---
layout:          post
title:           "MAGP 40 - Public Image"
date:            2025-05-01 15:00:00 # in UTC
episode_type:      [episode]
tags:            []
voiced:          []
categories:			"tmagp"
podcasts: ["tmagp"]
title_prefix:	"MAGP"
prev_categories: ["tmagp"]
prev_prefixes: ["MAGP"]
prev_episode:	['039']
prev_episode_num:		['039']
prev_episode_title:		["Dependents"]
next_categories: ["tmagp"]
next_prefixes: ["MAGP"]
next_episode:	['041']
next_episode_num:		['041']
next_episode_title:		["Internal Investigation"]
episode_title:   'Public Image'
episode_number:  '040'
summary:         "CAT3RCA2167-23111762-10062024<br/>puppet (reanimation) --/- fear (children)"
content_flags:   ["Puppets", "Creepy Children", "Childhood Trauma", "Graphic Violence", "SFX: Screaming, gunshots"]
acast_url:      https://shows.acast.com/themagnusarchives/episodes/the-magnus-protocol-40-public-image
official:        true
notes: "Edited by Lime and A Listener from Germany 2025-06-05, Anonymous 2025-07-03, "
---

##### [Intro Theme]

#### ANNOUNCER

Rusty Quill Presents: The Magnus Protocol.

Episode Forty -- Public Image.

##### [Music]

---

<!-- #### 1. INT. BERLIN AIRPORT -- EVENING, CLEAR (ALICE'S
PHONE) -->

<!-- A quiet berlin arrivals terminal with few people milling about. ALICE stretches then sees DANE waiting for her dressed in full tacti-cool "operator" gear, complete with big beard, sunglasses and a baseball cap.  -->

##### [Dial-up tone of phone recording]

#### ALICE

_(to herself)_ Christ, here we go...

##### [She walks over.]

#### ALICE

Hey, uh, Dane, I take it? 

#### DANE

That's an affirmative, ma'am. Dane Bowie, Starkwall Services Group. You're Alice Dyer, the civilian asset? 

#### ALICE

Uh, yeah, civilian asset, that's me. 

#### DANE

I got a basic sitrep from control. Possible single unorthodox hostile? 

#### ALICE

Uh... Affirmative?

##### [Beat.] 

#### DANE

You ever worked with an operator before, ma'am? 

#### ALICE

My brother plays a lot of Call of Duty? 

#### DANE

Well, this here's the real thing, so let me lay it out for you. It's your job to go about your day, do whatever you need to do. Meanwhile, it's my job to accompany you with complete situational awareness, predicting any possible threat vector and zeroing it. So if I say drop, you drop, if I say run, you run. If you understand that, I just might be able to keep you alive.

##### [Beat.] 

#### ALICE

Gosh. Well, thank you Dane, I'm glad you've got you to protect me through the dangerous warzone that is Berlin Airport. 

#### DANE

_(oblivious)_ All part of the job, ma'am. 

#### ALICE

One question. Why the sunglasses? 

#### DANE

Glare kills careless operators. Makes it harder to see the details, especially against camouflaged bogeys. 

#### ALICE

It's seven at night. And we're indoors. 

#### DANE

Can't be too careful, ma'am. 

#### ALICE

Right. Speaking of, watch yourself. 

#### TRAVELER

Entschuldigung!

##### [A traveler pushes past Dane, who is seemingly caught unawares and covers it]

#### DANE

'Scuse me.

#### ALICE

...

Cool. Well, how about we head out, yeah? 

#### DANE

Affirmative. Stay frosty. 

#### ALICE

_(rolling her eyes)_ Roger Wilco, "Snowman 1."

---

<!-- 2. INT. OIAR OFFICE -- NIGHT, CLEAR (COMPUTER) CELIA is working on her terminal. She stops and GWEN approaches.  -->

##### [O.I.A.R. microphone spins up]

##### [Typing noises, which fall to a stop]

##### [Footsteps approach:]

#### GWEN

Everything alright? 

#### CELIA

Oh yeah, it just... feels a bit empty, doesn't it? 

#### GWEN

Alice shouldn't be gone too long. 

#### CELIA

True. Even so, you'd think she would have said goodbye before setting off. 

#### GWEN

It's Alice. I doubt she'd have even bothered to tell us she was leaving if she didn't need me to pay for the flights. 

#### CELIA

Hmmm. 

