The Magnus Protocol 34 - Eliminations
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Episode 34: Eliminations 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 were right 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 the problem. Because the only humans allowed in the London Exclusion Zone are me and my team.

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 the basement, and there was... So what's the deal, Sam? By the look of you, I'm guessing it's some kind of hunger thing, right? You look into my eyes, make me realise 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. Oh, 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? You 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 this stare in... 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 Centre, if you can believe me. Hilltop? In Oxford? Yeah. You know it? 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 defense 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 our... 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 tape...

One of my team is already dead, and if this means what I think it means, they're not going to be the last. So no more games. You're going to tell me what you know right now. The dead 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 organization called the Magnus Institute. 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 it could follow us here.

What does he look like? What's his voice like? Think, 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? 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, it 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. But 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 realized with crystal clarity the violence of 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, 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 heath, 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?

filling 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 at the feeling.

at 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. The heart was difficult. It was an excavation of rib and lung. And so much blood. But it did not help.

So I pulled it out and tried again. I bit my throat but there was no sound from that internal second. Although it did not

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 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 J. Newell, Danny McDonagh, Lynn C., and Samantha F.G. Hamilton, and associate producers Jordan L. Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius D. 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.

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