The Magnus Protocol 8 – Running on Empty
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Hi folks, Billy Hindle here, the voice of Alice Dyer in The Magnus Protocol. Today I just wanted to take some time to run you through some of the exciting Magnus merchandise, as well as affiliate links, a brand new way to support the show. You can find affiliate links in the description of all new episodes. If you are based in the UK, be sure to check out Phantom Peak, a unique, immersive, open world adventure in London. Use the link in the show notes or code RUSTY to get 15% off tickets.

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Stickers, posters, and more. Check the links in the description or go to www.rustyquill.com forward slash support. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy the show. To everyone else, this is a desk. But to you, it's a launch pad. You're starting blood. This ain't a desk. This is opportunity.

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Terms apply. Learn how to get more out of your experiences at AmericanExpress.com slash with Amex. This episode is dedicated to Gabriel Spencer. Thank you to the Magnus Institute for bringing me on an adventure through some of my biggest fears, with Jonathan and friends at my side. Rusty Quill presents The Magnus Protocol, Episode 8, Running on Empty. The Magnus Protocol

Coursework Assessment Report 13718B Reviewing Tutor Joseph Peterson Arc Staff 12 Submitting Student Terrence Stevens ID ArcStew39609 Result Fail Late Submission 28% Assessment Structure and Organization 50% Knowledge 40% Understanding 30%

Analysis, 10%. Source material usage, 10%. Extenuating circumstances. Serious medical condition. Trauma. Miscellaneous. Tutor comments. See me. Attachment. Title, Forden's Brutal Liminality, a case study of architecturally induced psychological stressors as a result of prolonged exposure to liminal spaces in the brutalist mode as exhibited by Forden Service Station. Introduction.

This paper will present a comprehensive analysis of Fortin Services as a key site of study for the intersection between Brutalism and liminal space design, with a secondary focus on the psychological stresses such sites can cause. First, I will combine theoretical frameworks for Brutalism and liminality. I will then examine service stations as psychologically stressful liminal spaces before moving on to an architectural analysis of Fortin Services and its history as a Brutalist site.

This will culminate in a case study into the effects of extended exposure to liminal spaces with brutalist architecture via my employment at Fortin Services. To start with, let us establish a theoretical underpinning for this paper by linking the architectural style of brutalism to the anthropological theory of liminality. I will do this by providing compatible interpretations of both and suggesting the new concept of brutal liminality.

Brutalism, originating from the French, béton brû, raw concrete, is an architectural movement that focuses on utilitarian purpose. This often results in exposed raw materials, stark forms, repetitive geometric shapes, and monolithic structures. This can often lead end-users to feel overwhelmed or oppressed. Zumther, P, 2006.

Liminal spaces, derived from the Latin limen, meaning threshold, are transitional spaces, normally inhabited for short periods. They have been known to have marked effects upon the psychology of those exposed to them, and long-term exposure has been found to elicit anxiety responses. Orge, M., 1995. Bacalar, G., 1994. And Feelings of the Uncanny, Trig, D., 2012.

My hypothesis is that thought and services as a site of intersection between these two psychologically significant elements can be considered a site of what I have termed brutal liminalism, and this is why it has a profound effect upon those exposed to it in the long term, as testified by my own experiences. Specifically, it creates an effect of absence despite presence, an architectural hunger of a sort.

Service stations such as Fortin were originally conceived of as a location in and of themselves rather than merely a pause in a journey. However, with the widespread adoption of personal automobiles and the subsequent overdevelopment of UK road infrastructure, these spaces transitioned into liminal spaces. This increase in travellers far beyond older design parameters has led to an ephemeral flux of people transitioning through service stations at all hours, leaving only trash in their wake.

Not only this, there are perceived time distortions associated with such spaces, exacerbated by the deliberate absence of clocks to encourage longer stays, and 24-hour opening times with rolling, opening, closing, cleaning, and restocking routines. I propose that because these spaces are devoid of persistent humanity and consistent time perception, they have thus become dislocated from humanity's shared mindscape, and there are unique health risks to people who are overexposed to this phenomenon.

In essence, I believe the architectural hunger of a space that resents its own transitional nature can be dangerous, and I have a unique personal insight into this phenomenon. I originally took my role as a night janitor at Fortin following a protracted divorce which cost me the majority of my friendships. The ensuing stress episode led me to quit my job as a deputy fiduciary services administrator. I thus applied and successfully interviewed for a low-stress janitor role despite my over-qualifications.

