The Technologists (52 page)

When the students arrived, the building was surrounded by policemen as well as Roland Rapler’s labor reformers, who were shouting and singing belligerent songs. They were joined by other workmen, who had been in the factories and mills when the boilers across the city exploded, Sloucher George among them, and weeping survivors and family members of the victims of the disasters. “I told you all, machines will overtake man!” Rapler called out. “Now watch as the creature devours its creator!” An effigy labeled
WILLIAM B. ROGERS
that had been stuffed with straw and set aflame was brandished like a weapon. As a group of Tech sophomores scurried through the front doors, a window was hit by a hurled boot and glass came down on them from above.

Bob, who had just slipped inside minutes before, helped pull the sophomores in to safety, cursing himself for all the times he’d teased sophs or freshes or stuffed one upside-down into a storage closet; they were all one now. Two masked men, one carrying a miniature of the Institute building under his arm, then brushed past him and ran out the doors before Bob could try to stop them. Bob climbed to the Architecture Department and found the Boston Junior display smashed and smoldering, with one of the architecture freshes on the floor in the corner of the room weeping, babbling that their city had been burned. Darwin Fogg was extinguishing the flames on the model.

“Has he been hurt very badly?” Bob asked after failing to shake the freshman back to his senses.

“Not physically. He got pushed when he tried to stop them,” said Darwin, shaking his head. “These boys worked almost two years on building this, you know.”

Bob worried it would look like he was also crying, since the smoldering plaster was making his eyes water—and the very worry and the pang of sadness it brought him made him feel as though he would indeed burst out in sobs alongside the fresh.

He descended the stairs rapidly, but his reliable energy was utterly taken away. When he reached the dim corridors of the basement, he saw from a distance a cloaked figure painting on the door to Ellen’s laboratory. The first line read:

Witch of Boston!

At least this time the invader was caught red-handed. Bob threw himself forward and grabbed the man by the collar, spinning him around. Albert Hall’s flabby face was as white as a sheet.

Bob couldn’t believe his eyes. “Hall … You! What are you doing?”

“Richards!” Albert gasped, having equal trouble finding words. “I—you don’t know how it is! You can’t!”

“You,” Bob repeated with disgust. “Of all people. Albert Hall, the great master of the rules, the overseer of order!”

“I have followed the rules!” Albert insisted. “Every one of them, from the first day I entered the Institute! No, from the day I was born! I had to, Richards, or I would never have been taken by any college at all. I followed the rules to get here, and now my future is still being taken away from me. It’s charity scholars like me and Mansfield, whether the blasted fool realizes it or not, who will be hurt most by the Institute going under. If Swallow can be blamed, at least—why, someone must be blamed for all that has happened, so why not her! She never should have been here in the first place, and cannot benefit from an education meant for men!”

“You’ve been the one doing these tricks on her the last few months,” Bob said with astonishment. “A senior, taunting a helpless fresh.”

“No, you’re wrong. Everyone has been doing it, Richards, at one time or another. All of us. Why do you think they can never find who it is, however hard they try? The college was cursed the moment they permitted her to step inside. She would have never succeeded out there if she had been allowed to go forward, so what does it matter? She has no business here, and you’ve made it worse by being seen with her.”

“Not all of us, Hall,” Bob said. “Not all of us.”

“You’re going to hit me, aren’t you?” Albert’s hands were trembling and he was starting to cry. Sweat poured down his brow. Humbled, he was coming apart. “I saved your lives the other day!”

Bob took a step closer and Albert gasped for breath. He realized how much Albert hated himself for this, and though this made Bob no less angry he felt a twinge of forgiveness. He placed his hand firmly on his
upper arm. “You’ll be all right, Hall. We all will. Just clean that up, before she sees it.”

“What difference could it make to you, Richards?” he whined as he began scraping off the paint. “What difference does it make to anyone? The whole place is doomed now!”

“It makes a difference, Hall, even if this building crumbles around our ears,” Bob said. “She deserves better.”

*   *   *

B
OB FOUND THAT THE REST
of the Technologists, all except Hammie, had made it through the obstacles scattered in and around the Institute and had gathered at their basement laboratory, though hardly a word of greeting passed among them.

