Atlas Shrugged

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 "There's something wrong on every other street," said Taggart irritably. "Why doesn't somebody fix
them?"
She leaned back against the seat, tightening the collar of her wrap.
She felt exhausted at the end of a day she had started at her desk, in her office, at seven A.M.; a day
she had broken off, uncompleted, to rush home and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the
dinner of the New York Business Council "They want us to give them a talk about Rearden Metal," he
had said. "You can do it so much better than I. It's very important that we present a good case. There's
such a controversy about Rearden Metal."
Sitting beside him in his car, she regretted that she had agreed. She looked at the streets of New York
and thought of the race between metal and time, between the rails of the Rio Norte Line and the passing
days. She felt as if her nerves were being pulled tight by the stillness of the car, by the guilt of wasting an
evening when she could not afford to waste an hour.
"With all those attacks on Rearden that one hears everywhere," said Taggart, "he might need a few
friends."
She glanced at him incredulously. "You mean you want to stand by him?"
He did not answer at once; he asked, his voice bleak, "That report of the special committee of the
National Council of Metal Industries—what do you think of it?"
"You know what I think of it."
"They said Rearden Metal is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's
brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly, without warning . . ." He stopped, as if
begging for an answer. She did not answer. He asked anxiously, "You haven't changed your mind about
it, have you?"
"About what?"
"About that metal."
"No, Jim, I have not changed my mind."
"They're experts, though . . . the men on that committee. . . .
Top experts . . . Chief metallurgists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities
all over the country . . ." He said it unhappily, as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and
their verdict.
She watched him, puzzled; this was not like him.
The car jerked forward. It moved slowly through a gap in a plank barrier, past the hole of a broken
water main. She saw the new pipe stacked by the excavation; the pipe bore a trademark: Stockton
Foundry, Colorado. She looked away; she wished she were not reminded of Colorado.
"I can't understand it . . ." said Taggart miserably. "The top experts of the National Council of Metal