say. When I close my eyes you are there, and when I open them you are not. More than anybody else, I wanted you to know that we’ve done it. The other boys of ’68 and myself are to be graduated next week at the Institute. I think of you all the time, and I think of Frank, but when I dream of the past, I am no longer in it. I wanted to tell you that.” What could he say, really? How he wished he had never left her side that day. How he would spend every waking hour with her in this infirmary if he were permitted by the strict Catholic sisters. “And it was because of Miss Swallow that many lives were saved when she was the first to realize that Frank had poisoned the wheat at the three major bakeries and the brewery company that were supplying the city on Decoration Day, and she knew what the victims had to do to begin to recover.”

  “Mr. Mansfield!” Sister Louise whispered from the corridor, where she was watching the strong young man fighting back tears. “The others are returning from chapel. You must go.”

  “Aggie, I will be back for you.” He took her hand and pressed his lips against it as a tear escaped his eye against his will. He knew the madame would not approve, but he couldn’t help himself. She gave him a kind frown and shook her finger at the stairs. He rushed out. Ellen followed, but stopped midstride as two of the other nuns appeared from around the corner before she could reach the entrance to the stairwell.

  “Sister,” they both greeted Ellen. She blushed, realizing her usual drab outfit served as the perfect costume, and followed Marcus’s path down the stairs.

  Sister Louise returned to the room, filled with relief that her weakness for the college student’s ardor had not been found out by the Sister Superior. The Sister Superior would have compared her action to something in a fiction novel by some Protestant author, and would remind Louise once more that the fatal consequences of fiction reading had been proven time and again.

  She picked up the Bible and began to read once more to her patient. Agnes’s lovely eyes fluttered. It was only for a moment, and it was so fleeting Louise might have imagined it, but if it really did just happen, it had been the first movement since her accident. Louise sprang to her feet and ran. She ran through the corridor and into the stairwell, chasing after the young man, faster surely than any nun at the convent had ever run before.

  LIX

  ’68 (Forever)

  THE FOURTEEN MEMBERS of the Class of 1868 sat on the wooden benches in front of the president’s office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, brimming over with excitement. One at a time, they were called in by President William Barton Rogers, and one at a time each young man exited, proudly flourishing a plain but instantly cherished diploma, lettered with great care by fellow graduate Albert Hall. And each time three cheers were raised.

  With all their fellowship toward one another, today of all days, there was a special emotion of gratitude and anticipation attending the next name that would be called on the alphabetical roster. After all, he had found a way to stop the catastrophes that had shaken Boston and almost swallowed up the Institute and all of their futures. So it was no surprise, after Edwin returned to the hall, his face bright red, hugging his diploma close to his chest, and limping only a little despite the heavy bandaging in which he was still wrapped under his suit two weeks after his injury, tha
t when “Marcus Mansfield” was pronounced by Rogers, all the fellows stood up and slapped him on the back and shook his hand heartily. Bob threw his arms around Marcus’s neck and gave him a long embrace, then Hammie—First Scholar of the class—did the same.

  After Rogers closed the door to his office behind him, Marcus took the waiting chair.

  “I hope you and your friends are not disappointed that there are no flowers or festivals, as there are at Harvard. Well, it is not our way, you know. At least, it is not my way.”

  He was surprised to notice that President Rogers appeared to be agitated, almost distraught, on this day.

  “I cannot say how deeply sorry I am, Mr. Mansfield,” Rogers continued, looking down at his desk.

  “President Rogers?”

  “I shall come out with it, for I do not know how to put what I have to say into words. I cannot give you a diploma today,” he said, finally looking up and meeting Marcus’s eyes.

  “Why?”

  “I cannot let you be graduated, my dear boy.”

  He was speechless for a moment. “I don’t understand, President Rogers. If I have done something—”

  “Something. Something, Mr. Mansfield, yes. You saved our Institute from extinction! You represent all I dreamed the Institute might produce in time. You remember I’ve mentioned our original charter from the state legislature? Please.” Rogers handed him a square sheet of parchment, dated 1861. “There is a special provision put in to appease those elements frightened of the new sciences. The public peace and harmony clause. You can find it at the bottom. You see, Mr. Mansfield, that it states that at no time should any individual affiliated with the Institute use his expertise in science and practical arts to harm another citizen of the commonwealth.”

  Marcus stared at the provision and allowed the implications to sink in.

  Rogers went on. “The story of your heroic actions has been in every newspaper in Boston. Every major paper in the world, thanks to the telegraphic columns! I’m afraid Harvard has threatened that if we allow you to be graduated, they will use their influence to insist that the legislature revoke our charter because your defeat of Mr. Brewer would constitute a clear violation of that provision.”