Robert Stadler realizes that regardless of the outcome of events in Washington, he has no place there. If Galt wins, Stadler will be rejected as a traitor to the mind’s cause. But if the looters win, he’ll be subordinate to a pack of ignorant dolts whom he despises. In the chaos of increasing civil war, Stadler needs to carve out a kingdom of his own. He drives to the Project X site in Iowa, intending to employ the deadly weapon as a means to establish his own fiefdom, but Cuffy Meigs beat him to it. In the ensuing power struggle, the weapon is activated, cutting a swath of destruction for hundreds of square miles, killing everybody at the installation, including Stadler.
The looters take Galt to the State Science Institute, where they use torture in an attempt to force him to fold. Dagny calls Francisco, who left her a number for such a contingency. While she prepares to go in search of Galt, a railroad engineer contacts her, letting her know that the vital Taggart Bridge spanning the Mississippi was destroyed by the Project X explosion. Dagny says that she doesn’t know what to do about that problem, and she leaves to join Francisco.
At the State Science Institute, the looters torture Galt. When the torture device breaks down, the looters don’t know how to repair it. Galt instructs them how to fix the device. James Taggart, in the act of trying to break Galt, realizes that his life is dedicated to the destruction of the good, and in that moment he recognizes his own unmitigated evil. He collapses, unable to live with such knowledge.
