ANNOUNCER
This episode is dedicated to Dan Carlson.
At times you meet people that you know instantly will alter your life. No other group of individuals are as oddly amazing as the High Fives. Thank you for the endless stories, inspiration, and laughs.
[Intro Theme]
ANNOUNCER
Rusty Quill Presents: The Magnus Protocol.
Episode Thirty-Two – Restructuring.
[Music]
[The O.I.A.R. microphone whirs to life]
[Focused typing noises as Alice mutters under her breath]
[Footsteps approaching:]
GWEN
Alice?
[Alice keeps typing and mumbling.]
GWEN
Alice.
[Alice keeps typing, starting to beatbox a little.]
GWEN
(louder) Hey –
[She pokes Alice in the back of the head.]
ALICE
Jesus Christ!
[The swivel chair squeaks as Alice whirls around in a panic, ripping her headphones out]
GWEN
Now that I have your attention –
ALICE
(high-pitched) What is your problem! Jesus, I nearly messed myself!
GWEN
Yes, all right.
ALICE
After everything that’s gone on, I’m all alone in here and you’re sneaking up on people like–!
GWEN
I wasn’t sneaking–!
ALICE
You’re lucky I didn’t deck ya!
GWEN
You’re lucky I haven’t fired you yet.
[Beat.]
[Alice turns her music off with a sigh. She swivels back in place.]
GWEN
What are you doing?
ALICE
(calmer) Who’s asking?
GWEN
Your boss.
ALICE
Debatable.
GWEN
(gritted teeth) Alice…
ALICE
…
(exhales) Missing persons.
[Gwen sighs]
ALICE
Figured I’d check and see if Sam had turned up in hospital with no memories, ranting about eyeball monsters and overbearing would-be bosses.
GWEN
(exasperated) And?
ALICE
Nothing.
– Which actually says a lot about the social lives of the people who work here when you think about it.
GWEN
Right.
Well. Your caseload’s backing up, so…
ALICE
I’m sorry?
GWEN
Just – don’t fall too far behind.
ALICE
Hang on. (undertones of bitter laughter) Just to be clear, I think you heard, (putting on a voice) “I’m sorry, I’ll work harder, boss!” When what I meant is, “I’m sorry, you think I give a flying fart about cases right now?”
GWEN
You can’t abandon your work just because –
ALICE
What? Just because our friends are missing? Or worse? Why not? What – What are you going to do, fire me?
GWEN
If I have to.
ALICE
Do it. Good luck with your precious caseload then.
GWEN
(deadly calm) We’ve been over this already. If you don’t stay on top of things, it’s going to draw attention.
ALICE
(snorts) From who? The Right Honourable Mr Sir Trevor Herbert MP OBE DNR?
[Gwen sighs over her words]
ALICE
I doubt he would notice if we burnt the place down.
GWEN
(even deadlier calm) Alice, you know as well as I do that you aren’t going to be able to spend any time looking for them if we’re trapped in a government inquiry, or worse. So keeping things moving is going to help look for them. In a – roundabout sort of way.
[Beat.]
ALICE
I liked you better when you were a miserable grunt like the rest of us.
GWEN
No you didn’t.
ALICE
…Fine! But I’m going to keep using the office systems.
GWEN
(smug) Just as long as you do your cases.
[Gwen leaves]
ALICE
(quietly, to herself) Right.
[The door closes in the distance]
[Alice clicks on a case]
NORRIS
Liverpool Integrated Care System — Patient Record ID NICS-2015-36584B.
[Alice sighs]
NORRIS
The following information is confidential and legally protected. Unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, or distribution of this document is strictly prohibited and may result in legal action.
Personal information as follows.
Name: Kyla Barber
Date of Birth: 17/11/1974
NHS Number: 698-588-3912
Sex: Female
Address: 45 Gardener Lane, Wavertree, Liverpool, L15 3HA
Occupation: Environmental Health Officer
Emergency Contact: Violet Weaver (Partner) – 07439 183375
Medical history as follows.