“What was all that commotion down the hall?” Ellen asked.

“Nothing,” Bob said with an uneasy shrug as he took off his coat. “Some rowdies destroyed the architecture students’ model of Boston upstairs. They doused it with kerosene and lit it on fire. I have it, Eddy: The next scoundrels who come in”—a gleam returned to his eyes—“yes, the very next ones, we’ll sprinkle iodide of nitrogen on the floor. When they walk over it—pop, pop pop! They’ll think the soles of their boots are on fire! Do you remember, Eddy? What a grand dodge it was sophomore year when we did it during the military drill march, after General Moore dismissed you from the squad.”

“I was exempted from duty, not dismissed. Anyway, it’s not a time for practical jokes. It won’t help.”

“It will help me, Eddy!”

“It won’t help, Bob!” Edwin seemed angrier than Bob could remember ever seeing him.

“I didn’t know you were made of such stern stuff, Eddy Hoyt,” Bob sniffed.

“Maybe you don’t know the first thing about what I’m made of, Bob! Have you ever thought of that?”

“Well, someone took a pile of notes I kept in my laboratory,” Ellen said. “And I had once thought of those small rooms as my sanctuary. I’m going to go back in to look for them.”

“Wait!” Bob said hastily, impeding her exit with his body. “When did you last see them?”

“Well, I suppose I have not looked at them for a week or so.”

“Perhaps you simply misplaced them. It might still be dangerous out there.”

“Mr. Richards, must we go over this again? I have not yet shown my full strength to you or anyone. I am not afraid. Let me through.”

“You mustn’t.”

Ellen inclined her head as she studied him. “Mr. Richards, need I ask if
you
have seen my notes?”

He felt as if he had been punched in the gut. “Professor—”

“It appears you do not wish me to search for them,” Ellen said sharply.

“You mustn’t imagine … Professor, you know I would not—”

“What I know is that you wanted to continue our investigations despite impossible circumstances, and perhaps you believed my notes could help your own private analysis. What I also know is you have shown enough disrespect for me in the past that you might not think twice about pilfering them.”

“Very well, go!” He stepped aside and gestured at the door. “See for yourself what is out there in the corridor.… See for yourself what messages await you! Enjoy!”

They stared at each other for a moment and her expression softened, her shoulders slumping. She turned and resumed her seat.

“I heard President Rogers was here yesterday,” Edwin said with a transparent attempt to change the spirit of the room. “Perhaps he will come back and help us.”

“I doubt that,” Ellen said. “Not after the papers, and the police, and this mob descended on us. The crowd out there is increasing faster than rabbits. Our trying to contact him about all that has happened would only put him under more scrutiny.”

“I walked by Temple Place; it was surrounded by police. There’s nothing Rogers can do here anyway, Eddy,” Bob said. “Nothing anyone can.” He added softly, “Mansfield.”

Bob looked over at Marcus, who was sitting by himself in the corner. Since Monday night, after he told them of his devastating odyssey
across the city, he had been mostly silent, sitting withdrawn and broken in a corner of the laboratory. Now he lifted his head slightly, but then returned it to its place buried in his hands.

“I am afraid,” Edwin admitted. “Very afraid. What if the experimenter strikes again today, or tomorrow? Maybe if we try to explain one more time to the police what the city is facing—”

“It won’t help anything,” said Bob. “The police didn’t listen to anything we have to say. They wouldn’t on Monday, they wouldn’t now. Not now, with the Institute directly under a cloud of suspicion! Just our being from Tech would discredit what we say.”

“Stop.”

The others all looked to Marcus and waited.

“Stop what, Marcus?” Edwin asked gingerly.

“We started our experiments to find out the source of these assaults. To show that science could
help
the city. But what this lunatic is doing isn’t about science. No. What happened Monday shows it.”

“Shows what?” Edwin asked.

“This is about pure destruction, about tearing Boston into pieces.” Marcus stood and looked at each of his three friends. “The die is already cast. So let us come to a stop. Stop presuming that our good intentions, our knowledge, will ever make a difference.”

“There must be something else to try!”