At the same time, I successfully applied for the architecture program at Lancashire University as a mature 51-year-old student. I soon came to realize that Fulton Services is an ideal example of brutal liminalism, given its status as both a popular motorway service station and a landmark of brutalist architecture. And I believe this is primarily thanks to the 20-meter Pennine Tower, which was listed in 2012 despite being closed to the public.

The site is 17.7 acres, featuring an eastern picnic site and facilities on both sides of the M6 motorway, with seating for 700 people, 101 toilets and 403 parking spaces. The top of the tower once held a fine dining restaurant with a roof-level sun terrace, both of which featured unmatched panoramic views of the surrounding rural countryside on all sides.

Unfortunately, the effects of brutal liminality soon took effect, with a 1978 government review describing the site as a "soulless fairground" and the restaurant became a "trucking lounge" before being closed to the public in 1989. No one has eaten there in decades. There were later failed attempts to repurpose the space, but in 2017 the two pentagonal lifts in the centre of the tower shaft were replaced, leaving the higher floors derelict and inaccessible.

The tower still stands overlooking the surrounding countryside, the only access via the brutally liminal fort and services below, but the entrance is sealed, and this is perhaps for the best. Despite being unable to enter the tower itself, I myself still came to find that over the months of my work there I was undergoing a psychological shift. It was initially subtle enough that I failed to notice it, and when I did, I assumed there was a rational explanation. Put simply, there were less and less people every night.

At first I assumed it was some seasonal change I hadn't accounted for, but every day it grew more pronounced until finally, one night, I realised that I had not seen a single person. This was obviously impossible, but it was verified by my log. See fig 1. I racked my brains, trying to remember if I had caught even a glimpse, but no. No one. Intrigued, I stepped outside to check the car park. There wasn't a single car, but there was something else.

As my eyes adjusted to the amber-lit expanse, I started to notice streaks of light lingering in the air. There was a nebulous haze across the entire car park, a melange of muted colours punctuated with more vivid reds, whites and yellows. But even more curiously, I realised it primarily hovered over the asphalt. The greenery and walkways were mostly clear. The effect was curiously familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

I have since been unable to determine if this effect was psychological, physiological, or atmospheric in nature, but I maintain that the phenomena was accompanied by a disquieting sense of absence, of hunger. I squinted again, trying to make out details in those long, waving, iridescent strips.

I could trace denser routes through the chaos leading through the main doors to the facilities. And as I watched, a memory of my ex-wife's photography leapt unbidden to my mind. My favourite shot that she'd given me on our seventh anniversary: a study of traffic. That's when I realised why this all felt so familiar. Time lapse. If I could have walked into that photo, this must be what it would have felt like. It would have been beautiful, if it weren't so unsettling.

In retrospect, I was clearly having some kind of severe hallucinatory episode, brought on by long-term exposure to the space. I knew I should probably just sit quietly and wait it out, but the glowing mist had already crept into the building itself, and my only instinct was to hide, to find somewhere, anywhere that I might be free of that overwhelming miasma sloshing back and forth within the foyer, threatening to wash me away with it.

I retreated, away from the main entrance, away from the densest areas of the kaleidoscope in the hopes of finding somewhere less overwhelmingly saturated. And that was when I saw the woman. She was tall, young and thin, almost to the point of malnourishment, dressed similarly to a stewardess with her tightly fitting blue waistcoat buttoned over a sensible-looking grey skirt. She was beaming, holding open the door to the lift and inviting me inside.

There was a small brass badge on her waistcoat, but instead of a name, it simply read, "You are here." I hesitated a moment, but before I could consider her strangeness, a particularly high tide of colour swept down the corridor towards me. I panicked, and before I realised what I was doing, I had darted inside the lift and slammed the closed door button. "Thank you," I croaked, my voice catching from disuse.

She didn't seem to notice, and instead continued to smile warmly at me as she reached across and pushed the button for the penultimate floor marked "Restaurant", a button I knew was disabled. The lift started to climb. I stood, leaning against the doors, and tried to catch my breath as she began to speak. "Good evening," she exclaimed. "It's my pleasure to welcome you." "You are here. Stay a while." I gabbled some indeterminate question, and her rictus grin stayed as wide as ever. But she said nothing.

Then the doors to the lift opened with a ping and I tumbled backwards onto the floor. "Stay a while," she called again before the lift doors closed, depositing me in the tower. I'd been shown the locked tower stairway on my first day by my predecessor Molly, and I knew there was nothing up there anymore apart from damp and broken furniture. At least, there shouldn't have been. Before me though was a restaurant. Spotless and bright with retro 60s decor and the sweet smell of frying pork drifting towards me from the central kitchen.