#### GWEN

You're right about it being empty, though. With Sam missing, Lena gone and Colin's... situation, it's probably time to hire some fresh blood. 

#### CELIA

And are you going to tell them the truth about what goes on down here? 

#### GWEN

The *truth* is that if people just behave in a professional manner this is a perfec-- a relatively safe environment. 

#### CELIA

You might want to work on the pitch a bit. 

#### GWEN

Look, I know it's not a pleasant job, but somebody has to do it. 

#### CELIA

_(genuine)_ Do they, though?

##### [Beat.] 

#### GWEN

You're behind on your caseload.

##### [GWEN exits.]

---

<!-- #### 3. INT. HIRED CAR/ EXT. DERELICT FACTORY -- NIGHT,

CLEAR (ALICE'S PHONE) The car pulls up outside a sinister former factory of brick and cement. DANE cuts the engine.  -->

##### [Phone recording starts up again]

##### [Rumbling of a car engine comes to a stop]

#### DANE

Got eyes on the AO. I'm not liking the sightlines, too easy for someone to get a bead. 

#### ALICE

Yeah, it is a bit spooky. What do you think they used to make here? 

#### DANE

_(ignoring)_ Looks standard operating procedures for a semi-hostile environment. I'll go in, sweep the perimeter, check for any hostiles then establish an extraction route in case we need a tactical retrograde for the civilian assets. 

#### ALICE

That's me! 

#### DANE

Affirmative.

##### [Dane pulls out a gun and starts preparing it]

#### DANE

If I'm not back in five minutes --

#### ALICE

Jesus, there's no way that's legal! 

#### DANE

All in-country Starkwall field operators hold a special Waffenschein weapons license as part of our contractual work for the German government. 

#### ALICE

Well, put it away. Christ. 

#### DANE

No can do, ma'am. This is an active field operation and I have a duty of protection. Now, as I was saying, you stay here while I --

#### ALICE

Yeah, no thanks.

##### [Alice opens the car door and hops out]

#### DANE

Hey! The AO is not cleared!

##### [Alice shuts the door behind her, cutting off his indignant cries]

##### [She takes a deep breath, then starts walking]

---

<!-- #### 4. EXT. DERELICT FACTORY CONT./INT. HEINRICH'S

WORKSHOP -- NIGHT, CLEAR (ALICE'S PHONE) Alice pulls open the heavy metal sliding door of the derelict industrial building. Inside she finds hundreds of creepy wooden toys.  -->

##### [Phone recording starts up again]

##### [Alice pulls open a heavy metal sliding door]

#### ALICE

Whoa.

##### [Dane catches up to her and places himself in front of her] 

#### DANE

Ma'am, I need you to stay on my six.

##### [He makes a big show of preparing to enter then ducks in, sweeping his pistol left]

#### DANE

Clear!

##### [He sweeps right.] 

#### DANE

Clear! 

#### ALICE

I don't know if I'd describe *this* place as "clear." 

#### DANE

Wooden puppets don't count as hostiles, ma'am. 

#### ALICE

Uh-huh. How much they tell you about this job again? 

#### DANE

_(getting nervous)_ I was given a basic sitrep, ma'am. Though I admit it didn't include how, uh... 

#### ALICE

Scary? 

#### DANE

...unorthodox the RV would be. Any sign of your contact?

##### [HEINRICH emerges from amongst the toys]

#### HEINRICH

You are not the visitor I was expecting.

##### [Dane spins in a panic and levels his pistol at Heinrich]

#### DANE

Contact! Hands where I can see them! Hands where I can see them right now! 

#### HEINRICH

Did I frighten you? Entschuldige, such was not my intention. Your fear is... unpalatable to me. 

#### DANE

_(scared)_ No-one is scared, now don't fucking move.

##### [Heinrich samples the mood]

#### HEINRICH

_(distasteful)_ Eurgh. Yes. Messy. Säuerlich. Too much bluster and bravado. 

#### ALICE

Put the gun down, Dane. If he wanted to hurt us, he'd have done it already. 

#### HEINRICH

Or keep it pointed at me. Das ist mir egal.

_(To Alice)_ You are not Colin. 

#### ALICE

No. Colin's, well... Colin's dead. 

#### HEINRICH

Ah, mein beileid. How did it happen? 

#### ALICE

We're not sure, something to do with the computer program he was investigating. 

