The Magnus Protocol - What If #1

13m

We imagine a world in which everyone listened to Colin...

 

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Created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J Newall  

Directed by Alexander J Newall

Written by Alexander J Newall

Script Edited with additional material by Jonathan Sims

Executive 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 Sumner

  

Featuring (in order of appearance) 

Billie Hindle as Alice Dyer

Ryan Hopevere-Anderson as Colin Becher

Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid

Anusia Battersby as Gwendolyn Bouchard

Kazeem Tosin Amore as Teddy Vaughn

Dialogue Editor – Nico Vettese

Sound Designer – Tessa Vroom

Mastering Editor - Catherine Rinella

 

Art by April Sumner  

Music by Sam Jones

 

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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.  

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Transcript

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Hi, we are here to talk to you about Sucrebay, a perfumery we love so much.

they have not one, but two official The Magnus Archives perfumes, one inspired by John and Martin, and another inspired by the mysterious Ex Altiora, a book from the library of Jürgen Leitner.

Sucrabay also make official perfumes for our friends over at Old Gods of Appalachia, including Blood and Bone and Unknown Roads.

You should check them out.

Sucrabay is a women-owned and operated perfumery that is vegan and cruelty-free, witchy and sometimes irreverent.

Expect perfumes like You're in a Cult, Call Your Dad, or Vodka and Swearing, the ever-popular chloroform, or Papa's Waffles.

Sucrebay do a range of exciting and unique fragrances you won't find anywhere else.

They broadly fit into the following five categories: classic scents that pass the test of time, goth scents, for those who like it dark and mysterious, witchy scents, that are mysterious and potion-y, nerdy scents, for all the self-professed nerds out there, and femme scents, the classically floral and sweet scents, but we recommend them for anyone of any gender.

Sucrabay's small batch perfumes are not like any other.

You can find out more by going to www.rustyquirl.com forward slash perfume.

That's rusticquirl.com forward slash P-E-R-F-U-M-E.

Also, you can join the supportive and kind Sucra Bay community with over 18,000 members on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash sucrabay.

That's S-U-C-R-E-A-B-E-I-L-L-E.

Rusty Quill presents

The Magnus Protocol

What If Episode One?

What If They Listen to Comic.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, Alice, sorry to interrupt.

Oh, thank God.

Colin,

Colin, my main man, the tech lord himself.

How are you?

It's great to see you.

We should go catch up, grab a coffee in the break room, share a few laughs, catch each other up on

literally anything other than sitting alone at my desk forever.

Problems.

Everything is working just like you said it would.

Told you.

And all it took was ripping the entire system out and rebuilding it from the ground up.

No more mad German algorithms, just nice, straightforward web crawlers.

I want you to change it back.

Alice.

Just hear me out, alright.

It's not like you've got anything better to do.

I mean, and that's exactly the problem.

When you said you could fix everything, I kind of thought you meant you would make it better for everyone.

It is better.

Is it though?

Or am I sitting here alone, bored out of my goddamn skull?

Alice, you were bored before.

Besides which, this place was a madhouse.

Nothing worked.

No one could get anything done.

It was wonderful.

It was my own personal hell, is what it was.

And now look around.

Everything works.

Takes you half as long to get through your caseload.

So Lena gives me twice as much.

And now we're working days.

We get weekends now, bank holidays.

We get to see the sun.

I hate the sun.

No, you don't.

And I miss Freddie and Chester and Norris.

You said you liked the new system.

And I did.

Until it got everyone fired.

How exactly did you think they were going to pay for the overhaul with all those extra bells and whistles you said they needed?

I don't know.

Lena said she'd take care of it.

Pro tip, Colin, mate.

When someone says they're going to take care of it, you might want to check if they mean it in a pinstripe suit, concrete, galoshes kind of way before going ahead with it.

You literally cheered when Gwen left.

That was different.

That was funny.

But what the hell do I do now?

I'm a cat without a mouse.

No one to bullshit with.

No one to talk to.

I'm trapped down here alone.

The last years of my youth leaking out through every tap of my desperately ergonomic keyboard.

Disgusting.

Not my fault you had the best KPIs.

Anyway, I might have something here to cheer you up.

Oh, yeah.

New company phone?

Lena said you've been having issues with your old old one.

Yeah, it had this weird bug where it got thrown out of a window.

Well, she says she needs you on call, so.

Don't do this to me, Colin.

It's got a really janky AI assistant.

Maybe that'll fill the void.

Well, this is start, I suppose.

Watch your backs.

They're out of sherry, so I got you a GT.

Thank you, I guess.

Next one's on you.

It's funny.

I used to wonder how this place could afford to stay open.

It's almost like pubs make more money at 6 p.m.

on a Tuesday than 5 a.m.

on a Sunday.

Right?

You know, I never thought I'd say this, but I think I miss working nights.

I've forgotten how the tube is during rush hour.

Traffic's the same.

Makes sense.

So,

what have you been up to?

Went home to visit family.

Sounds nice.

It wasn't.

How about you?

Uh, no.

I'm staying as far away from mum and dad as I can until I've got better news.

I've been applying for jobs, but for now, it's beep beep.

Beep, beep?

Ah.

Sainsbury's.

And even that was a struggle.

Sounds

interesting?

Does it?

Not really.

No.

Are you still investigating that university?

Hmm?

Oh, the Magnus Institute.

Fat chance.

This is the first time off of Haddon two weeks.

No, it turns out creepy mysteries are a bourgeois luxury.

Careful.

You're starting to sound sound like Alice.

Have you heard anything from

Gwen?

