Changes

== Aftermath ==

== Aftermath ==

Whether Mouch, Ferris, and Taggart even reached a hospital, the novel does not say. Mouch would doubtless learn later that the government had collapsed totally, after [[Project X]] had blown up (had [[Robert Stadler]] had anything to do with that?) and cut the Taggart Bridge in half.

Whether Mouch, Ferris, and Taggart even reached a hospital, the novel does not say. Mouch would doubtless learn later that the government had collapsed totally, after [[Project X]] had blown up (had [[Robert Stadler]] had anything to do with that?) and cut the Taggart Bridge in half. The immediate result was the closure of the Lebanon ([[New Hampshire]]) Airport. Mouch and Ferris might have driven down the road from the State Science Institute to Hanover and the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, affiliated with [[Dartmouth College]]. But whether that hospital was even functional in this version of alternate history is not clear.

One may infer that various citizens' [[militia]]s strove with the various criminal gangs that were running rampant throughout the land and asserted themselves as the new force for law and order. Either Mouch and the others fell into the hands of one of those gangs (in which case they were probably killed out of hand), or they fell into the hands of one of the militias. In which case that militia held them for eventual trial by a reconstituted Federal judiciary, either before [[Judge Narragansett]] or at least before a court that operated under rules that Judge Narragansett, as [[Chief Justice of the United States]], made and enforced.

One may infer that various citizens' [[militia]]s strove with the various criminal gangs that were running rampant throughout the land and asserted themselves as the new force for law and order. Either Mouch and the others fell into the hands of one of those gangs (in which case they were probably killed out of hand), or they fell into the hands of one of the militias. In which case that militia held them for eventual trial by a reconstituted Federal judiciary, either before [[Judge Narragansett]] or at least before a court that operated under rules that Judge Narragansett, as [[Chief Justice of the United States]], made and enforced.

{{endspoiler}}

{{endspoiler}}

== Typology ==

== Typology ==

Wesley Mouch is, of course, a major [[Literary type#Villain|villain]] in the novel. He is also a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]], or rather a ''stereotype'', of political appointees in the executive branch of either the Federal government, any State government, or the government of any of the largest cities in America. But Mouch's career is the reverse of the stereotypical career of a political appointee. Most such men (and women) begin as political appointees and end as lobbyists; Mouch starts as a lobbyist and becomes an appointee. That he comes to a sad end is because [[John Galt]] had begun, and then accelerated, a process that knocks the props out from under the system that Wesley Mouch serves.

Wesley Mouch is, of course, a major [[Literary type#Villain|villain]] in the novel. He is also a [[Literary type#Allegorical types|type]], or rather a ''stereotype'', of political appointees in the executive branch of either the Federal government, any State government, or the government of any of the largest cities in America. But Mouch's career is the reverse of the stereotypical career of a political appointee. Most such men (and women) begin as political appointees and end as lobbyists; Mouch starts as a lobbyist and becomes an appointee. That he comes to a sad end is because [[John Galt]] had begun, and then accelerated, a process that knocks the props out from under the system that Wesley Mouch serves.