Shownotes Transcript
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Episode 40: Public Image Christ, here we go. Hey, uh, Dane, I take it? That's an affirmative, ma'am. Dane Bowie, Starkwall Services Group. You're Alice Dyer. The civilian asset? Uh, yeah. Civilian asset, that's me. I got a basic sitrep from Control. Possible single unorthodox hostile. Uh, affirmative?
You ever worked with an operator before, ma'am? My brother plays a lot of Call of Duty. Well, this here's the real thing. So let me lay it out for you. It's your job to go about your day. Do whatever it is you need to do. Meanwhile, it's my job to accompany you with complete situational awareness. Predicting any possible threat vector and zeroing it. So if I say drop, you drop. If I say run, you run.
If you understand that, I just might be able to keep you alive. Gosh, well, thank you, Dane. I'm glad I got you to protect me through the dangerous war zone that is Berlin Airport. All part of the job, ma'am. One question. Why the sunglasses? Glare kills careless operators. Makes it harder to see the details. Especially against camouflaged bogeys. It's seven at night and we're indoors. Can't be too careful, ma'am. Right, right.
Speaking of, watch yourself. Everything alright? Oh, yeah, it just feels a bit empty, doesn't it? Alice shouldn't be gone too long. True.
Even so, you'd think she would have said goodbye before setting off. It's Alice. I doubt she'd have even bothered to tell us she was leaving if she didn't need me to pay for the flights. Hmm. You're right about it being empty, though. With Sam missing, Lena gone, and Colin's... situation, it's probably time to hire some fresh blood. And are you going to tell them the truth about what goes on down here?
Got eyes on the AO.
I'm not liking the sight lines. Too easy for someone to get a bead. Yeah, it is a bit spooky. What do you think they used to make here? Looks standard operating procedure for a semi-hostile environment. I'll go in, sweep the perimeter, check for any hostiles, then establish an extraction route in case we need a tactical retrograde for the civilian assets. That's me. Affirmative.
If I'm not back in five minutes... Jesus, there's no way that's legal. All in-country Starkwell field operators hold a special Waffen-Schien weapons license as part of our contractual work for the German government. Put it away, Christ! No can do, ma'am. This is an active field operation, and I have a duty of protection. Now, as I was saying... Yeah, no thanks. Hey, the AO is not clear. No!
Whoa. Ma'am, I need you to stay on my six. Clear! Clear! I don't know if I'd describe this place as "clear". Wooden puppets don't count as "hostiles", ma'am. Uh-huh. How much did they tell you about this job again? I was given a basic sitrep, ma'am. Though, I admit it didn't include how... Scary? Unorthodox the RV would be. Any sign of your contact?
Contact! I was expecting... Hands where I can see them! Hands where I can see them! Right now! Did I frighten you? It's true, nigger. Such was not my intention. Your fear is unpalatable to me. No one is scared. Now don't fucking move. Yes, messy. Zoily. Too much bluster and bravado.
Put the gun down, Dane. If he wanted to hurt us, he'd have done it already. Oh, keep it pointed at me. Das ist mir egal. You are not Colin. No. Colin's... Well, um... Colin's dead. Ah, mein Beileid. How did it happen? We're not sure. Something to do with the computer program he was investigating? Natürlich. A shame.
I was looking forward to meeting him face to face. How did you know him? Some years ago. I do not know how long. I do not follow time closely. I was contacted by a man doing some programming for Desministerium Fürstatzikarite. It involved many like me. I am one of the more amenable of my kind.
He asked some questions, ran some tests and that was the last I heard of it. But somehow, his notes came into the hands of Colin. They contained my details. He wanted to ask me some questions. I agreed. Why? Even a monster gets lonely. Also, he offered to help me develop. I have struggled of late. Computer Spiele. Video games, you understand.
I was hoping to get some help adapting. It is hard for something old like myself. The workshop is not a comfortable place for you. I do not sit, but I bought a chair for Colin. Please, follow me. Thanks. That's a negatory. We're not going anywhere with you. What are you? I am Heinrich von Heinrich. I am the toy that gives the children nightmares.
You mean the Toymaker, right? Toy Toymaker Workshop. Egal. It is all me. You're gonna start talking sense right now. Otherwise... You want my whole story here? Sure. Why not? You do not want to sit in the chair. I bought it for you. It cost 60 euros. I don't give a shit about your chair. Be the best.
Once upon a time... I believe that is how you start them, yes. Once upon a time, some two hundred years ago, there was a toy. A little wooden doll. It did not know who made it, for it did not yet know anything. It was long and crude and blackened from a fire that had once lit its feet.
It delighted in giving splinters to all the little girls and boys. And it was... The limbs did not fit, the body was slumpy in the wrong places, and the face... There was no face. Except for shallow divots and shadows left from the fire. It would look at you with hunger without any eyes.
The little girl that owned it was a mischievous soul and took joy in seeing her playmate's fear. She called it "Heimlich und heimlich" and made a little rhyme to scare the smaller children. And scare them it did.
One day.
The little girl was gone. Her parents were gone. Their house was empty and the windows were dark and nobody knew what had happened to them. They left everything behind, including Heimlich und Heimlich. It was left sitting on the windowsill of the little girl's bedroom, looking out over the street below and all the other children would pass below, whispering, pointing. "Heimlich und Heimlich, Goddard," they said among themselves.
She said the rhyme, and he came for her family. And for the first time in its existence, the toy felt something. It was satisfied. It had felt a hunger it did not know that it possessed. Nobody moved into the old house as it fell into deep ruin, and the children kept whispering, daring each other to go inside.
