Steel City Heroes (Book 1): The Catalyst Read online

  He winked at the furrow-browed homeschooler. “There’s at least one of you that is already disturbed by this. Probably the one that’s listening.” The blonde giggled. “But here’s what I mean: sentimentality will ruin scholarship. As we begin Research Methods I, the most important thing for you to know is that the historian, above all else, must be detached. Separate. Objective. Any attachment to the discipline, any motivation other than scientific analysis, will leave you writing great-man fanfiction or revisionist history. Maybe the History Channel will hire you.”

  He paced up to the desk of a frizzy-haired girl in the front row. She crouched low. Everything he had said, word for word, was written on the page. He placed his index finger on the last line; she looked up.

  “That won’t be on the test.” He grinned. “That is the test.”

  A barely audible whimper came from the girl’s throat. “There’s a syllabus for each of you on the desk, and you are responsible for the contents within. I trust you all can read it, though I know you won’t.”

  Elijah grabbed his bag and turned for the door.

  He had hoped he would teach in the Cathedral of Learning—an American icon of higher education. Instead, his assignment landed him in a basement that once doubled as a fallout shelter during the Cold War.

  The hallway of the building was nondescript. It could have been in any other city—at any other school. They all looked the same after a while. Same tiles, same cinderblock walls, same posters advertising the bread and circus of university life. A job for him and a hundred other adjuncts could be provided if these colleges cut all the bullshit concerts and spring break trips. If Heller College didn’t build that damn climbing wall, he would likely be sitting in a tenure-track position.

  This is a mistake, Elijah thought, passing down the hall.

  The first time he had given that opening lecture was nearly a decade ago. He was a wet-behind-the-ears PhD student, desperate to hide his ignorance. Prior to class he was sick—literally. He tossed his Big Mac and fries in the men’s room. Nevertheless, he wiped his mouth, took the stage, and played his part.

  Like the best of actors, he had delivered the lines over and over in the mirror the night before class. He did all he could to emulate Dr. Ross—his mentor and the man who turned him on to the discipline.

  A decade ago, that lecture was his love letter to the field—an invitation to inquiry, discovery, and wonder in the face of the vast study of human existence. Whether it was his words or his enthusiasm, he didn’t know, but the students ate out of his hand. Over ten years of delivery, the opening lecture got shorter and terser. It evolved from a hospitable invitation to the guild, into a giant “screw you”—a middle finger to anyone who thought they might just belong.

  Adjunct positions were a dime a dozen in the big cities. Depending on the school, he knew he could make in the ballpark of two grand—more from tier one research universities, less from community colleges. In his early days, he would have paid to teach. Now he taught for nothing but the pay. Dr. Ross would be ashamed.

  The hourly wage had become pretty good—once he realized that he could give the same lectures ad nauseum. Grading required skimming the first paragraph, last paragraph, and placing some check marks in the margin. He’d go above and beyond every now and then—underline a sentence and draw an exclamation mark next to it. An arbitrary grade at the end. Not too arbitrary. Grade them too low and he was likely to have a visitor during office hours.

  ****

  Elijah pushed through the double doors and onto the sidewalk of North Bellefield Avenue. The library was where he wanted to be, it was what kept him teaching anyway. Pulling up his sleeve, he checked his watch.

  Plenty of time, he thought.

  He pulled out his phone and Googled the nearest coffee place. Kiva Han—the shop with the best reviews—was nearby. He walked south, toward Forbes, half watching the sidewalk, half reading emails.

  “Hey, man. You got a cigarette for the King?”

  Elijah glanced up at the homeless man. And then back down at his shoes. His pace quickened. They always made him uncomfortable.

  “It’s cool. A hello will do,” the man said to Elijah’s back.

  The coffee shop was packed. He met eyes with the nose-ringed, dreadlocked barista and wove through the crowd toward the counter. Two steps from his caffeine fix, he bumped into a woman turning with her own purchase in hand.

  “Crap.” She shook her hand, drops of blazing coffee splashed to the floor.