Chairs and tables lined the outside wall, each of which sported a large window which would have granted an impressive view of the landscape below if they weren't all blacked out. This didn't seem to concern the diners, however, who were perfectly content eating whilst chatting amiably with one another. There was a moment of relief then, for as strange as the situation was, at least there were people. I was no longer trapped in that bizarre, solitary aurora limbo downstairs. The feeling faded though when I heard what they were saying.

or rather what they weren't saying looking around the restaurant was near capacity with only one free table but when i tried to listen to any one conversation it was just noise a muffled murmur that sounded like speech but held no information their mouths were moving but all i could make out was a meaningless garble just the impression of speech nothing more similarly as i looked closer at the diners themselves i noticed oddly repeating elements to them

Three women were wearing the same blood red heels, two men the same blue coats, and worse, there were even recurring features iterating on different faces. The same green eyes on two women, identical mustaches on three men. These were as much an impression of people as the sound was an impression of speech, and they were all so horribly thin.

A chef turned to me, the same smile on his face below a fourth version of a bushy moustache, an identical "You are here" nametag on his chest. He gestured from his place behind the counter to the only open table. "Good evening," he cried. "You are here. We hope you stay a while." I automatically stepped towards the table before I caught myself. At the same time, everybody in the room seemed to lean ever so slightly forward in anticipation. And that was when I noticed the breeze blowing in through the blacked-out windows.

Only they weren't blacked out. They weren't even windows. They were gaping square holes and beyond them was nothing at all. Any one of the diners could reach out if they had a mind to and plunge their hand outwards into the dark, foreboding and utterly featureless void. There was nothing. Nothing above, nothing below, nothing at all. Nothing. Save the tower and the restaurant. My whole body recoiled from that awful absence and I retreated backwards towards the lift.

That was when the gentle murmur of non-speech abruptly ceased to be replaced with a complete and utter silence. Everyone was still smiling, but their repeating faces had frozen, staring straight at me. The chef spoke again, and though his tone hadn't changed, it was clear this was no longer a request. "Stay a while," the diners echoed his words, a gradual chorus disseminating about the room, overlapping and entwining, wrapping me up and dragging me back towards the table. "Stay a while."

Their grip on me tightened, a dozen hands pushing and pulling me as one. Then a man with that same moustache leant down towards my leg, opened his mouth, bit into me. Pain shot through my body, but my thrashing was in vain as one of the women buried her teeth in my shoulder and I could feel hot blood flowing down my back whilst at the same time the chef took off one of my fingers, the bone barely slowing his chiselled jaw. I screamed,

But the sound withered, draining out the windows into nothing. With a sudden surge of adrenaline, I shoved and kicked and fought my way free of the emaciated crowd, their thin and brittle bodies offering little resistance despite their number. But I had nowhere to go. The lift had disappeared as if it had never been, and beyond the windows there was, of course, nothing. "You are here," I thought bitterly. And so?

When faced with the prospect of being eaten alive, or leaping out of one of those windows into pure oblivion, it was no choice at all. I jumped. The paramedics listed my missing finger and other injuries as having been received when I fell from the tower, and, barring further evidence to the contrary, which I shall not be returning to Fordham to collect, I am forced to accept their diagnosis of falling damage and associated trauma as a result of a stress-induced psychotic episode.

In conclusion, there is no question that my time working at Fortin Services has affected me profoundly. This experience is proof of the intense mental pressure that such brutal liminalism can have upon a person who is overexposed to such hungry architecture. I can only apologise for my unintentional extended absence. I hope this may provide some context, though I am painfully aware that no missing person report was filed with the police since apparently none of my colleagues, tutors, or fellow students noticed my absence.

Nonetheless, I hope that this can still be considered an extenuating circumstance and that my findings do merit further study, though I would request that any further work be passed to another student. Alice? Alice! Hmm? You did it again. Hmm. Don't "hmm" me.

We agreed that when you empty the kettle, you fill it back up after. It's not empty. There's not even a third of a cup in there. So it's not empty then, is it? It's bad enough that you deliberately try to find hawkers and leave them running just to mess with me. Allegedly. But the least you could do is keep the kettle filled. You sound stressed.

Problems up the corporate ladder? Already feeling the strain of Deputy President of Executive Synergy? External liaison. And of course, we both know what that means, right? I assume I'm going to be managing a bunch of contractors. Contractors for what? I'll be receiving a more comprehensive overview shortly. Gosh, how exciting. I do hope you decide to tell those lowly grunts when Lena finally figures out what your job is.

