The Magnus Archives - The Magnus Protocol 34 - Eliminations

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

CATXXXX-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXERROR (Unknown Source)Incident Elements:DeathGraphic Violence MurderImprisonmentPsychological TortureSuicideTranscripts available at https://rustyquill.com/transcripts/the-magnus-protocol/This episode is dedicated to Gray Anderson. You can find a complete list of our Kickstarter backers https://rustyquill.com/the-magnus-protocol-supporter-wall/Created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall  Directed by Alexander J NewallWritten by Jonathan SimsScript Edited with additional material by Alexander J NewallExecutive Producers April Sumner, Alexander J Newall, Jonathan Sims, Dani McDonough, Linn Ci, and Samantha F.G. Hamilton Associate Producers Jordan L. Hawk, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius d’Raven, and Megan Nice Produced by April SumnerFeaturing (in order of appearance)  Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid David Ault as Warden Dave Rebecca Ashley as Gardener Beth Eyre as ArchivistDialogue Editor – Lowri Ann Davies Sound Designer – Tessa Vroom Mastering Editor - Catherine RinellaMusic by Sam Jones (orchestral mix by Jake Jackson)  Art by April Sumner  SFX from Soundly and Freesound: SpliceSound, felixblume, TILIADESIGN, magnuswalker, collacot, khenshom, Imbubec, cjolley, richwise, BrendanSound12, caileykehoe, smokevhstapes, misperpodcast, craigsmith, zoomology, ProductionNow, ReadeOnly, SoundDesignForYou, Bexhillcollege, ABouch, NachtmahrTV, launemax, joedeshon, EricsSoundschmiede, and previously credited artistsCheck out our merchandise available at https://www.redbubble.com/people/RustyQuill/shop and https://www.teepublic.com/stores/rusty-quillSupport Rusty Quill by purchasing from our Affiliates; DriveThruRPG – DriveThruRPG.comJoin our community: WEBSITE: rustyquill.com FACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquill X: @therustyquill EMAIL: [e-mail] The Magnus Protocol is a derivative product of the Magnus Archives, created by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share alike 4.0 International Licence.      Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi folks, Billy Hendel here, the voice of Alice in the Magnus Protocol. Today I'm here to advertise Sunrise on the Reaping, available now on audible.ca. Return to the world of the Hunger Games with Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel exploring the backstory of Katniss' mentor, Haymitch, by bestselling author Suzanne Collins. When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? As the 50th Hunger Games begins, the districts of Panem are gripped by fear,

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Rusty Quill presents... The Magnus Protocol Episode 34, Eliminations I'm sorry. I wouldn't touch it. The nurse said it was hard enough finding a vein for it in the first place. What? I think it's just saline, some electrolytes, probably some vitamins if they've got them. They didn't give me the full rundown. Why? To keep you alive. You were in a bad way when we picked you up Sam. Malnutrition, dehydration, the works. Oh, um, thanks. Don't mention it. Now it's your job to convince me that we will write to use those resources. How long was I asleep? You've been in and out for a couple of days. Comfy?

Yeah. Although, actually, if you've got another pillow... What are you? Excuse me? What are you? I don't understand the question. Are you human? What else would I be?

Yes. Yes, I'm human. And that's a problem. Because the only humans allowed in the London Exclusion Zone are me and my team. And you're not one of my teams, Sam. Where am I? You've checked pretty much the whole border at this point, and can't find any breach, any tracks. No evidence at all of how you got yourself inside. Please, I just need someone to explain what's happening.

So as far as we can tell, you came from the square mile. And humans don't come from the square mile. What? Look, I don't even know how I got there, okay? I don't even know where there is. Last thing I remember, I was in even know where there is last thing I remember I was in the basement and there was So what's the deal Sam by the look of you I'm guessing some kind of hunger thing, right?

You look into my eyes make me realize the hunger in my soul and turn the whole building into cannibals. No There were people I saw people in a dream. I didn't know them, but Celia was there. And I think you were there. Okay, so some kind of dream-eating creature then. Help me out here, Sam. What's your thing? What's your shtick? What's your messed up little horror power?

Wait, are you talking about- All the monsters have one. We call them externals. Who's we? I work for the Office of Incident Assessment and Response. We're a branch of the UK Civil Service. Or were, maybe. You said that was London you found me in?

Technically. The zone's too dangerous to break down for scrap. And I hate to break it to you, but there hasn't been a proper civil service for a while. Government's just been one big incident response for a few years now, so either you're lying or- Wait, what year is it? 2024. Okay, Yeah. In that case then, I think I might be from another dimension. What?