Proved they were not scared of Heinrich und Heinrich, who was not real and could not hurt them. But when they came into the house and they crept into the room, the toy found the most curious thing. It was real and it could hurt them.
It soon discovered that to kill a child is a passing rush of fear. Acute, delicious, but unsatisfying. To scare them, though, to terrorize and to taunt, to sit silent and still with the smallest, tiniest hint of movement... That was delicious.
And as they fled from the house and told their friends what they had seen, the children's story would grow and grow and the toy would feast. Then one day, a bold little child who reminded the toy of the little girl from so long before began to add to the story himself. "Heimlich, he said, was not the name of the toy.
"For you see, a toy must have a maker, and Heinrich was the name of the toy maker." And he began to describe him. He was tall and thin, with a long matted black beard and slender fingers stained with wood varnish and children's blood. His eyes were deep and his teeth were sharp as iron nails.
The doll was just one of his creations, each of which was full of malice and cruelty. Each hungry for children's screams. When it heard the story, what could the toy do but grow such a man? And once the toy maker was real, what else could he do but make more toys?
The little boy, whose name was Hans, was brave when the Toymaker came to him. He did not scream or cry or run when he saw the man he had invented to scare his classmates, though I could taste the pure, uncomplicated fear of a child rolling off him in waves. He was the first of my chosen, the children who would tell my story.
I made him a hobby horse, who bore its nasty teeth when adults could not see and whose mane moved when no one was looking. All his friends were afraid of it, even more so when he told them it was a gift from Heinrich Unheimlich. There was one boy, however, Klaus, who was not afraid. He did not believe in Heinrich Unheimlich.
He said that the hobby horse was just a stupid piece of wood. And at his words, the other children were emboldened. And they began to call little Hans a liar. That night, when everyone was asleep, the hobby horse went for a ride. It rode through the streets. It rode over the bridge. It rode through the window of the room where Klaus slept.
It woke him then and made him ride into his parents' room, where its sharp teeth and horrible mane tore them apart. It bit off their fingers. It bit off their toes. It chewed out their tongues and it spat out their clothes. Klaus screamed. The Toymaker smiled.
And the children of the town remembered to fear the rhyme of Heinrich and Heinrich. And so it had been. I gave my toys to the children and they would spread my story and the ones who would not believe, their parents pay the price. The story has grown as the years have passed. My workshop has changed the most, I think.
It has moved many times as the places children fear to tread have changed. You should have seen it last century. Was it the one before? A dark wood hut on the edge of a forest. Ilsa, my child at the time, had a refined taste for the gory. And so?
"Gifties skins of children hung like sheets from the ceiling beams. My tools were sharpened from bone and my toys were varnished with human fat bubbling in a cauldron upon the fire. I gave her a set of wooden soldiers, their weapons sharp, their faces full of hatred, their coats wet with blood. So frightful was her telling that the soldiers never even saw combat.
For there were none that doubted her. These latest decades, though, they have been harder. Toys have changed. The children are less credulous. I have tried a few times, but have found myself without a chosen child for many years. And those who hear my story now find it quaint.
This, perhaps, is why the Heinrich Unheimlich you find is somewhat less fearsome than he once might have been. But we shall see, I suppose. I shall change again, I am sure. I shall adapt. Because change is a strange and scary word for a child. And Heinrich Unheimlich will be there to feast on that fear when it... Alisklar. Kill children.
Yeah, it has happened, but it is rare. Corpses do not cry after all. And their parents? Not often. The tale of a killing spreads further than the act. A single dead parent can spark fears to keep me fed for years. If they were to happen too often, they are no longer stories. They are facts, and at risk of inconvenient investigation.
Alice. Alice, a charming name. Now, I grow weary of your eagly companion. I would ask we continue our discussion alone. Come, Simit. That's a negative. There is no way. In hell, she is moving to a secondary RV with no escort. Alice, it will be difficult to continue once he insists on behaving so vaga. I had hoped that... Back off! Right now!
Remove your hand from me. I'm warning you. Trudel. And should the gungfrau lie, that I really found that man intolerable. He was not a friend of Colin's, I hope? No. Schöne Herren, in our conversations he did not seek the sword to tolerate such behavior.
You deny your fear very much, but when it bubbles up, youthful and pure, I think we will get along just fine. What do you want from me? I was under the impression you wanted something from me. Answers to your questions, comments you made. I have bought a nice chair for you. I wish for you to be comfortable. Kay...
The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International License. The series is created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J. Newell and directed by Alexander J. Newell. This episode was written by Jonathan Sims and edited with additional materials by Alexander J. Newell with vocal edits by Lorianne Davis, soundscaping by Tessa Vroom.
and mastering by Catherine Rinella, with music by Sam Jones. It featured Billy Hindle as Alistair, Anusha Battersby as Gwen Bouchard, and Laurie-Anne Davis as Celia Ripley. The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner, with executive producers Alexander Jane York, Danny McDonagh, Lynn See, and Samantha F.G. Hamilton.
and associate producers Jordan L. Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius the Raven, and Megan Nice. To subscribe, view associated materials, or join our Patreon, visit RustyQuill.com. Rate and review us online, tweet us at TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us via mail at RustyQuill.com. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Kristen Bell. Carvana makes car buying easy. Isn't that right, hon? Dax?
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So bring your friends along for your next course, because it's not all about the posts. It's about the company and the memories. How can gold from Amex sweeten your next food moment? Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash explore-gold. Terms and points cap apply. This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Imagine waking up to find your bank account drained, bills for loans you never took out, a warrant for your arrest, all because someone stole your identity. Hackers aren't waiting.
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