The Technologists (63 page)

The words continue to echo in Frank’s mind even once he has been living and working in Boston. The disdainful face of Denzler follows him, appearing in flashes within large crowds at Quincy Market, in the corners of subterranean taverns and brothels, in windows of buildings or passing trains. Then vanishing before he can give chase or remind himself that, no, that is not possible, Denzler has fled the country. The face itself is unchanging, the maddening expression of violent superiority he himself had carved from wood in the engineering office at Smith. At first, he rejects the voice, argues with it, cries under the assault of its taunts. He sculpts more faces and figures of people who are not Denzler, who do not imprison or abandon him. But, more and more, they, too, become soldiers imprisoned in war. More and more, toiling twelve hours a day in the machine shop, remembering and dreaming of wartime, of what he did for Denzler
,
of what he did against his own comrades, against the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Frank Brewer is imprisoned and abandoned
.

One February day, a day with a dry bracing cold, on his way to his lodgings after work, at the side of the road stops a two-horse carriage. Frank recognizes that it belongs to Chauncy Hammond, Sr. The driver calls him over and says that Hammond has sent him to drive Frank. The driver puts a blanket down so Frank does not have to step in the slush as he climbs up from the curb. During the ride, Frank feels content and privileged at this special treatment—long overdue since he took upon his shoulders Hammie’s place in the war—but also ashamed that the other machine men from the works would be trudging home in the cold. But the carriage crosses over into Charlestown—this is not the way to his lodgings—and soon they are stopped at the foot of the Bunker Hill Monument. The driver tells him to climb to the observatory, and at his questioning stare explains only that this was what Hammond requested
.

Frank marches up the narrow, winding staircase inside the hollow shaft, sliding periodically on top of the ice and mud left behind by previous boots. Up and up to the small chamber beneath the apex of the tower. Hammond waits, looking out one of the windows
.

“Did you know this is one of the finest views in the world? Even on a winter night, you can see hundreds of miles away. It is like a painting—a painting of the past and the future. You can see the ships as they float in and out of the harbor, and the lights from the railroads that once were only a dream, my dream, that have allowed young men like you to come from all over to live in Boston.”

Hammond turns around, a tight nod the only greeting and acknowledgment of Frank’s making the treacherous climb. “There are some important conversations that should not be overheard by any others. This is one. Are you prepared for that, Brewer?”

He nods
.

“Good,” continues the businessman. “The Institute of Technology. You know something about it, I presume?”

“Marcus Mansfield is to be graduated from there this summer,” he answers sullenly. “He’s given up four years of wages to play the part of a collegey, but I for one can’t be convinced anyone in Boston will see him as anything more than a factory hand. Anything more than me.”

“The Institute’s leaders believe that all scientific innovation belongs to the masses,” says the older man. “Their professors guide brilliant young fellows like my Junior without an awareness of the danger that this sort of thinking entails. I financed that place before it had a single cornerstone laid down, yet they squander away the fruits of their labor! They squander away the future! For my own reasons, Brewer, I should like to see those innovations fall under private control. After pressing them to this end, it seems I must instead stoke that outcome more directly.”

“Why speak to me about it, sir?”

The magnate rests a hand on one of the two brass cannons displayed there, under which is the inscription SACRED TO LIBERTY. “I know what you did with Captain Denzler at Smith Prison.”

“How …?”

“I will explain another time. You needn’t be afraid, Brewer, I promise! You had no choice, and it is not in my interest to tell anyone what you were made to do. Why, if Junior had been in your place, well, I cannot conceive his fate. Let us apply the skills you received from that scoundrel Denzler to better use. Let us give Boston a small scare or two, and in doing so shake the stubborn will of Tech to my purposes. What say you, my boy?”

“Yes,” answers Frank, faster than he ever would have imagined
.

“I
T’S SO COLD.”
Bob’s head twisted into his shoulder. “Nellie, Nellie! Nellie, it’s cold. Where are you? I can’t see you!”

“Stay calm—don’t try to walk!” Ellen cried, putting her arms around him to prevent him from falling. “The ergot produces convulsions in the joints. Can you hear me? Lie down on the grass. As long as you understand what is happening, you need not be frightened by it. Your vision may be affected, and you might see things—shadows and shapes—that aren’t there. Listen to me! You will feel tingling in your hands and feet, and you will feel hungry, but you mustn’t try to move or eat until your body is cleansed of the effects. Robert, can you hear me? Robert Richards?”

“Thank heavens it’s you,” he groaned.

“What?”

“If I am to die—”

“You’re not going to die!”

“Thank heavens it’s you. You can save me.”

As she loosened his neckcloth, she said lightly, in an attempt to calm him, “I am only a mere woman of the weaker sex, remember.”

“I love you,” he mumbled, his lips curling into a strange smile. “Not only a woman, the best woman. I love Ellen Swallow.”

“Really! Robert, must a man wait until he is delirious to declare such a thing?”

“I love your hands. The tips of your fingers. They are such a delicate shade of—purple, is it?”

“Yes, I was working with iodide of potassium and chlorine gas earlier.”

“Ellen Swallow
Richards
.”

“Excuse me!” she gasped at the presumption.

A young woman in a frilly dress fell only feet from them, while others ran in all directions, attempting to escape the wrath of an assailant already inside their skin.

Pulling Bob out of the way of being trampled, Ellen rushed into the crowd, waving her arms. “Throw down your beer! Your food! If you feel sick, lie down on the grass and don’t move!”

“Why should we listen to you, woman?” groused a doctor who was tending to the mysteriously ill.

“My name is Ellen Henrietta Swallow. I am a student at the Institute of Technology, and if you listen to me, you’ll save lives.”