Oh, what? Hunger monsters from post-apocalyptic London are just another day at the office to you, but other dimensions is just too far-fetched? I mean, possibly exactly on my bingo card. Okay, let's just skip the whole why should I believe you stuff for now and get straight to the big stuff. Why you? Why now? Why hasn't this happened before? I don't know.

Maybe they have. I mean, there was the stair in the world, my world, but it was hidden. Maybe no one else found it. Where was it? Basement of an old retail unit in the Hilltop shopping center. If you can believe me. Hilltop? In Oxford? Yeah. You know it. Georgie. Hmm.

Georgie. Uh, hi Georgie. So, does this mean you believe me? You know, Sam, it would have been a lot less complicated if you'd just been a monster. Sorry, I guess? So, like, can you tell me where I am now? What happened to London? Who are you people? This world is a lot different to mine. I suspect it was probably pretty similar until about five years ago. Then all hell broke loose. What sort of hell?

The kind where your world is transformed into a psycho-formed fear farm for otherworldly entities outside of human understanding. Oh. Okay then. It didn't last long, objectively speaking at least. But time wasn't exactly working right. Anyway, we eventually managed to get rid of them, and we've spent the years since trying to rebuild and get back to something approaching normal. Where I landed didn't look normal. No. A few places around the world never fully changed back. I think of it as a sort of lingering fear radiation, and London was at the heart of what happened.

And you look after them? We try to contain them. Officially, we're part of the wider Civil Defence Militia, but most people just call us wardens. I suppose it fits. We try to keep the horrors in and the people out. Why would anyone want to get in somewhere like that? You'd be surprised. Captain, you're needed. Talk to me. It's Heidi. They found her.

We found it near the body. How near? Right next to her? Her hand was touching it. Was it recording when you found it? I'm not sure. I don't think so. Okay. How was she killed? Doc's not sure yet, but it definitely wasn't natural Dave details come on Sorry I know I just feel later work now what happened to Heidi what state was her body in

It was pale shriveled like she'd been sucked dry and she had there was glass all over her body embedded into the skin but nothing in the surrounding area. describe the glass. I don't know clear slightly curved I think it was like camera lenses maybe a few of them were still whole enough you could make out the shape. Did Heidi ever tell you about her domain? No. We didn't know each other that well. Why did she tell you? It's part of the standard psyche valve for the newer recruits.

And it involved cameras? Mm-hmm. What are we dealing with here, Cap? I don't know. I have a suspicion. A suspicion that I really, really hope is wrong. But I can't say for sure. Not yet. So what's the plan? I go have another talk with our guest. You put everyone on alert, double up the rounds, at least one auto prepare and notify the other branches. Got it. Steer clear of any tape recorders and if you hear anyone starting to get all

poetic and tell a really personal, really traumatic story for no obvious reason, you grab them and you run. Understood? Understood. Right. You get going and I'll go talk to her. Captain. What? What do we do if it starts to record? Pass me that claw hammer. Then all you do is... What is this? What? I don't know, broken junk? Is this another test? God, someone really did a number on this thing. Fine,

do you know what it was? Plastic, some metal, magnetic date... Oh... One of my team is already dead, and if this means what I think it means, they're not gonna be the last. So no more games. You're going to tell me what you know, right now. The tape players. We think there's something to do with the... thing that's been chasing us. It found me near the whole

portal whatever it is I'm still fuzzy on some stuff, but it must have come through with me Who's we? Oh, me, Alice, Gwen, my colleagues at the OIR my friends Alice called it an archivist Is that wrong? Tell me everything. Right, okay. So I was looking into this old organisation called the Magnus Institute.

Oh shit. Do you know it? Do you have one in here? Used to. Yeah, well, ours burned down in the late 90s. Lucky you. Anyway, Alice and I were walking around and our best theory is we accidentally let it loose somehow. Unlock something or disturb something or open something or just woke it up, I guess. Since then it's been sort of stalking us and feeding on people nearby. He hasn't killed you. Why? I don't know. It even dragged a story

out of me at one point but it didn't finish me off. I wonder if it wanted us to find this place so we could follow us here. What does he look like? What's his voice like? Thanks Sam, this is important. I don't even know if it is a he. It's hard to look at. It dresses in rags or a cloak or something that hides most of its shape. But its face... it's all eyes. Look, it was an accident. I didn't mean to bring it here. Don't give a crap what you meant to do. If this is who I think it is then... What?