  “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry.” His eyes moved from her hand up to her face. She had a modest beauty that would go unnoticed in the bar scene, but it was one that he had come to adore among young intellectuals.

  “Yeah. That’s hot,” the woman said.

  “That’s not the only thing.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that you look fit. Zumba?” He smiled. Charm was never his strong suit.

  The woman glanced up. Strange words fell from her mouth:

  “It’s all about sex and territory,

  which are what will finish us off

  in the long run. Some cat owners around here

  should snip a few testicles. If we wise

  hominids were sensible, we’d do that too.”

  She turned and walked away.

  Elijah remained planted, unable to move. Shock and humiliation colored his cheeks.

  “Wow,” he finally uttered to no one in particular.

  “Don’t worry about her, man. She can’t take a joke.”

  Elijah spun, looking a tall black man in the chest. His eyes wandered up. The man was a mix between Cornell West and Morpheus.

  “I’ve been trying to talk to her for years. Nothing like that move you just pulled, but I’ve tried.”

  Elijah nervously ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I’m out of practice. Mostly just talk to librarians these days.”

  The man laughed. “Well, that one, she’s literature or poetry or some shit. But, she’d rather spend the night with her cats than a Longfellow, if you know what I mean. Stay out of trouble.” The man patted Elijah on the arm.

  Elijah grinned and scratched his beard. “I’ll try.”

  With his black coffee in hand, Elijah moved toward the door. He considered sitting and reading through the latest issue of The Atlantic, but the place was packed.

  “You want to join me?” the man asked.

  Making friends had never been easy. He’d only been in Pittsburgh for a few days, but already he was feeling lonely. Elijah pulled out the chair and sat. “Thanks. Nice to talk to another human. I just got into town this week.”

  “I could tell you weren’t from around here.” The man nodded toward the lit professor gathering her things.

  A composition pad was opened in front of him. Elijah caught a glimpse of chemical symbols and formulas. Seeing him look, the man flipped the book closed. “Which department?”

  Elijah’s eyes moved from the book to the man’s face. “What?”

  “What discipline do you teach in?”

  “Oh, right. History. Twentieth-century.”

  The man grinned and leaned back. “With that beard, those glasses, and the way you talked to her, I would’ve guessed philosophy.”

  Elijah couldn’t help laughing. “I get that all the time. Mine’s much more lucrative.”

  His new friend nodded in appreciation. “So, history man, you tenure-track?”

  “Is anybody tenure-track anymore? That is, anybody under fifty?”

  It was the other man’s turn to laugh. He pushed his hand across the table open in front of Elijah. “I’m Percy. Percy Scott. But people call me Chem.”

  “Elijah.” The historian’s hand got swallowed in his Chem’s giant palm.

  “How about you,” Elijah asked.

  “Research. Chemistry—thus the name. I taught a class or two during my tour at Vanderbilt. Found out pretty fast the classroom wasn’t the place for me.”


  “That’s why you decided to do research?” Elijah asked.

  “Nope. That’s why I decided to go to medical school.”

  “Med school? You went all the way through med school to do research?”

  The man slid his palm around the side of his neck and then up over his head. He hesitated. “I got to clinicals. Then realized that wasn’t for me either. Or maybe I should say, they realized it.” The man grinned. “I’ll be paying those loans off for a long time.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Tell me about it,” Chem said. “So you moved here just to adjunct a history class or two?”

  Elijah stiffened. “Actually, I probably shouldn’t even be teaching. It drives me crazy. But I thought I was going to need the money. I took a research job for a local company—you know, telling their story and all that shit.”

  “Everybody’s got a story,” Chem said. “So what’s theirs?”

  Elijah rung his hands. “Well, uh, I’ve got a nondisclosure agreement.”

  “Say no more. Hell, in chemistry, you can’t take a dump without signing an NDA.”

  Elijah stood. “Chem, nice to meet you. Time for me to hit the archives. I hope we run into each other.”