Primary Care Provider: Dr. Myka Volkova, Sycamore Drive Medical Centre
Mental Health Provider: Dr. Allen Cielo, Mersey Care NHS Trust
Chronic Conditions: Hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes
Allergies: Trimethoprim, Nickel
Medications: Metformin 500 milligrams, Lisinopril 10 milligrams, Sertraline 100 milligrams, Diazepam 100 milligrams, Olanzapine 10 milligrams
Recent Admissions: 01/06/2012 – Acute depressive episode
Treatment Provided: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Medication adjustment
15/03/2015 – A10 Detention Under Mental Health Act for Admission for Assessment.
Approved Mental Health Professional: Jozef Block
Reason for Detention: Patient admitted to Clock View Hospital under Section 136 police detainment.
Observations: Indicators for Visual and Auditory Hallucination, Distress, Paranoia, Confusion, Transient Global Amnesia, Dissociative Amnesia
Initial Diagnosis: Acute Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Recommendations: Immediate inpatient admission for safety and further assessment due to immediate risk to self and others. Initial treatment plan to include antipsychotic medication and psychotherapy.
Recent Notes: “Assessment delayed due to missing patient”
Recent Documentation: Partial Transcript of Counselling Session 18-03-2015
Transcript as follows.
[This segment is read entirely by Norris, including the letters “K” and “J” before each line of dialogue. Like someone reading a transcript out loud.]
K: – sand into water, water into stone, stone into wood, wood into cotton, cotton into blood, blood into gold, gold into fire, fire into steel –
J: Kyla?
K: Plastic trees in rings of glass, no wind for wings, no birds… no birds…
J: Come back, Kyla.
K: I… I-I’m, I’m sorry, I don’t…
J: That’s all right, Kyla. Why don’t we – take a moment for a reset?
K: Reset… yes…
J: (prompting) My name is…
K: My name is Kyla Barber, I am in Clock View Hospital…
J: And…?
K: And, um… and I am safe.
J: And now breathe in, hold, and breathe out. And again.
J: Better?
K: Yes. (faster) Yes, sorry.
J: No need to be sorry. Are you ready to continue?
K: Yes.
J: All right. Now, Kyla, I’d like you to try and tell me what happened at, er – at “The Mann Island Developments.”
K: I can try, but I don’t… it doesn’t make sense…
J: That’s all right. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s about what you experienced, what you – felt, not about any “sense” we might try to make of it right now. Just start at the beginning.
K: Yeah… Y-Yeah, okay.
[Pause.]
K: Sand. Sand silent but for the wind’s caress of red dunes. Dry iron dancing beneath a thousand, thousand sunrises and sunsets. Calm. So calm… Until…
A drop, a single drop that crashes down, herald to the floods that follow, then a trickle, a torrent, earth’s blood and water scattering the dancers then locking them in an embrace of sand and stone as the land roils beneath, bucking and heaving untamed and unseen until…
One becomes two, two becomes four and four becomes innumerable. The boiling froth of life smears itself across the waters building upon itself in ever-more impossible designs. Fragments into cells into cilia into spores and plants and fins and wings and limbs and blood and teeth and claws and hair and hands and finally, everywhere becomes somewhere, becomes here. This place distinct in the newly minted minds that wander through me and around me. I am here.
They mark my heart with carven stone, frozen dancers now standing in six exultations, changing me, turning me, once more, into somewhere new: I am Home.
More minds are born, grown, aged and lost in a new and faster dance of happiness, tragedy, love and loss. They know me and love me for sheltering, nourishing and nurturing them until…
Blood is spilled, fresh water for my river, new bones for my earth and soon I have a name: not “home” but Liuerpol, now enshrined in ink and pigskin. Six become seven as those long-frozen dancers are regimented into the foundation of untold footfalls, new veins of prosperity branching from my river’s artery which now ebbs and flows with trade and exploration. The quiet is gone now, replaced by shared purpose and disquiet.
