Dagny Taggart walked with a brisk determined purpose through the lobby of the Comcast building. The marble stones reflected her slim figure-unattached to the aesthetic of the age. The reflection showed a beauty more complicated than the contemporary taste could understand. Even the sound of her expensive yet tasteful flats echoing off the empty walls seemed to repeat it with every footfall- here is a woman sure of her way. The stone she walked upon was older than its current owners. It was laid in a different time- a time when men cared which women strode across it, and wouldn’t condescend to allow a single trepidatious step. The secretary, Miss Amy Shingle, was a portly woman whose shape had grown into her desk chair. She wore a look that implied she was a fixture of this lobby as permanent as the dulling columns. The sound of my footsteps was a hammer shattering her world with each step. “Mr. Amos Duche is on the 11th floor, is he not?” said Dagny. Amy Shingle took a moment to collect herself and stammered “He is… but… he’s in a meeting. Do you have an appointment?” Dagny’s angular finger was already pointed toward the elevator panel. “No,” she said with an icy finality. Amy Shingle was disarmed by the uncharacteristic assertiveness and she struggled to find the words to protest. It was too late- Dagny had pressed the exact right button she meant to. As she ascended the elevator she felt she was rising above the real world, as it worked and functioned every day and entering the ether, where the philosopher kings held court. At this indulgence, she chortled to herself. “It’s all the same world. Above and below the clouds. They can pretend all they want, but it’s no different up here.” The doors parted to reveal a doorman with sagging jowls and a uniform tested to its limit by his girth. He was dozing soundly in a wooden chair with a dewdrop of drool on his lip. As I strode past him and pushed open the doors of Amos Duche’s office he awoke with a start, unable to distinguish what he saw from a nightmare disturbing his complacency. Amos Duche was seated behind the desk of his enormous office. He had been speaking in a humble, monotone voice to a crowd of journalists, academics, and social elites gathered there regarding the duty of Comcast to provide cable and internet service to the country as a public good. The old oaken doors swung wide and smashed one frail liberal reporter into the wall as she entered. Duche’s speech halted. What had been a look of pedagogical reprove gave way to guarded fear as Amos Duche’s beady eyes narrowed on the blinding cut of Dagny Taggart’s suit. The sea of reporters ceased their flash photography, but did not turn to look at Dagny. Instead they stole guilty sideways glances her way and pretended she wasn’t there. “What is the meaning of this, Miss Taggart?” Duche whimpered indignantly. “We have an appointment to discuss your issue this afternoon!” Dagny’s lighter flashed in the instant she brought her cigarette to her lips and she said, “We have an appointment for two p.m. It’s two oh-one.” Amos Duche was a doughy, small-dicked faggot covered in a sheen of anxious sweat, which made his hands slip as he fumbled for his desk clock. “The clocks haven’t been working since November,” he grumbled, “when Sharp Plowenger’s timepiece foundry shut down.” Sharp Plowenger had been the only reliable clocksmith in North America until he had mysteriously disappeared some weeks ago. Since then, the excuse of being late had been widely considered to be acceptable. After all, how could one be on time without adequate clocks on hand? “I’m here now,” said Dagny, blowing smoke into the face of a particularly smarmy young journalist, “to discuss the Wifi charges on our trains.” At this the crowd turned to her with the attentiveness of vultures to an injured animal. “But Miss Taggart,” snapped one young college educated socialite, “Wifi is a human right. It doesn’t matter what it costs the railroad, you must place free Wifi hotspots on your trains these days… for the poor!” With one motion Dagny reached out and extinguished her cigarette flawlessly in the ashtray. “Do you expect the Wifi technicians to work for free? How are we to provide streaming video to passengers without paying for the internet motors?” All that could be heard was a few incontinent gasps. Someone in the crowd dropped a baby which began to cry. Amos Duche, whose composure had been the censure of the crowd and thus the entire nation, rose to his stubby little feet. “This is an outrage!” he cried. Upon rising in dismay, he jostled his desk and tipped over a priceless vase. It had been crafted hundreds of years ago by the finest artisans in the United States. Duche’s ancestors had paid a fortune for it and bequeathed it to him along with their great Comcast legacy. It crashed to the floor and disappeared into a fine white powder. “If you want the benefit of my labor,” Ayn said in a loud, purposeful voice, “you must pay for it.” At this the crowd erupted in applause, and a dazzling fusillade of flashbulbs illuminated the room. The diverse liberal crowd had, in an instant, had their whole world torn away from them. What they were left with was freedom- blinding, intoxicating freedom. At that moment everyone in the crowd, even the gay men and the straight women, wanted to have dirty sex with her.
The papers never printed a word of it, nor published a single photograph.
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