#### HEINRICH

Natürlich. A shame. I was looking forward to meeting him face to face. 

#### ALICE

How did you know him? 

#### HEINRICH

Some years ago, I do not know how long, I do not follow time closely, I was contacted by a man doing some programming for Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. It involved many like me. I am one of the more... *amenable* of my kind. He asked some questions, ran some tests and that was the last I heard of it. But somehow, his notes came into the hands of Colin, and they contained my details. He wanted to ask me some questions. I agreed.

#### ALICE

Why? 

#### HEINRICH

Even a monster gets lonely. Also, he offered to help me... develop. I have struggled of late. Computerspiele. Videogames, you understand? I was hoping to get some help adapting. It is hard for something old like myself.

But, come, the workshop is not a comfortable place for you. I do not sit but I bought a chair for Colin. Please, follow me. 

#### ALICE

_(moving to follow)_ Thanks. 

#### DANE

_(blocking her)_ That's a negative! We're not going anywhere with you.

What are you? 

#### HEINRICH

I am Heinrich Unheimlich. I am the toy that gives the children nightmares. 

#### ALICE

You mean the toy-*maker,* right? 

#### HEINRICH

Toy, toymaker, workshop... Egal. It is all me. 

#### DANE

You're going to start talking sense right now, otherwise --

#### HEINRICH

You want my whole story? Here? 

#### ALICE

Sure. Why not. 

#### HEINRICH

You do not want to sit in the chair? I bought it for you. It cost sixty euro. 

#### DANE

I don't give a shit about your chair! 

#### HEINRICH

Wie du möchtest.

...

Once upon a time -- I believe that is how you start them, yes? Once upon a time, some two hundred years ago, there was a toy. A little wooden doll. It did not know who made it, for it did not yet know anything. It was long and crude and blackened from a fire that had once licked its feet. It delighted in giving splinters to all the little girls and boys and it was... wrong. The limbs did not fit, the body was lumpy in the wrong places, and the face... There was no face, except for shallow divots and shadows left from the fire. It would look at you with hunger without any eyes.

The little girl that owned it was a mischievous soul and took joy in seeing her playmates fear. She called it "Heinrich Unheimlich" and made a little rhyme to scare the smaller children. And scare them it did.

_(sung)_  
Heinrich Unheimlich, wirst du mit mir spielen?  
Heinrich Unheimlich, bist du in den Dielen?  
Heinrich Unheimlich, oh, bist du in Sicht?  
Heinrich Unheimlich, iss meine Eltern nicht.

_(spoken)_ One day, the little girl was gone. Her parents were gone. Their house was empty and the windows were dark and nobody knew what had happened to them. They left everything behind, including Heinrich Unheimlich.

It was left sitting on the windowsill of the little girl's bedroom, looking out over the street below and all the other children would pass below whispering and pointing.

"Heinrich Unheimlich got her," they said among themselves. "She said the rhyme, and he came for her family."

And for the first time in its existence, the toy felt something. It was... happy. Satisfied. It had filled a hunger it did not know that it possessed.

Nobody moved into the old house, as it fell into deep ruin and the children kept whispering, daring each other to go inside, to prove they were not scared of Heinrich Unheimlich, who was not real and could not hurt them.

But when they came into the house, and they crept up into the room, the toy found the most curious thing... It *was* real. And it *could* hurt them.

It soon discovered that to kill a child is a passing rush of fear: acute, delicious, but unsatisfying. To scare them, though, to terrorize and to taunt, to sit silent and still with the smallest, tiniest hint of movement... *That* was delicious. And as they fled from the house and told their friends what they had seen, the children's story would grow and grow and the toy would feast.

Then one day, a bold little child who reminded the toy of the little girl from so long before, began to add to the story himself. Heinrich Unheimlich, he said, was not the name of the toy, no. For you see a toy must have a maker, and Heinrich Unheimlich was the name of the *toymaker.* And he began to describe him. He was tall and thin, with a long, matted black beard and slender fingers stained with wood varnish and children's blood. His eyes were deep and his teeth were sharp as iron nails. The doll was just one of his creations, each of which was full of malice and cruelty. Each hungry for children's screams.

When it heard the story, what could the toy do but grow such a man? And once the toymaker was real, what else could he do but make more toys?