As she shouted this back at the chastened man, a black column of smoke shot into the sky in the distance.

*   *   *

G
EORGE PROPOSED
using a wire rope on a pulley from a steam engine to transmit the power they needed to drill the holes. He explained that they had used a similar scheme before to bring power from the machine shop to some of the outer buildings where the materials were too combustible to maintain engines nearby. He knew of a mill not half a mile from the bridge with an engine that could be easily accessed.

Marcus detached a great black-and-white mare from Chauncy Hammond’s team. He ran his hand across her eyes and over her wide nose to familiarize her senses with him. The rest of his cohorts were finishing loading the wire rope and pulley, and pushing Mr. Hammond inside his carriage with them.

Hammie helped steady the lone horse for Marcus to mount it.

“I should be at your side, Mansfield. It was my father who started this all in motion.”

He shook his head. “Get them safely to the bridge with the materials, and have one of the men bring your father to the police station to tell them exactly how all of this was started. Whatever happens, if I succeed, or if I fail to stop Frank today, the world must learn the Institute was not to blame. It’s vitally important, Hammie.”

Hammie considered this momentarily before resigning himself to climb into the carriage with the others.

Marcus called out: “Hammie! I always swear by Tech and always mean to.”

He smiled back at Marcus with his wide, off-center grin. “I always swear by Tech and always mean to! No daredevilry now, Mansfield,” he added.

Marcus prodded the horse onto the street and kept his heels in position for maximum speed.

As he traveled over its gravel streets, Back Bay seemed more a deserted island than ever. When he reached the massive Institute building, he dismounted at the central streetlight in front. Unlatching the box at the bottom of the lamppost, which ran into the ground, he caught his breath as he saw the vast array of coils and devices that had been inserted among the electrical cables and the wheel. He put his rifle down on the ground. Here was confirmation of Frank’s plan—but how to stop it?

He stared at the configuration, feeling the time slip away as he studied it, and then set doggedly to work. After fifteen minutes of sustained effort, his hands buried within the tightly packed wiring, he cursed as he shredded the skin on his knuckle on a sharp edge, and sat back, hand to his mouth, to stanch the flow of blood. His fingers were throbbing, aching, and swelling red to the point where his right hand would be useless in a matter of minutes. He tried to form a fist and flinched at the agony in his joints, falling to his knees and crying aloud in pain.

“Well, I see you’ve discovered my circuit. What a place to build a college! You have to be very careful with circuit closers here, with the tide in these marshlands.”

Marcus turned and saw Frank approaching. With his hands hooked over his pockets as though he were a gentleman of leisure on an afternoon stroll: his uniform on, posture tall and proud, he looked nothing like the tired machine man he had been.

“Here, let me help you up,” Frank offered. “You must be careful with that hand.”

“Don’t touch me,” Marcus snapped.

Frank looked to be deeply injured. “Marcus? Why, I thought you’d be grateful.”

Marcus shook his head in confusion and disgust. “What have you done, Frank?”

“Oh, how I wanted so much to tell you all about it when you came with your class to the machine shop! I actually believed you’d understand it, and appreciate it, more than anybody in the land! Then, when you asked me to bring those iron samples to the beer hall, I realized what you were doing, already trying to stop me. I knew then I would have to prove to you I was up to snuff before I told you the truth.”

“The truth?” Marcus said, so astounded he almost broke into laughter. “What do you mean?”

“That I was saving your college.”

“What?”

“Hammond wanted to damage it, possibly even see it disappear for his own purposes. But I realized right off I could do something about it, that I did not have to merely vanish into the dark corner of a machine shop any longer. I would show Boston that they needed the Institute—that their money and family names were no longer a shield—not from the weapons you and I possess. Not from the highest intelligence: not from technology. Starting today, the city will finally reach the point where they realize they will have to beg the Institute for help, they will have to crown it, guard it, celebrate it, as they have done for Harvard for hundreds of foolish years!”

Marcus was flabbergasted. “Why?”

Now Frank laughed as though Marcus was joking. “Why? Didn’t I tell you? When you came with your class to the shop, I told you I was ready for something better. Because it was finally my chance, my chance to leave the machines and do something by joining the Institute—and I wasn’t about to let Hammond take that away!”

“You could have refused him then!”

“He would simply have found someone else to do his bidding! The Institute was finally giving men like you and me a chance, but the college was always being kicked around by someone. How long before the distrust and stupidity of the legislature or the public brought down the Institute? No, this was bigger than Hammond—by proving to Boston that they had nowhere else to turn, I’ve given the Institute the freedom to be more powerful than any institution ever before!”

Marcus squinted at him as if he were a mile away and he was trying to identify him as friend or enemy. “What do you think is going to happen now, Frank? Look me in the eye and tell me!”

“Boston is slow to change, slow to act. I need not tell you! The people of Boston turned their back on us when we were imprisoned at Smith.”

“They did nothing like that.”

“Oh, but they did! My family, my regiment, my government, they all knew where I was, only a poor lad, and nobody did the least thing about it. Rich boys like Hammie paid for substitutes like me to go and be killed or captured instead of them. As long as they felt safe, we were forgotten, as good as dead. Boston cannot pretend to be safe now, Marcus. Today we prove to them they cannot protect themselves, and then the Institute will be uplifted! Why, I know for a fact the police are already coming to the conclusion that the city must bow to the college, and after the damage today they will bow at your feet for you to stop what’s next—which we will make certain you do. You will be graduated, I will begin as a freshman, and we will be respected. This will be my examination for admission! Come, give me your hand, old friend. We will finish this together.”