CHAPTER XXI – Tom Swift and His Elec­tric Loco­mo­tive deliv­ers a pulse-quick­en­ing turn as an omi­nous cry—“The switch! It is open!”—slices through the hum of elec­tric­i­ty and steel. Tom Swift, stand­ing inside the cab of the Her­cules 0001, reacts instant­ly, eyes snap­ping to the track ahead. A mis­aligned switch, if left unchecked, threat­ens to send the pow­er­ful loco­mo­tive off-course at high speed. The dan­ger is real and imme­di­ate. With no time to radio ahead, Tom relies on instinct. His hand flies to the emer­gency brake while Koku stead­ies the cab from the jolt. The heavy machine groans as it begins to decel­er­ate. Tom knows this is no acci­dent. This is sab­o­tage.

Just hours ear­li­er, the mood had been cau­tious­ly opti­mistic. The test runs had gone smooth­ly, with the Her­cules 0001 pulling freight up steep grades that once hum­bled tra­di­tion­al steam engines. Even Mr. Bartholomew, pres­i­dent of the Hen­drick­ton & Pas Alos Rail­road, had begun speak­ing in terms of con­tracts and fleet con­ver­sion. Tom, while encour­aged, remained watch­ful. Ned New­ton had warned that their rivals—specifically Mon­tagne Lewis and his oper­a­tive Andy O’Malley—weren’t fin­ished yet. Despite added secu­ri­ty and close coop­er­a­tion with Mr. Damon and Koku, some­thing still felt frag­ile. That fear now man­i­fest­ed in twist­ed met­al and open track.

As the loco­mo­tive lurch­es to a stop just before the faulty switch, Tom leaps from the cab. The team fans out to exam­ine the area. A pry bar, recent­ly dropped, lies near the switch handle—still warm to the touch. There’s no mis­tak­ing it. Some­one had man­u­al­ly shift­ed the track at the last moment. Ned scans the brush near­by and spots move­ment. Koku bounds into action with­out hes­i­ta­tion, crash­ing into the under­growth in pur­suit. Tom gives chase, adren­a­line surg­ing as the image of a sabo­teur escap­ing turns from fear into fury. Inno­va­tion, after all, should be defended—not only by patents, but by action.

While Koku con­tin­ues his pur­suit, Tom and Ned return to assess the loco­mo­tive. Though shak­en, the Her­cules 0001 is undam­aged. The brak­ing sys­tem worked as designed, and no derail­ment occurred. Still, the psy­cho­log­i­cal impact lingers. They had come with­in sec­onds of dis­as­ter. Mr. Damon insists the inci­dent must be report­ed to Bartholomew imme­di­ate­ly. Ned agrees, cit­ing the clear inten­tion to dis­cred­it their work or worse—destroy it out­right. Tom, though calm, resolves to increase vig­i­lance around all future tests. He rec­og­nizes that their inno­va­tion rep­re­sents not just progress, but dis­rup­tion. And those who prof­it from the old ways won’t go qui­et­ly.

Tom’s next move is strate­gic. He arranges for round-the-clock sur­veil­lance at all track junc­tions involved in their tri­als. A dupli­cate switch detec­tion sys­tem, pre­vi­ous­ly in pro­to­type form, is installed along crit­i­cal points. It will auto­mat­i­cal­ly sig­nal the cab if any switch­es ahead are mis­aligned. At the same time, the team dou­bles their doc­u­men­ta­tion, ensur­ing each test result is secured, time­stamped, and cross-ver­i­fied. Legal pro­tec­tions, already filed for the Her­cules’ core sys­tems, are expand­ed to include the new safe­ty fea­tures. In Tom’s world, inven­tion is not only about building—it’s about pro­tect­ing what’s been built.

Back in the work­shop, the mood is res­olute. No one has spo­ken of quit­ting. If any­thing, the attempt on the loco­mo­tive has uni­fied the team. Koku returns, dis­ap­point­ed he lost the sus­pect in the woods, but he’s greet­ed as a hero nonethe­less. Tom assures him that their com­bined efforts may have saved more than a machine—they may have saved lives. Mr. Bartholomew, upon hear­ing the full report, express­es both anger and admi­ra­tion. He promis­es the full back­ing of the railroad’s legal team and instructs his secu­ri­ty detail to pri­or­i­tize track­ing down O’Malley and Lewis.

This chap­ter lays bare the thin line between tri­umph and dis­as­ter. The Her­cules 0001 had once again proven its strength—not in pow­er alone, but in resilience. The threat wasn’t from nature or flawed engi­neer­ing. It came from those who fear change and act in dark­ness. Tom, ever the for­ward thinker, meets this real­i­ty not with retreat, but with renewed inno­va­tion. He under­stands that tech­nol­o­gy alone is not enough. Vision must be paired with vig­i­lance. Through the shad­ow of sab­o­tage, the elec­tric loco­mo­tive con­tin­ues to move forward—slower now, but smarter and stronger, car­ry­ing the hopes of a new era on rails elec­tri­fied by inge­nu­ity.