Atlas Shrugged

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"Who was he?"
She did not answer, she looked at him, her eyes dark and oddly brilliant, and he saw that the shape of
her mouth, distorted by pain, was the shape of a mocking smile.
He felt it change to a shape of surrender, under the touch of his lips.
He held her body as if the violence and the despair of the way he took her could wipe his unknown rival
out of existence, out of her past, and more: as if it could transform any part of her, even the rival, into an
instrument of his pleasure. He knew, by the eagerness of her movement as her arms seized him, that this
was the way she wanted to be taken.
The silhouette of a conveyor belt moved against the strips of fire in the sky, raising coal to the top of a
distant tower, as if an inexhaustible number of small black buckets rode out of the earth in a diagonal line
across the sunset. The harsh, distant clatter kept going through the rattle of the chains which a young man
in blue overalls was fastening over the machinery, securing it to the flatcars lined on the siding of the
Quinn Ball Bearing Company of Connecticut.
Mr. Mowen, of the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company across the street, stood by, watching. He
had stopped to watch, on his way home from his own plant. He wore a light overcoat stretched over his
short, paunchy figure, and a derby hat over his graying, blondish head.
There was a first touch of September chill in the air. All the gates of the Quinn plant buildings stood wide
open, while men and cranes moved the machinery out; like taking the vital organs and leaving a carcass,
thought Mr. Mowen.
"Another one?" asked Mr. Mowen, jerking his thumb at the plant, even though he knew the answer.
"Huh?" asked the young man, who had not noticed him standing there.
"Another company moving to Colorado?"
"Uh-huh."
"It's the third one from Connecticut in the last two weeks," said Mr.
Mowen. "And when you look at what's happening in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and all
along the Atlantic coast . . ."
The young man was not looking and did not seem to listen. "It's like a leaking faucet," said Mr. Mowen,
"and all the water's running out to Colorado. All the money." The young man flung the chain across and
followed it deftly, climbing over the big shape covered with canvas.
"You'd think people would have some feeling for their native state, some loyalty . . . But they're running
away. I don't know what's happening to people."
"It's the Bill," said the young man.
"What Bill?"