It's not her fault.

So.

Coming through, coming through.

Thank Christ.

Hey, there you both are.

And you got a table.

Nice.

I got here early.

I had time to kill.

I hear that.

Well, let's see if we can do something about that.

Yeah, so don't get me wrong, Teddy.

I appreciate appreciate the invite, but like, what's this about?

I'm somewhat curious myself.

Alright,

straight to it then.

I've got you both a job.

Excuse me?

Well, almost.

Provisionally, at least.

Basically, the people I'm working for have heard that there are more ex-OIAR staff looking for a gig, and they are just so happy with me that they want to know if either of you are interested.

Congrats, you've both been head-hunted.

Huh.

Okay, so, like, what do they why?

Sorry.

The OIAR was hardly a dynamic work environment, and no offense, Sam.

But the ink was still wet on your probation when they kicked you out.

Okay, some offense, but whatever.

My point is: why on earth would they want to headhunt both of us?

I mean, there's a certain amount of overlap, and you can say this for the OIAR.

For all its faults, it was

specialist.

I suppose you could call it resource allocation.

Not my first choice, but I could definitely be convinced.

So, like, do they want to meet or

okay, cool?

I should be able to get some time off book next week if I'm now.

What?

I've told you they were keen.

That's what I asked you in person.

If you're interested, I can get you signed up right now.

Oh, okay.

I am available, I guess.

No.

No?

Oh, I think you should definitely take this opportunity, Sam.

But I think I'm going to have to be a bit more discerning this time around.

No offense.

Again, kind of offended, but whatever.

If you're sure.

I very much am.

Working for the OIAR was a

phase.

I've been talking with my father, and, well.

Anyway, if you'll both excuse me, I have a car car waiting.

Watch your backs.

Hot stuff coming through.

Oh, uh.

Hi.

Miss Dyer.

Surprised to see you here at this time.

Oh, yeah.

Uh, we're on days now, so, you know.

Of course you are.

If you'll excuse me.

See you, Gwen.

Yeah, bye.

Hey, Sam.

Teddy.

Hey, Alice.

Hey.

So, yeah, uh, tell you what then, Sam.

Why don't I go call them and let them know you're coming, and you can follow after you've had a chance to uh catch up?

Sure, catch you later, Alice, yeah?

Sure, look after yourself, always do.

So

you haven't drowned?

What?

My new therapist tells me I need to think more positively.

I notice you haven't been flayed by an industrial shredder either.

Yeah, no, I'm fine.

You

same old, Enforcing the evil will of a self-interested government one taxpayer-funded paycheck at a time.

Cool.

Listen, Sam.

You don't need to apologize.

No, really.

It's fine.

Honestly, you couldn't have known.

None of us did.

I mean, Lena was literally interviewing another newbie the day before.

I get it.

It just sucked, you know.

I do.

It was good to see you again.

Would have been nice if it had lasted.

Yeah, well, unfortunately, this is clearly a pretty bleak timeline.

You're forgetting about the one where Colin went mental and built an army of robots to torment us in his cyberpunk sex dungeon.

Yeah.

At least it wasn't boring.

Speaking of.

Nice one.

Oh, hey, uh.

Sam.

Sam.

Hi, yeah.

How you doing?

I was actually just leaving.

I've got an interview.

Oh, great.

Assuming it lasts longer than the last one?

Yeah.

Let me know if they need anyone to turn up and make the corporate culture impossibly toxic.

I'd be wanting six figures and use of the corporate jet, of course.

Of course.

Have a good one, guys.

Say hi to Chester for me.

We'll do.

I doubt you could have hacked it anyway.

I'll hack you in a minute.

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 Alexander J.

Newell and edited with additional materials by Jonathan Sims,

with vocal edits by Nico Fitesi, soundscaping by Meg McKellar and mastering by Catherine Rinella with music by Sam Jones.

It featured Billy Hindel as Alice Dyer, Shahan Hamza as Samana Khalid, Anusha Battersby as Gwen Bouchard, Ryan Hope Ver Anderson as Colin Becker, Kazim Tosinamore as Teddy Vaughan.

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 via mail at rustyquill.com.

Thanks for listening.

Hi, we are here to talk to you about Sucrebae, a perfumery we love so much, they have not one, but two official The Magnus Archives perfumes, one inspired by John and Martin, and another inspired by the mysterious Ex Altiora, a book from the library of Jürgen Leitner.

Sucrabay also make official perfumes for our friends over at Old Gods of Appalachia, including Blood and Bone and Unknown Roads.

You should check them out.

Sucrabay is a women-owned and operated perfumery that is vegan and cruelty-free, witchy and sometimes irreverent.

Expect perfumes like You're in a Cult, Call Your Dad, or Vodka and Swearing, the ever-popular chloroform, or Papa's Waffles.

Sucrabay do a range of exciting and unique fragrances you won't find anywhere else.

They broadly fit into the following five categories.

Classic scents that pass the test of time.

Goth scents, for those who like it dark and mysterious, witchy scents that are mysterious and potiony.

Nerdy scents for all the self-professed nerds out there.

And femme scents, the classically floral and sweet scents, but we recommend them for anyone of any gender.

Sucra Bay's small batch perfumes are not like any other.

You can find out more by going to www.rustyquirl.com forward slash perfume.

That's rustyquirl.com forward slash P-E-R-F-U-M-E.

Also, you can join the supportive and kind Sucra Bay community with over 18,000 members on on Facebook.

At facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash Sucra Bay.

That's S-U-C-R-E-A-B-E-I-L-L-E.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

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