The Magnus Protocol 43 - Sink or Swim

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It's Kareem, the voice of Simon Fairchild and the Eternal Tavern Keeper.

Today, I'm here to tell you about Old Gods of Appalachia, a podcast on the RQ Network.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a multi-award-winning horror audio drama produced by the brilliant team at Deep Nerd Media that is currently releasing its much-anticipated fourth season.

In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark.

Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them.

These are the darkest mountains in the world.

How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a multi-award-winning critically acclaimed audio podcast.

Old God sits alongside this very podcast as one one of the most popular fiction podcasts in the world.

Experience it for yourself by searching for Old Gods of Appalachia wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Or go to www.rustyquill.com or www.oldsofoappalacha.com for more information.

RustyQuill presents

The Magnus Protocol

Episode 43: Sink or Swim.

Alter Wolf Tartowirung.

Means old wolf.

Wanna get a tattoo?

This skin was hard to craft.

I do not wish to tarnish it.

Hang on, are you telling me?

Actually, nope, I forgot I asked.

Okay, so why do we think the address you found connected to the Friedrich programmer is a tattoo parlour?

Heinrich?

What's wrong?

You are not Colin.

Uh, yeah?

So?

This is where I.

Where you what?

I was

offended when your Colin called me safe.

After I found this location, I intended to lead him down that alley and

kill him?

Hein.

But I would make him regret the word safe.

And now?

Now he is dead.

He is dead, and you are here, and you do not call me safe, so

I just wish he was not dead.

Me too.

So it says hard.

So now what?

Now we ignore the scary alley and instead chase your programmer.

So, was there much in the window to intrigue?

Maybe

there's some old flashes out front, and um.

I do not understand how you use this word flashes.

Hmm?

Oh, you see the pictures pinned out front, like samples.

Those are flashes.

I understand.

And a lot of them include alchemical symbols.

Mercury, sulfur, copper.

You appreciate their meaning?

Not as much as Celia or Sam.

I'm not an expert, but they were all over Colin's journals.

How long has this place been here?

At least since the war came down, but there are few records.

So it's possible he came here.

Yes, if your KS programmer was interested in both tattoos and alchemy.

Okay,

then I guess we go inside and talk to the owners.

I am assuming you mean that I will speak to the owners since you cannot actually speak German.

I'm getting better.

No,

you're not.

Your programmer's name is Klaus Schweitzer.

Is he sure?

Yes.

He has owned this place for 40 years.

Very proud of his memory.

So what happened?

Schweitzer was a regular in the 80s.

He collected photographs of rare tattoos, especially those of a man named Oscar Jarrett.

These inspired the tattoos you see in the window.

Schweitzer even rented a room upstairs for a few months and filled it with computer equipment.

Jackpot!

Is any of it still there?

No, it was taken along with him.

What

do you mean?

I mean that Klaus Schweitzer and all his computer equipment were taken from here by the Starzi

Who the heck is Oscar Jarrett?

Okay, well it's better than nothing.

I said it's better than nothing.

What?

Of course, I'm gonna let her know

because she's worried about you?

Okay, well, I'm not going to say that.

No, sorry.

Sorry, what?

I can't hear you.

The signals.

Alice.

Alice?

2702 2010.

Collection.

Service de l'informatique et de trasse technologique es er tti.

Atique transcription pedf de l'entretien avacu né tou dien pritanique.

Cap 2731 slash 13.

Numero de serie.

63159932.

Collection

David Collins SoCo 98549 Achemi Nement Ver

England Northwest Long-Term Evidence Storage Cordenu du Dossier R.

Just uh getting my notes together okay we are set this is Prim Rosewell it is 21st February 2010 interview with Monique Bacchioko in her Paris apartment um thank you so much for having me Miss Bacchioko B

That's fine.

R.

So, let's get to it.

From a childhood in Abidjan to sold-out performances in Lascala, Sydney, and Vienna, Miss Bacchayoko could, um,

should, surely be ranked as one of the most extraordinary contemporary sopranos and opera stars, often compared to the great Maria Callas.

B.

I wonder, can you...

Can you even begin to comprehend, Ms.

Rosewell, how endlessly and persistently tiresome it is to sit and listen to every journalist begin by listing out your life's work and then end with, oh, and on her best day, she might even have been as good as Maria Kalas.

R.

Oh, no, I didn't mean B.

I used to speak to real journalists, real opera historians.

Now I talk to children who don't do their research and who want nothing more than a quick soundbite.

R.

Alright.