There won't be anything left to rebuild. Okay. There we go. Had a good drink in the rain, didn't you? But it's all cleared up now. Just as well. You need a little sunshine. Get those berries nice and ripe. People always say strawberries are easy to grow, but I've never been able to get a handle on them. Nor any other plant, to be honest. I guess I've got what you might call a brown thumb. But it doesn't matter. I'll stay out in my garden as long as it takes. As long as I'm here in the fresh air and the sun trying to give things life. Doesn't matter if I succeed or not. It's not the sun though. Not really. Nor the sky, nor open air.

Even at the end of it all, it was never the cave that scared me. But I need to see the world moving. To watch the light grow and dim. The sun to march on its path. The clouds blow through the sky. It reminds me the world is moving. I'm not stuck in that long empty moment. When I was young I read about a man who went into a cave for two months. He was some sort of scientist and wanted to see what would happen to him if he just didn't come out. So down he stayed. No watches, no clocks, no night and day, for what he thought was two months. It was four. His whole sense of time had become unstuck.

That stayed with me. That scared me. To be trapped in a moment. To have no sense of motion. And the longest moment I was ever trapped in was when I killed a man. I never even knew his name. Not before and not after I fled. It was nothing, just an argument in a pub. I didn't even think when I pushed him, but when he went down, as his head sailed towards the wood of the broken barstool, I don't know how to measure the time that took. Two seconds, two hours, two forevers. And even when it had happened, and I was running from the pooling blood and the accusing eyes, the moment didn't end.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. My life trapped in the amber of those seconds, when I realised with crystal clarity, the violence off which I was capable. when I realised with crystal clarity the violence off which I was capable. When the world died screaming and I was taken to that cave, I didn't understand why. It was dark, but I wasn't afraid of the dark. It was cramped, but I wasn't afraid of tight spaces. I thought I was going to die, but I wasn't afraid of death. Not my death at least. There were others there, shapes and silhouettes in the gloom, enough

detail to realise how many people were down there with me, and in the middle sat between us all, the only thing we could see clearly in that place, the rusty knife. There was only one and we all immediately knew what it meant. Nobody said a word. In the deep, in the dark. I have no idea how long we were there before it all ended. But in all that time, not a one of us spoke. What would we have to say? Each and every one of us knew we were a killer, and what could a killer say that would ever be trusted in a place like that? And so the moment stretched on,

And so the moment stretched on, dragging the pain of our potential cruelty across our souls with a point sharper than any blade. I would imagine picking up the knife, its cold heft, the reassuring weight of it. My mind swarmed with images of rusty points buried in flesh of how my muscles would feel as they forced it through skin and into muscle. Would it hit one of their ribs or a clean cut right to the heart or perhaps messier slashing open their stomach fill in the cave with a stench of blood, acid and death. I didn't want to. The idea repulsed me, left me lying there shaking and pressed up against the wall. But it didn't matter what I wanted. All that mattered was that I knew that I could do it. I longed for one of the others to pick it up and raise it in anger.

If only one of them would lunge at me, slice my stomach open, spill my entrails across the stony floor. Then I would be free. Maybe not free of that place, but at least free of that lingering, growing, pulsating temptation. In the end, I was the first to break. I was the first to take the knife that lay in the middle of the cave, but not the last. It felt in my hand exactly as I thought it would. The weight, the balance, the coarse wood grain of the handle.

My stomach curdled to the feeling of the butcher's extension of my body and will. The others didn't flee or cower or try to defend themselves. Instead they crept forward in pathetic supplication, silently begging to be released from what they might do in turn. But my motives were entirely selfish. I grasped the blade and angled its wicked rusted point, then I closed my eyes. Now that was pointless in the dark. It did not cut cleanly. It tore and caught on every scrap of my flesh. But it did not help. So I pulled it out and tried again. Yes! The heart was difficult.

It was an excavation of rib and lung. It had so much blood. But it did not help. So I pulled it out and tried again. Yes! I slit my throat. But there was no escape. From that internal second of violence.

It did not help. The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 4.0 International Licence. The series is created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander Janeuil and directed by Alexander Janeuil. This episode was written by Jonathan Sims and edited with additional materials by Alexander Jane Yaw. With vocal edits by Loryann Davis, soundscaping by Tessa Vroom and mastering by Catherine Rinella with music by Sam Jones. It featured Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid, Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker, with additional voices from Beth Eyre. The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner, with executive producers Alexander Jane Newell,

Danny McDonough, Lynn See and Samantha F.G. Hamilton and associate producers Jordan L. Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius de Raven and Megan Nice. or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rating reviews online? Tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us via mail at RustyQuill.com. Thanks for listening. Fandual Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning which beats even the 27th best feeling saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do.

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