The little boy, whose name was Hans, was brave when the toymaker came to him. He did not scream or cry or run when he saw the man he had invented to scare his classmates, though I could taste the pure uncomplicated fear of a child rolling off him. He was the first of my chosen. The children who would tell my story.

I made him a hobby horse who bore its nasty teeth when adults could not see and whose mane moved when no one was looking. All his friends were afraid of it, even more so when he told him that it was a gift from Heinrich Unheimlich.

There was one boy however, Klaus, who was not afraid. He did not believe in Heinrich Unheimlich. He said that the hobby horse was just a stupid piece of wood and at his words, the other children were emboldened, and they began to call little Hans a liar.

That night, when everyone was asleep, the hobby horse went for a ride. It rode through the streets, it rode over the bridge, it rode through the window of the room where Klaus slept. It woke him then, and made him ride into his parents' room, where its sharp teeth and horrible mane tore them apart. It bit off their fingers, it bit off their toes, it chewed out their tongues and it spat out their clothes. Klaus screamed, the toymaker smiled, and the children of the town remembered to fear the rhyme of Heinrich Unheimlich.

And so it had been. I gave my toys to the children and they would spread my story and the ones who would not believe... Their parents pay the price.

The story has grown as the years have passed. My workshop has changed the most, I think. It has moved many times as the places children fear to tread have changed. You should have seen it last century, or was it the one before? A darkwood hut on the edge of a forest. Ilsa, my child at the time, had a refined taste for the gory, and so the empty skins of children hung like sheets from the ceiling beams, my tools were sharpened from bone and my toys were varnished with human fat bubbling in a cauldron upon the fire. I gave her a set of wooden soldiers: their weapons sharp, their faces full of hatred and their coats wet with blood. So frightful was her telling that the soldiers never even saw combat, for there were none that doubted her.

These latest decades though, they have been... harder. Toys have changed, the children are less... credulous. I have tried a few times, but have found myself without a chosen for many years and those who hear my story now, find it... quaint. This perhaps is why the Heinrich Unheimlich you find is somewhat less fearsome than he once might have been. But we shall see, I suppose. I shall change again, I am sure, I shall adapt. Because change is a strange and scary word for a child. And Heinrich Unheimlich will be there to feast on that fear when it comes. 

...

So, alles klar? 

#### DANE

_(not okay)_ You kill children. 

#### HEINRICH

Ja, it has happened. But it is rare. Corpses do not cry after all. 

#### DANE

And their parents? 

#### HEINRICH

Not often. The tale of a killing spreads further than the act. A single dead parent can spark fears to keep me fed for years. If they were to happen too often, they are no longer stories, they are facts. Dull and at risk of... inconvenient investigation.

##### [Beat]

##### [Alice approaches and extends a hand]

#### ALICE

Alice. 

#### HEINRICH

Alice. A charming name. Now I grow weary of your ärgerlich companion. I would ask we continue our discussion alone. Kommen Sie mit. 

#### DANE

That's a negatory. There is no way in hell she is moving to a secondary RV with no escort. 

#### HEINRICH

Alice, it will be difficult to continue whilst he insists on behaving so vulgar. I had hoped --

##### [HEINRICH steps forward; DANE blocks him]

#### DANE

Back off! Right now. 

#### HEINRICH

_(calm, threatening)_ Remove your hand from me. 

#### DANE

I'm warning you --

#### HEINRICH

Trottel.

##### [Toys suddenly spring forth and grab Dane]

##### [He screams in terror and fires off two shots]

##### [The gun is ripped from him, along with the hand holding it]

##### [He thrashes in agony as he is viscerally disassembled]

##### [Silence]

##### [Alice is terrified but in control]

#### HEINRICH

Entschuldigung, fraulein, but I really found that man intolerable. He was not a friend of Colin's, I hope? 

#### ALICE

N-no. 

#### HEINRICH

Schön zu hören. In our conversations he did not seem the sort to tolerate such behavior.

_(considering)_ Hmmmm. You deny your fear very much, but when it bubbles up... still youthful and pure. I think we will get along just fine. 

#### ALICE

What do you want from me? 

#### HEINRICH

I was under the impression you wanted something from me: Answers to your questions. Kommen Sie mit. I have bought a nice chair for you. I wish for you to be comfortable.

#### ALICE

...

_(unnerved)_ ...'kay. 

---

##### [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 Gwendolyn Bouchard, and Lowri Ann Davies as Celia Ripley.

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.