The Magnus Protocol 45 - Transferal

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Rusty Quill presents

The Magnus Protocol

Episode Forty Five

Transfer

Transfer

Nightmare or monsters!

Alice!

Uh nightmare!

Nightmare!

Will you put the poker down, Melanie?

Oh, right, yes.

Yep.

Uh sorry.

Can't be too careful.

Yeah.

No, it's fine.

That was.

It felt so real.

I'm guessing it was a domain nightmare.

What?

Oh, wait.

Yeah, you never had a domain, did you?

I don't know.

That was not a normal dream.

That was.

Interesting.

Felt real, did it?

Yeah.

And impossibly awful?

Yeah.

But also weirdly sort of familiar.

Melanie, what's going on?

It's just a theory, but I think you might be getting our Sam's dream.

I thought he was dead.

Pretty sure he is.

So how is that possible?

No

idea.

Wanna talk about it?

Not really.

Suit yourself.

Some people say it helps, but well, if you change your mind, you know where I am.

What the actual fuck?

Jesus!

Relax!

It's not like I'll see anything I shouldn't.

Forgot my poker.

Right, last chance, or I'm going back to bed.

Georgie and Basira will need breakfast when they get back from night shift, and I'll need to be up early to get the Arga going, so.

Really think it will help?

It normally does.

But then again, you are an alien from another dimension, so who the hell knows?

Fine, all right.

Ah.

Doing me a favor, are you?

Sorry.

I don't mean to be ungrateful, just a little bit rattled.

Melanie,

I would like to talk about it, if you'll listen.

Go on, then.

When you're ready.

So...

Um...

I'm not sure what to start.

It normally doesn't matter.

I'm told it's more about the journey than making sense of it.

Uh,

right.

I guess that makes sense.

I was back at Ackman Blaine, Mild Law Firm, and I was getting something from the stationery cupboard.

Paper, I think, from the top shelf.

Then the door slammed shut behind me, and it was dark.

Completely dark.

I tried to turn, to reach for the handle and and throw the door open, but I couldn't move.

At first, I thought I was afraid, but I wasn't.

Not yet.

I was just stuck, binned on all sides.

There was no pressure, but it was as though the entire cupboard had closed around me, like a casket or an iron maiden.

I tried to at least shift my weight, but I couldn't.

I couldn't even wriggle my toes.

I wasn't paralyzed, though.

I was just held in place by

something.

I tried to struggle, but there wasn't room to tense a single muscle.

I couldn't breathe, but that didn't seem to matter.

No light, no noise, no air, no idea of up or down or anything.

Just perfect stillness and the feeling of something pressing against my skin.

Not crushing, but utterly immovable and familiar.

Bone.

Living bone.

Smooth and warm and damp.

A perfect shell of bone pressed against me.

I should have been terrified.

I should have been panicking and screaming, but I wasn't.

I was just confused.

It felt wrong.

Unpleasant, yes, strange and painful even, but not frightening.

Mostly I was just confused, as though it wasn't meant for me.

Then it began to shrink.

It was slow,

awfully slow, but I felt it instantly across my entire body.

Not that deep ache of building pressure, but bright and sharp as though I was being cut all over, except there were no points of focus, no bright lines of pain that drowned out the surrounding feelings with a loudness.

It was more like like the same single knife, bright and sharp, cutting into your skin everywhere all at once, almost like a burn.

But again, even through all that pain, I could still tell something was off.

It felt real, yes, but more like someone was trying to demonstrate the feeling to me.

Like I was eavesdropping on someone else's suffering instead of really feeling it.

The bone pushed inwards, slicing through through my skin, through my muscle deeper and deeper, until finally the bones outside met the bones inside, and I couldn't tell one from the other.

I don't know how long I was held there, frozen in sharp bone.

The whole process had been utterly silent and dark, and I was too distracted by the pain and confusion to care.

But eventually, after what seemed like forever, I heard a single distant voice.

Alice.

She was so quiet.

At first I couldn't be sure I heard her at all.

A tiny breath of sound at the very edge of my hearing, as though she was screaming in agony on the distant horizon of a still and silent ocean.

I strained to hear her through the overwhelming silence, and finally I could make it out.

She was screaming my name over and over and over, begging me with joy and grief, but it wasn't meant for me.