  “Not like you ran into her, I hope. And if you do, don’t go givin me your damn pick-up lines.”

  Elijah smiled and hovered for a moment.

  The man pulled a card out of his pocket and offered it to Elijah. “I’ve been to new cities enough to realize it’s good to have somebody to call.”

  Elijah nodded. “Thanks. See ya.”

  The historian pocketed the card and exited the coffee shop.

  ****

  The Hillman Library is a modern monstrosity, shadowed by the awe-inspiring Cathedral of Learning across the street. Large and boxy, it reminded Elijah of a shorter version of the city’s penitentiary, which he had driven past looking for Alarawn Industries. Architects over the past five decades admired its oriel windows; Elijah didn’t see the appeal. In any case, he spent little time contemplating aesthetics—his admiration was reserved for the archives within. Elijah felt comforted, rather than confined, while working inside.

  This historian had always liked libraries. The sheer mass of information contained within their walls amazed the academic. He thought back to one of his earliest memories from childhood, sitting with his mother in the kids’ section of his local town library. Even then he respected the vast potential hidden within those rows of pages. The smell of old pulp was intoxicating.

  Entering through the main doors, he showed his staff ID to the morose attendant. Elijah noticed the large room full of research computers on his left. While no Luddite, Elijah still couldn’t help but feel resentment toward the machines’ encroachment upon his turf. Historical knowledge took effort. It took discipline to make sense of the near-infinite information available. Computers increased that data to dizzying levels, but they failed to provide the necessary mechanisms, the mental sieves, required of a true historian.

  The words of Nietzsche rang in his ears: Historical knowledge streams in unceasingly from inexhaustible wells…For what means are available to nature for overcoming that which presses upon it in too great abundance?

  Elijah knew what means his own nature held: objectivity and a critical mind. His trained detachment gave him the skills to command the overflowing streams that would otherwise flood the uninitiated. But Elijah was initiated. And for the first time in his career, he was given the opportunity to put his skills to real work.

  Elijah ascended the staircase and made his way to the third floor. This rarely visited section contained an extensive collection of historical works centered on the city. He had spent some time within Alarawn’s historical archives, but had found the information there had been arranged with a certain propagandistic bent—hard work, strength, progress. If Elijah was going to make sense of the company’s early history he needed another perspective.

  Elijah gathered a now-familiar collection of texts—Stowell, Wolfe, Morrill—and made his way to a secluded work bench hidden against the wall between two stacks. It had become his second home during his brief tenure in the Steel City. The steel industry had become his daily academic sustenance, along with the Alarawn’s role in shaping Pittsburgh.

  Thomas Jr. created jobs and industry, and produced the material that would not only shape Pittsburgh’s distinct infrastructure but also export the city’s mark all over the world. With steel came progress—as well as pollution, political corruption, and a long list of labor grievances. Elijah tried not to judge the past by contemporary standards. It was an era of great men; men who shaped earth and tore down mountains. Not the kind of people stalled by the cries of a few disgruntled immigrants.

  It was to those voices that Elijah now turned. He found a collection of photographs chronicling the immigrant history of Western Pennsylvania’s early twentieth century. While the modern city had strong Scots-Irish and German roots, it was Italians, Poles, Croatians, and a large black community that provided the city with the necessary manpower. These workers were sturdy men of the Old World, not easily intimidated. Nor did they readily give up the ancient traditions of their homelands. This determination to hold on to the world they had left shaped the neighborhoods comprising Pittsburgh, a legacy still alive in local churches, restaurants, and ethnic clubs.

  This cultural distinction also led to conflict within the industrialized city. Prohibition didn’t take with the immigrant population, and Slavic ethnic and religious practices were seen as outlandish by the city’s cultural elite. All of this contributed to the repeated—and often violent—clashes between labor and management.