“What, Bob? People have died despite all our efforts. Look what is happening around us to this Institute. By attempting to counter such savagery with our theories and experiments, we have only made things worse on all counts. If she had not been with me there in the first place—”

“You don’t know where Miss Turner might have been, Mr. Mansfield,” Ellen said.

“You mustn’t blame yourself, Mansfield,” Bob agreed.

Marcus dropped it, then went on. “I said I could do this, could stop it, I vowed to succeed, and I failed. I was wrong. Flat wrong! I’ve racked my brains hour in and hour out. We tried to investigate on our own, we tried going to the police. But the jaws of hell still yawned. Well, I raise the white flag. Frank Brewer saved my life at Smith Prison by agreeing to enslave himself to a Southern factory, and he nearly lost his life Monday because we couldn’t find the right method to stop this. And
Aggie … well, shouldn’t I blame myself? Can’t we all? You should have talked to us first, Bob, before you did it.”

“What do you mean?” Bob asked, offended before he knew why he should be.

“Blasting through the door of the experimenter’s laboratory. Maybe that provoked the villain to unleash the next attack earlier than he intended to.”

“That’s a damned cat’s cradle, and you know it! I did what I had to, and we found the laboratory because of it! Don’t turn the tables on me, Mansfield. You took long enough to tell us about that Cheshire fellow. What if he had talked to the press about us?”

“He didn’t.”

“He damned well might have before he was barbecued! What were you planning to do to stop him that you didn’t want us to know about?”

“I didn’t know how closely we were being watched.… Do you imply that
I
was the one to blow the man up?” Marcus laughed.

“How do I know you didn’t, Mansfield?” Bob asked, his anger transforming all his feelings about his friends, himself, and the whole situation they were mired in. “You were always so desperate to keep hold of your place as a collegey—you might do anything to feed your ambitions!”

“Well,” Marcus said. “We all made our beds, and we are lying in them.”

Marcus exited without another word. Bob turned for support to Edwin and Ellen, who looked back equivocally.

“Mr. Richards, it is no use fighting among ourselves,” Ellen offered.

“Why not tell that to him? I’m utterly exhausted by his dark ghouls and goblins. I have my own to contend with. Well, thank you for supporting me, both of you. I don’t have the need for two more false friends.”

“Bob!” Edwin cried. “Don’t behave like a child!”

“Do you hear that?” Bob asked. “Quickly!”

There were sounds of a new commotion coming from the first floor. Bob rushed out and up the stairs. When he reached the vestibule, his head still steaming, he burst out of the stairwell ready to take no prisoners. But he stopped dead when he saw a group of Tech students gathered in the vestibule. In the middle was Will Blaikie, his wrist wrapped in a bandage.

“Old Plymouth!” he bellowed, smiling at Bob’s entrance. “I mean, Mr. Richards,” he intoned with exaggerated deference. “Join us, will you? I was just about to inform your peers of some very good tidings from Harvard during this trying time.”

Bob glared at him and, trying to stop himself from yelling, barely pushed his words out through his tightly clenched jaw. “What are you doing here, Blaikie?”

Blaikie smiled at the onlookers. “I’d think that I would be welcomed heartily.”

“Think again. You’re decidedly
not
welcome at Tech. Ever,” said Bob.

“I’m rather certain that’s not true at the moment, old salt. You see, I’ve come to tell all of you about a special arrangement. We at Harvard are absolutely crestfallen about what is now plaguing our infant neighbor, your institute, in light of these terrible catastrophes and the
apparent
connections to this place. To this end, at the suggestion of some well-regarded students—I include myself in that, if I may be bold enough—the Harvard faculty has this morning voted to extend an offer, and they have sent me, as First Scholar of the Harvard Class of 1868, to tell you about it.” The emissary swept his gaze around the group, letting the suspense build. “If any of you good gentlemen”—he paused when he saw Ellen had by now appeared from downstairs and joined the group—“if any of you fine
gentlemen
who are currently enrolled at Technology in good standing wish to come to Cambridge and switch over to Harvard College, and study under the celebrated Professor Agassiz, the faculty is prepared to do its best to accommodate you in the spirit of fellowship due in these unusual circumstances.”