Well, for contemporary comparisons, I'd say the only sufficient ones are Natrebko, obviously, Bonnie, Walsam, and maybe Carrington on a good day.

B.

How old are you?

R.

Twenty-five?

B.

And you really do love opera?

It's an uncommon thing for someone your age.

R.

When I was nine, my dad took me to see Medea at the Eno.

Your Medea.

B.

Ah.

I remember that one.

R.

My mother thought I'd be born senseless, but I'll never forget it.

The temple going up in flames, Medea with her knife covered in her son's blood?

B.

We had far too little time between exits and entrances, so they had a bucket of cornstarch and red dye to toss over me before I stumbled back on stage.

Sopranos are supposed to be the worst Evas, but you don't see what we have to endure.

R.

It was astonishing.

The madness, the fury, I could hear the truth in your voice.

I believed every word.

B.

Ah.

But was I as good as Callas?

Prim, wasn't it?

What do you want to ask me, Prim?

R.

Why did you stop?

B.

Ah.

And now we're back to the same old dirge.

How many times do you think I have heard that question?

R.

But you never answered it.

July 1998, your voice was the best it had ever been.

You were at the height of your career.

B.

The accident is a matter of public record.

We were sailing down the Adriatic coast.

There was a storm and the yacht capsized halfway between Bari and Brindisi.

R.

No.

B.

No?

R.

Your injuries were minor and you were in good spirits.

Then you suddenly cancelled your autumn season at La Scala in the the middle of August.

They lost six figures in refunded tickets, and you never even explained yourself.

You just left.

B.

And the years passed, and soon enough I was forgotten.

R.

Not by me.

B.

I can tell you what happened, but I doubt you will appreciate hearing it.

R.

Tell me.

B.

People tell me it is frightening.

R.

Please.

B.

Do you know the meaning behind the term diva?

R.

One who died and became divine.

B.

Exactly so.

Could you call me diva, Prim?

R.

Yes.

Diva.

B.

Good.

It was the accident.

I didn't care for yachting, really, Ibon.

When a man is set on comparing the sparkle of your eyes to the Adriatic, what can one do but accept?

Pietro and I sailed down the Italian coast one fine summer weekend and he poured me glass after glass of champagne without ever even loosing a knot.

We got to Bari and heard there was a storm coming and he was unconcerned.

We'll sail through it, he said.

We've got dinner booked in Gallipoli and you don't want to miss it.

I remember saying I trusted him.

I also remember when the waves grew choppier and the sky grew dark and he stared up at the sail and I knew I'd been misled.

I remember when we went over, Pietro screaming my name and then...

nothing.

When I I came to, I was bobbing in my life jacket in the upturned yacht's cabin.

The water was stained with curls of blood.

My blood.

And the water filled the room up to my neck.

I was panicking, of course, breathing hard.

There was a pocket of air, perhaps enough for me across the length of the cabin, but who could really say?

I could hear the storm lashing against the hull and Pietro was gone and...

Even if I removed my life jacket and swam down and out of the cabin, I had nowhere to go but the water.

And so I screamed, and I screamed.

I pleaded for someone to come and find me over and over, but of course, there was nobody to hear me.

Or, so I thought.

It was sometime after the first hour, perhaps after the second, that the yacht seemed to suddenly lurch back and forth, as though something had taken hold of it.

For a moment, I even held the foolish hope of a rescue boat.

But then it went still, and then there was a movement in the dark water all around me.

A sudden current.

Then something brushed against my leg.

It was cold and soft, and it trailed along my calf for perhaps a full second before passing me by.

Then it came from the opposite direction, and this time as it passed me, there was the same clamminess, and then a sudden sharpness, as though I had been bitten.

or scratched.

Then an absurd, horrible, and stupid thought came upon me.

It's a hand.

A cold grey hand with very long fingers reaching up to me from below.

As soon as I had that thought, terror flared in me, and I lashed out with my foot as hard as I could, and that was when the thing in the water snatched at my ankle and dragged me downwards into the dark.

It was only for a moment.

But for that moment there was no cabin at all, and only a dark and endless sea filled with fleshy white shapes.

Hundreds of horrid little things winnowing up towards me from the void.

And then I broke the surface once more, screaming and flailing amidst the swirling white currents, and I knew that this was the place where I would die.

R.

What did you do, Diva?

B.

I sang.

I don't remember what.

Not opera.

Maybe lullabies, children's songs?

Something you would sing to gentle a wild animal.

I sang until I was hoarse, and whilst I did, the currents kept swirling, but nothing grabbed me.

So I kept singing, hour after hour, like Jeharazad singing to be spared.