They try to temper river’s run again and again, building new havens to shackle me which I must wash away with wind and rain and sea but they are industrious. Blood washes once more across my ground, let by steel and sulphur, forging me into a city. Such a grand name for such a grievous wound. More home now to stock and cargo than flesh and bone.
They are so industrious. Their choking trade clogs me with the filth of their endeavour and the silt of their constant contempt which turns to theft as they steal from my river’s depths until…
They fill these wounds with blood once more but now it is not their own. Instead, a ceaseless torrent of tobacco, cotton and chain-bound misery pours in, fuelled by stolen sweat and stained steel. They are so industrious. And I am angry. The river stutters, as they drag fresh land from the depths and trap me inside, severed from myself and lessened from a city but to an island made for man, and what men they are.
Bilge bloated on the bodies of the broken, they laugh without mirth, servants of lust and despair with regret crawling amongst the soured timber of far-off wilds.
And still the children of those otherwheres are dragged to me. Their grief shackled within the walls of the gory charnel warehouses which reek of desolation and slow carnage. Until the last ship vomits its wretched hold upon my shores. Perhaps this imperial fetish has finally been assuaged? But no, the gory houses burn too late and return too soon and with them come the trains. Metal ripped from my earth and baptised in death before it, bellowing black smoke and burrowing into my heart and filling it with stolen, rolling lightning. I am angry.
Another flood of bloodshed, fed by skyfire this time and finally there is a moment of respite from their ceaseless progress. Instead I am a home once more. A weary home filled with hardship but also children’s laughter. I had almost forgotten how it had felt… but then their humble lots are scattered for the benefit of trams, buses and more besides. I am angry.
And now there rises a canker of glass and empty luxury, a monument of displacement that would deny land’s past whilst promising prosperity. But I will abide you no more.
Your foundations of bone, built both of mine and those that would have called me home, splinter and slip beneath the weight of your capital arrogance.
The metal veins that waste my waters for your warped and bloated wants, bend and break overflowing with the filth of your forebears.
The cables that you stitch so cruelly in my flesh now snap and spill their lightning upon the stolen grandeur of your foreign marble floors.
The stems of steel that shoulder your ambition foul and fail and fall, overwhelmed by the weight of your derelict intent.
The dancers that you look through but never see shatter and stab such sharp shards into you as cutting retort for your blindnesses.
Your reliable residences, sold but never owned, grow cold and dark, unloved unlike the homes of those that came before your “site.”
The offices you laud so loud, as clean and trim and proper, now stain and stink with long-kept scandal as your ledgers wilt and rot.
There is no place for you here. There is no place for you here.
[Pause.]
J: Kyla?
K: No. I am not her. I am here.
J: Kyla, I asked what happened to you. Not what happened to the place.
K: And all who dwelt within me will feel the weight of it. Their bones will be my bones. Colonised, as is my right…
J: I… don’t know if this is helping.
K: Let me go home. Let me be home.
Transcript ends.
[Beep.]
[Alice groans as Celia approaches:]
CELIA
Difficult case?
ALICE
Pffft. Hardly. “Building” comma “angry.”
[She types rapidly]
Done!
[She submits the case. A chirp from the computer.]
CELIA
(carefully) So…
ALICE
How do we even start with this mess? How does someone get shredded by a computer?
CELIA
I don’t know. Maybe we focus on the “why” for now, rather than the “how.”
ALICE
Okay, but I’m still at a loss about what happened to Sam. Maybe if we went back to the –
CELIA
(quickly) Bad. Idea. We still don’t even know what it is or whether it’s still a danger.
H-How about you focus on Colin and I’ll focus on Sam. (inhales) I was the one with him when he… left. I’ll have more to go on.
ALICE
(bitter) Will you, though? Because you didn’t exactly remember anything useful when I asked you before.
…
(softer) Sorry, I-I know this isn’t your fault, I’m just…
CELIA
(sighs) I know.
…I am too.
ALICE
(quiet) Yeah.