I was just a pretender, a shadow on the wall of his life.

We were there together, trapped in a distant, intimate awfulness.

And there was nothing I could do but listen to her scream for the person I meant to be

instead of who I am.

Well, that sounds crap.

Sorry it happened to you.

But that's the thing.

It didn't, did it?

It happened to them, to him.

I'm just stealing it.

Borrowing, maybe.

But

if he was still around, I doubt he'd be eager to keep it.

I'm not so sure.

Alice, this Alice, I think she'd fight to keep it.

Yeah, Georgie did mention she was a dreamer.

Sounds like it's probably a good thing you didn't feel at home.

Is it different for you?

How so?

Like, if you dream about your thing,

does it seem more real or

uh

sorry, sorry, that's private.

I wasn't thinking.

No, no, it's nothing like that.

It's just

Georgie and I

we don't dream.

Well, I mean, we we do dream, but we don't dream dream, you know?

Never have.

Oh, I thought everyone...

Yep.

Well, Georgie and I are...

we're different.

Right.

Oh, fine.

I'm not gonna be able to get back to sleep anyway.

Comfy?

I'll manage.

Right.

Where was I?

You're different.

Yes.

So,

back before everything went to hell, I was a ghost hunter for a while.

You have those back home?

What, like reality TV?

I mean, I was more YouTube, but yeah, same thing.

So, one day I'm making my show and I see something weird.

Wasn't that the goal?

Different kind of weird.

I mean, it wasn't much.

You wouldn't even call it in these days, but back then...

Anyway, I end up going to have a talk with the Magnus Institute and run into Jonathan Bloody Sims.

Wait, wasn't he?

Our archivist.

Yep.

Only he wasn't the archivist back then.

He was...

he was just a pain in the ass.

Long story short, after a bunch of bullshit and bad decisions, I end up working there for a while with Basira and a few other folks.

We dodge the end of the world a couple of times, figure out we're actually working for the bad guys, and I decide to call it quits.

Why stick it out that long?

The severance was rough.

Point being, that job was how I got together with Georgie.

But I thought she didn't work there?

No, she, um

she had an ex who did.

It's complicated.

Point is, she had seen her own weirdness back in the day and had ended up with all her fear cut out of her.

Her.

I'm sorry, what?

I don't know how else to explain it.

Some monster took all her fear.

So what?

She just doesn't get afraid?

Pretty much.

It actually ended up making her more cautious in some ways, since she can't trust her instincts anymore.

That explains a lot.

Hang on.

Would she be okay with you telling me this?

Oh, yeah.

She prefers people know if it might be important.

Anyway, jump ahead, and the world ends when I'm not there to stop it.

Only things are different for me and Georgie compared with everyone else.

We're sort of on the outside looking in.

Because Georgie can't get scared.

You can't trap someone with something that doesn't exist, right?

I guess.

And you?

Let's just say that having former Magnus Institute Patsy on your CV started to carry some special perks.

What, like immune to the apocalypse?

It's more like gets to go backstage.

Because we didn't have our own domains.

We could pop in and out of other people's if we wanted.

We could even pull people out if we were careful, but it was dangerous and, well, they...

they didn't always make it.

Anyway, all this meant that we got to see, or you know, hear, feel, smell,

a bunch of domains without ever having one of our own.

So once everything got back to what counts for normal now, we were lucky enough not to get dreams with a capital D.

Just just standard, bog, basic PTSD.

I mean, that's hardly great.

Sure, but it's still the lesser evil.

Fair point.

Not sure where that leaves me, though.

Somewhere between the two, I'd guess.

Georgie said I should tell her if anything weird happens.

Do you think this counts?

Tough call.

On the one hand, I'm pretty sure she'd want to know about it.

But.

But on the other, she's only just started to trust you.

A bit.

And this is the sort of thing that would set her off again.

So, what?

Don't mention it.

No, I think you should.

They'll need all the info they can get if they're gonna bring down your archivist thing.

And if she overreacts.

You'll stick up for me?

I'll definitely try to make her feel a little bit guilty after she ties you to a chair.

Gee,

thanks.

I don't like it.

Yeah, but what do you like, really?

Books.

And knowing that people aren't getting turned into avatars while my back is turned.

I mean, I did tell you as soon as you got back.