When I woke up, I heard the muffled whir of the helicopter blades high above me.

I was relieved, of course, but right before the Coast Guard descended into the yacht, I thought I heard something else.

A chorus of pounding wet flesh against the sunken hull, over and over and over, rising and rising and then just as suddenly

silent.

Something like beating wings or a thousand hands clapping, all at once then stilled.

Then a long silence.

R.

And that's why you stopped singing?

That experience?

B.

No.

I was living alone, back in Milan.

waiting for the new season to start.

I'd already written my experience off as a bad dream.

Hysteria.

The doctors had told me I needed to preserve my voice, so no singing, no speaking.

I'd been living in silence for weeks.

Meanwhile, the team at Lascala were growing nervous about their big investment for the season, lest she had lost her mind, or worse, her voice.

So, they summoned me there before two senior producers sat stiffly with their arms crossed in the stalls, and a kindly old pianist.

and they asked me to sing.

The house lights went down, and suddenly I was swimming in that darkness again, alone in the open sea, and I knew what I needed to sing for them.

But this time it was with strength, with passion and playfulness, and I knew that though my power had changed, it had not left me.

I was filled with such joy, until I realised that the piano was not playing.

There was a high-pitched whine of building pressure, and the producers were writhing in their seats, helplessly choking and gurgling as frothy black water trailed out of their mouths and nostrils.

Then all at once, they were bursting open, their skin tearing along its seams, their open eyes pressed from their sockets by sluicing water.

The pianist was the same, his throat bulging as a fresh torrent of seawater spilled forth, and then long grey fingers questing from inside the water.

forcing the jaw wider and wider from the inside before halting and then

beginning to applaud.

The bodies were whole again once the ambulances arrived.

I was told they had all had strokes, though no one had any explanation for how they happened simultaneously, nor for the brine which now stained the stalls and piano.

It was La Scala that decided to cancel the season, and with it I faded into retirement.

The funny thing was though, I didn't mind.

Once you found an audience that will tear itself through water and flesh just to applaud you, anything else seems so muted and small by comparison.

No, not small, repulsive.

An audience of dull, vapid faces hiding in the dark, patting their gout-ridden palms against each other in a mockery of appreciation.

How could I ever perform for them again?

But we've got away from your question, Prim.

Why did you stop singing?

That was it, wasn't it?

R.

Yes, Diva.

B.

I didn't.

I just play to a different audience now, one who gives their reviews only to me.

And the mortician, of course, when they are found.

I wonder, would you be found, Prim?

R.

I think I should go now, Diva.

B.

Are you sure, Prim?

You could stay.

You could stay and listen to the truth in my voice once more.

Hear me sing it one last time.

R.

Diva.

Please.

Data corrupted.

Transcription ends.

Christ, I hate the wet ones.

Oh, Gwen.

I'm.

Sorry, Celia.

I'm in a bit of a rush.

I got a call from Alice.

And?

Sounds like she's making some progress.

Nothing that can't wait till tomorrow night, though.

I'm not in tomorrow.

I have a meeting.

Just email me a report and I'll read it en route.

A report?

Yes, thank you.

One page will be fine.

You'll be okay on your own tomorrow, I trust.

Well, great.

See you in a couple of days.

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 John Ware and edited with additional materials by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J.

Newell, with vocal edits by Nico Vitesse,

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

It featured Billy Hindle as Alice Dyer, Anuja Battersby as Gwen Bouchard,

Lorianne Davis as Celia Ripley, with additional voices from Alexander J.

Newell.

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 The RustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us at mail at rustyquill.com.

Thanks for listening.

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Hi, everyone.

It's Karim.

The voice of Simon Fairchild and the Eternal Tavern Keeper.

Today, I'm here to tell you about Old Gods of Appalachia, a podcast on the RQ Network.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a multi-award-winning horror audio dramatic by the brilliant team at Deep Nerd Media that is currently releasing its much-anticipated fourth season.

In the mountains of central Appalachia, blood runs as deep as these hollers and just as dark.

Since before our kind knew these hills, hearts of unknowable hunger and madness have slumbered beneath them.

These are the darkest mountains in the world.

How dare we think we can break the skin of a god and dig out its heart without bringing forth blood and darkness.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a multi-award-winning, critically acclaimed audio drama podcast.

Old God sits alongside this very podcast as one of the most popular fiction podcasts in the world.

Experience it for yourself by searching for Old Gods of Appalachia wherever you listen to your podcasts, or go to www.rustyquill.com or www.oldsofapalacha.com for more information.