Changes

Robert Stadler has known all along that Galt would never cooperate, so he rushes to the site of [[Project X]], intending to seize control of it for himself. But another government operative named Cuffy Meigs has beaten him to it. The two men then struggle over the controls of the so-called Xylophone, and when Meigs pulls one lever too many, the weapon destroys the complex and everything within a hundred miles, including the one remaining railroad bridge across the [[Mississippi River]].

Robert Stadler has known all along that Galt would never cooperate, so he rushes to the site of [[Project X]], intending to seize control of it for himself. But another government operative named Cuffy Meigs has beaten him to it. The two men then struggle over the controls of the so-called Xylophone, and when Meigs pulls one lever too many, the weapon destroys the complex and everything within a hundred miles, including the one remaining railroad bridge across the [[Mississippi River]].

Dagny watches as Galt is led away, and is now determined to quit the world herself, before anyone suspects her true feelings for Galt. She packs very light, and receives with indifference the report that the Taggart Bridge has been destroyed by sound rays from Project X and that the two halves of the country are now cut off. She leaves her headquarters for the last time and meets Francisco d'Anconia, to whom she finally swears the oath that John Galt wrote twelve years before:{{cquote|I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}

Dagny watches as Galt is led away, and is now determined to quit the world herself, before anyone suspects her true feelings for Galt. She packs very light, and receives with indifference the report that the Taggart Bridge has been destroyed by sound rays from Project X and that the two halves of the country are now cut off. She leaves her headquarters for the last time and meets Francisco d'Anconia, to whom she finally swears the oath that John Galt wrote twelve years before:{{cquote|I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.}}

In the final scenes, Floyd Ferris, Wesley Mouch (Coordinator of Economic Planning and Natural Resources), and James Taggart take Galt to the secret laboratory of the State Science Institute and try to torture Galt into cooperating. When the torture machine malfunctions and only John Galt knows how to repair it, the technician flees the scene, Wesley Mouch loses his nerve, and James Taggart goes insane with the realization that all he has ever wanted to do was to make better men than he suffer. Shortly afterward, Dagny, Francisco, Hank Rearden, and Ragnar all descend on the secret laboratory, kill most of its personnel, and rescue Galt. As the rescue plane heads west, the entire eastern seaboard is plunged into darkness.

In the final scenes, Floyd Ferris, Wesley Mouch (Coordinator of Economic Planning and Natural Resources), and James Taggart take Galt to the secret laboratory of the State Science Institute and try to torture Galt into cooperating. When the torture machine malfunctions and only John Galt knows how to repair it, the technician flees the scene, Wesley Mouch loses his nerve, and James Taggart goes insane with the realization that all he has ever wanted to do was to make better men than he suffer. Shortly afterward, Dagny, Francisco, Hank Rearden, and Ragnar all descend on the secret laboratory, kill most of its personnel, and rescue Galt. As the rescue plane heads west, the entire eastern seaboard is plunged into darkness.