[Silence]
[Brisk knocking from the glass of the manager’s office]
[Celia ‘mm’s uncomfortably]
ALICE
(tired) I swear, I’m going to pick up a stick –
CELIA
(also tired) It’s okay. I’ve got it.
[Landline recording starts up]
[Celia knocks]
GWEN
Come in!
CELIA
(entering, shuts door) What’s up? Everything okay?
GWEN
(very professional) Uh, Celia, could you do me a favor and… look at my PC, for a moment?
CELIA
I – really don’t think it’s a good idea to be messing around with it af…ter…
[She sucks in a breath]
CELIA
(a little choked) Is that… a hand?
GWEN
(quickly) I think it’s probably Colin’s.
[The music builds and builds until –]
[Celia and Gwen both gasp as the hand is schlorped back into the computer in an explosion of audio, including:]
GWEN (RECORDING)
Don’t touch it!
[Then a loud burst of static, then nothing.]
CELIA
Oh. Th-There it goes.
GWEN
Yes.
It’s happened a couple of times now. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t – um –
[She falls silent, then sighs.]
CELIA
…I’m pretty sure I saw some teeth in my keyboard yesterday. It was just for a second and I wasn’t sure? So I didn’t say anything, but…
[A long pause.]
Is there anything else I can do for you, or…
GWEN
No. No, that’s fine. I’d better get back to, uh – uh… (unconvincingly) To… It.
[Neither of them moves.]
CELIA
Listen, Gwen, I realize it must be a lot sitting in the big chair while all this is going on, but if you ever, y’know, need a hand – (catches herself too late) Ah.
Well. Let me know. Yeah?
[Beat.]
[A small email ping from the PC.]
GWEN
No. I don’t think that will be necessary, Celia. Now as you can see, I’m… quite busy.
CELIA
(unconvinced) Sure… Just look after yourself, Gwen.
GWEN
I assure you I always do.
CELIA
(extremely unconvinced) Okay!
[Footsteps as Celia leaves]
[She shuts the door]
[Gwen immediately starts typing on her computer, frustrated]
GWEN
Oh for god’s sake –
[More attempts at typing]
How do you even…
[An annoyed huff. She is really bad at accessing this email.]
Oh, right.
[Successful ping, finally!]
[Pause as Gwen reads the email]
GWEN
(soft, confused) What?
[Dial-up noises of a phone recording starting]
[We catch the last few rings of Alice’s phone]
LUKE
(ringtone message) Hey, leave me a message. Or don’t. Whatever.
[Tone]
ALICE
(extremely cheerful) Hey Luke, I’m guessing you’re driving or picking some old granny’s knickers off your head after a gig or something, so no need to call back, just checkin’ in on you and the tour.
…
(cheerfulness cracking slightly) Sounds like it’s going well!
Just FYI, I had to use PayPal this time since you’re abroad, so… let me know if you have any issues. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.
…
Things are a bit weird, here. There’s actually a lot going on at work, and…
Actually – you know what? Do call me back. Or text me, or something. I think I need to talk to a real human person. (attempt at a joke:) And you’re the next best thing.
Anyway. Say hi to the lads for me.
Later.
[She hangs up and sighs]
[It is very quiet.]
[Music]
ANNOUNCER
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 Newall, and directed by Alexander J Newall.
This episode was written by Jonathan Sims and edited with additional materials by Alexander J Newall, with vocal edits by Lowri Ann Davies, soundscaping by Tessa Vroom, and mastering by Catherine Rinella with music by Sam Jones.
It featured Billie Hindle as Alice Dyer, Anusia Battersby as Gwen Bouchard, Lowri Ann Davies as Celia Ripley, with additional voices from Alexander J Newall.
The Magnus Protocol is produced by April Sumner, with executive producers Alexander J Newall, Dani McDonough, Linn Ci, and Samantha F.G. Hamilton, and Associate Producers Jordan L. Hawk, 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 @therustyquill, visit us on Facebook or email us at mail@rustyquill.com.
Thanks for listening.