  It was one such conflict that caught Elijah’s eye. In 1902, Alarawn Industries built a newer, larger mill, which would remain the company’s flagship plant until mid-century. This plant was equipped with open-hearth furnaces, replacing the Bessemer converters of the past. The new mill was a significant step forward. It was capable of producing higher-quality steel in larger quantities at a faster rate. It also required fewer skilled workers. The steel unions saw it as a way for the corporations to keep wages low, and they promptly organized. The strike didn’t last, and within a week, operations returned to normal.

  Elijah was familiar with the broad outlines of the workers’ protests. In the archives, Thomas Alarawn was praised for resolving the conflict diplomatically and without resorting to the violence that accompanied the Homestead Strike only a decade earlier.

  Reading through the history, Elijah was struck with several odd details regarding the incident—particularly its rapid dissolution. In the documents, Elijah could see that the labor unions were well organized and that there was a surprising amount of public support for the strike. The unions saw it as an opportunity to regain ground lost after their defeat in 1892. Despite the relatively favorable conditions, the strike ended in three days without the workers making any significant progress.

  Why would they cave so easily? What “diplomatic” solutions could Alarawn have come up with?

  Curious, Elijah grabbed another text more specifically focused on Pittsburgh labor unions. A brief excerpt and a grainy black-and-white photo were all that marked the event. In the photo, among a group of steel workers, stood Thomas Alarawn, Jr. Bearded and wearing a dark bowler, his face was as cold and stern as the steel he produced. Elijah struggled to get into the head of this man.

  Who was this patriarch?

  Checking his notes, Elijah realized that this photograph must have been taken only weeks before Thomas’s untimely death. He couldn’t find much about the steel magnate’s tragic demise, only that it left his only son the keys to the kingdom.

  “Possible last photo—death two weeks later,” Elijah wrote in his notes.

  Looking more closely at the picture, Elijah made out an odd shape sticking out from Thomas’s open coat. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a small metal disk.

  “The medallion,” he said.

  Brooke had asked
him to determine the strange medallion’s origins but he was an historian, not an archaeologist. For weeks Elijah had been looking for some reference to the artifact in the family archives. And here, he stumbled across Thomas Jr. wearing it while standing outside of his new steel mill, only weeks before his death. It hadn’t shown up in any of Thomas’s other photos.

  Reaching into his wallet, Elijah removed Brooke’s business card with Rex’s number on the back. He had hoped to push it back until the weather got warmer, but he was convinced that he needed to make a trip to Alarawn’s abandoned mill as soon as possible.

  CHAPTER SIX

  An enormous table filled the room. Popular legend claimed that it was made of dark oak mined from a virgin forest in Wales—the ancestral homeland of the Alarawn family. Its wooden surface gleamed from four generations’ worth of polishing. If the table could talk, most in the room would be criminally indicted. Large, leather chairs surrounded the table, each holding an executive board member—all outfitted with perfect suits. Primarily men, there was a rose or two amongst the thorns. But the roses were anything but sweet.

  The room was as cold as the Ohio River in January—more from the countenance of its occupants than anything else.

  Brooke Alarawn stood in the doorway; the armpits of her business suit were damp. Perspiration was a rarity—save for certain late night activities and tense board meetings. But now, she was sweating like a socialist at a Tea Party rally.

  Glass lined the room. The northwest window granted a perfect view of the convention center—its roof sloping toward the Allegheny. Even under duress, the familiar sight took Brooke’s breath away. She imagined running at the windows and jumping through it—a la “Hudsucker Proxy”—and to the street below. She could float down the river and disappear. The only thing restraining her was that she wouldn’t get the benefit of seeing their faces. A smile inadvertently curled on her lips.

  Opposite the windows, three large LCD screens were hung specifically for this meeting. Lavine and Hurtle telecast in from some other continent—prioritizing on-site meetings for companies that weren’t dragging bottom. They were professional board members, pulling in five to six figures per corporate seat. Fong, a multinational businessman in his own right, dialed in from China. Brooke feared him most. Van Pelt—Alarawn Industries’ chairman—initially argued that his inclusion was advisory—lending support on overseas relations and opening up new markets. She suspected otherwise. Fong’s membership indicated ulterior designs, less helpful to her and her company.