He did.

And when did you two suddenly become best friends?

She acts tough, but she's got a soft spot for strays.

You can talk.

Speaking of, the Admiral seems to like him, so that's a good sign.

And we're certain his archivist wasn't involved in the nightmare.

I keep telling you, it's not my archivist.

I think so.

No obvious connections.

It wasn't even a particularly bad one, as domain nightmares go.

I mean, it didn't feel great, but whatever.

I'll take your word for it.

I guess it was fine then.

Uh-huh.

I'm too tired for this.

He seems fine, and it's not like we can do anything differently right now.

You're corporate.

I'm okay with it, but if you're seeing something I'm not, let me know.

Fine.

But if you start sprouting eyes or whatever, I'll put him down myself.

It's fine.

We lanced them.

And they've basically healed by this point.

Christ.

So, how are things looking with the wardens?

Not great.

No more victims.

Sounds good to me.

But no other signs either.

It's laying low again, and we still don't have a way to track it.

I'm telling you, it'll be in the square mile.

It's the only place that makes any sense.

You're probably right.

You give me three good teams and that APC you've got, and I reckon we can have this done in a day.

Maybe two.

Again, sounds good to me.

Sign me up.

I don't have three good teams.

There aren't many first wave wardens left on duty and you couldn't take the rookies, especially when everything's all riled up like this.

It's worth the risk.

We don't even know it's in there.

That's a lot to risk on a maybe.

Hmm.

I'm curious.

How would your OIR handle this?

Okay, firstly, it's OIAR.

That's what I said.

Secondly, we already tried and mucked it up, remember?

That's why it's here.

Well, yeah, but based on what Georgie said, I sort of assumed you were like the B-Team or something.

You know?

Wow, thanks, but no.

We were it.

Unless you come to Starkwall.

Starkwall?

Psycho BMC mercenary types.

I never met them, but I got the impression they were bad news.

Hmm.

Pass.

Agreed.

So, yeah, once Celia and I made it to the Hilltop Centre, we were basically on our own.

Who?

Celia?

Georgie didn't mention her.

We worked together at the OIR and we were sort of dating.

At least we were until.

Well,

I came here.

You never said she was called Celia.

He mentioned her in interrogation, and with everything else going on, I never got around to checking up on it.

What's wrong?

You're Celia.

What does she look like?

Uh.

Well, she's really pretty.

We need actual details, Sam.

Not a dating profile.

Tall.

Dark hair.

Welsh accent?

Yeah, but she doesn't.

I didn't tell you that.

No.

You didn't.

What am I missing here?

Your Celia, did she ever talk about where she came from?

Oh, well, she's always been a pretty private person, and I respect that, but at the end, before I fell through to hear, she told me.

Oh, shit.

Okay, someone needs to actually say what you're all realizing.

Otherwise, I'm just gonna go back to the commune.

I don't have time for all this pinter bullshit.

She came from here, didn't she?

Of course.

She got away.

She made it.

You knew her?

She was one of the ones we pulled out of their domain.

We looked after her for a while, then we lost track of her around Towerfall.

We thought she'd been killed.

I didn't really know your little cult that well.

She was the one without any memories, right?

That's her.

So all this time, she didn't just know about the hilltop portal, she knew it led here.

And what?

She was trying to get home?

I don't think so.

She must have had plenty of chances before taking me there.

Maybe she doesn't know Towerfall happened.

Meaning she took Sam there and didn't even want him.

I mean.

You alright there, Sam?

Yeah.

I'm fine.

You don't sound fine.

Let's just focus on dealing with the Archivist.

Once we get rid of it, then I can go home and then

I'll have a little talk with Celia and we'll see if we can straighten some things out.

The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by RustyQuill 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 Alexander J.

Newell and edited with additional materials by Jonathan Sims.

With vocal edits by Nico Vitesse,

soundscaping by Meg McKellar and mastering by Catherine Rinella with music by Sam Jones.

It featured Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid,

Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker, and Lydia Nicholas as Melanie King.

The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner with executive producers Alexander J.

Newell, Danny McDonough, Lynn C.

and Samantha F.

G.

Hamilton, and associate producers Jordan L.

Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius DeRaven 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 at mail at rustyquill.com.

Thanks for listening.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

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