The economy in Colorado is collapsing. Nobody has been able to replicate Ellis Wyatt's method of creating oil from shale, and without the Wyatt fields, the companies dependent on them go out of business. Andrew Stockton, the Colorado businessman who operates the country's best foundry, makes a fortune because many businesses convert to coal. However, Stockton suddenly retires and vanishes. Shortly after, Lawrence Hammond, another Colorado industrialist and the last great manufacturer of automobiles, also retires. Dagny is compelled to steadily cut trains on the Rio Norte Line.
Dagny calls Dr. Robert Stadler regarding the motor. Realizing that her quest to find the inventor has reached a dead end, she now hopes to find a scientist capable of reconstructing the motor from its remnant. Dr. Stadler looks at the motor and the remaining pages of the explanatory manuscript; he realizes the extraordinary breakthrough in the field of energy that the inventor made. Dr. Stadler is puzzled why such a mind would waste his time making such practical things as motors. He refers Dagny to Quentin Daniels, a promising young physicist at the Utah Institute of Technology, who has refused to accept a government position.
The government makes a ruling regarding the amount of Rearden Metal that Rearden can sell per customer, and the rulers send a bright young man fresh out of college to Rearden's mills to function as Deputy Director of Distribution. The steelworkers call him the "Wet Nurse." The State Science Institute places an order for Rearden Metal, which Rearden refuses to honor. When a representative from the Institute comes to his office, Rearden begins to realize that the socialist looters depend on his moral consent and that he must not give it to them in the future.