Assuming any of us are still here by then. What's that supposed to mean? Just been a lot of changes round here recently. I don't love it. Teddy, Sam, Celia. And did you hear Lena put Colin on mental health leave? What? Oh yeah, it was the whole thing. He flipped out and smashed up Sam's phone. He always said he was unbalanced. You say a lot of things. Mostly crap. I don't know.

Feels like something's going on here. What's going on is a massive backlog that you aren't helping with. Speaking of, where are Sam and Celia? They finished their caseloads early so they headed off together. They can't just leave like that without even signing out. Maybe they were too busy getting hot and heavy to Norris' sexy drone and didn't notice. Don't be gross. You got it, boss.

Sorry for the mess, I wasn't expecting anyone. One empty mug hardly counts as mess. Oh, you're too kind. There's some fresh sourdough rolls if you want a bite. No, thank you. You sure? Homemade lemon curd to go with it. We're fine, honestly. Tea? Coffee? Orange juice? You're very kind, but nothing for us, thank you. Well, if you're sure. So, where were we?

I don't think I caught your names. Sam. Celia. Pleasure to meet you both. I'm Gerry. We know. Right, of course you do. You lost for me, duh. So, what can I do you for? Right, well... Is this place all yours? With London rent? Hardly. Don't get me wrong, landlords lovely and all, but no, I still share it with Gigi. Gigi? That would be me. Visitors, Gigi! Yes, I can see that, Gerry.

To what do we owe this early morning pleasure? Oh, yeah, sorry, we work nights, so... So? Ahem.

Well, uh, we were wondering... Did you paint this? Excuse me? Oh, yes. I call it Camden Epiphany. Do you like it? It's lovely. Well, you can have it if you want. Oh, no, I couldn't. It's fine, honestly. I've got plenty more out back. You'd be doing us a favour, to be honest. Gigi's always saying they take up too much space, aren't you, Gigi? What exactly did you say was your business with my grandson? Uh, Sam? Right, of course.

I was wondering if you knew anything about the Magnus Institute? I was on one of their gifted kids programs and I got a hold of a list of a few of the other kids and thought it might be nice if we could get in contact, swap stories and things. I see. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't think Jerry can help you. Yeah, I barely remember any of it. Oh.

So you were a candidate? Oh yeah, but I was pretty young. I remember filling in a bunch of forms and questionnaires and then some old men asking me questions about what books I like to read, who did I look up to, that kind of thing. And then I left. That's all? Yeah, afraid so. Other than just sitting around with a bunch of other kids in a room that smelled like old books. Well, if that's all, we really have to get on with our day. Of course. We'll just be going then.

Oh well. Oh, don't take it too much to heart. It's such a lovely morning. You're not wrong. Off you go then. Nice to meet you both. Don't forget Camden Epiphany. Wouldn't dream of it. And come back soon. Always a pleasure to chat with old friends. I don't know they'll have much reason to, Jerry. Good luck hunting elsewhere. Thanks again for your time. Bye, Jerry! Bye, Celia! I like them. Of course you do.

Well, that was... Nice! A dead end. Yeah. Free painting, though. How'd you intend to get that on the tube? I'll figure it out. Thanks for coming with me, Cedia. I know we've only been working together a few weeks. Hey, it was my idea, remember? I know Alice just wants me to drop this whole Magnus thing, but, well, I had to try. Not that it matters. Dead ends all the way down. Well...

Maybe you can help me with my mystery? And what mystery is that? I'm trying to look into weird physics stuff. Time travel, other dimensions, teleportation, all that good stuff. Freddie doesn't really do searches, so you could keep an eye out and let me know if any come up in your cases. Sounds a bit sci-fi compared to our usuals. What's this for?

You're not doing research for that podcast you're on, are you? You know about that. I might have given you a quick google. Then, yeah. I'm doing a favour for Georgie. Fair enough. So, do we have a deal? Help with each other's mysteries? Yeah, alright. Deal. Great. Also, as part of the deal, you have to carry this painting on the tube. Now, hang on.

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 Lorianne Davis, soundscaping by Tessa Vroom.

and mastering by Catherine Rinella, with music by Sam Jones. It featured Billy Hindle as Alistair, Shahan Hamza as Samama Khalid, Anusha Battersby as Gwen Bouchard, Laurie Ann 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 McDonagh, Lynn See, and Samantha F.G. Hamilton.

and associate producers Jordan L. Hawke, Taylor Michaels, Nicole Perlman, Cetius the Raven, 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 via mail at RustyQuill.com. Thanks for listening.

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