Hi there, Billy Hindel here, the voice of Alice Dyer in the Magnus Protocol, ...
Magnus Archives 10th anniversary. Rusty Quill is hosting a special Magnus live show at the upcoming Crossed Wires podcast festival in Sheffield. Join co-creators Jonathan Sins and Alexander J. Newell on the 5th of July for a new iteration of our live show, Statement begins, where you can hear fan favourite statements such as Anglefish, Red Live and gain exclusive insights into the creation and history of the show, straight from the creators themselves. You can buy
your tickets now including limited numbers of meet and greet tickets from crustwires.live, or the link in the description of this episode. Hi everyone, it's Jania. Today we're sharing an episode from a podcast on the Archive Network, cold tapes. Cold tapes is an award-winning murder mystery
audio drama inspired by True Crime. In this first episode called Operation Antelope,
the brutal murder of Andrew Fairfield on a remote Antarctic base thrust DCI Tessa McAllister into the claustrophobic lives of an isolated community of international scientists and crew. Through police interviews, covert recordings and audio diaries, Tessa hears hidden agendas, concealed criminal histories, violent psychosis and dangerous conspiracy theories that help her uncover the truth behind the murder. With the murderer still on the base, it's a race against time
to untangle the maze of deception, revealing chilling truths buried beneath the eyes. 16 suspects, one murderer, can you solve it? To listen to more, you can click on the link in the description, or search for cold tapes wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find more information at RustyQuil.com or coldtapes.com. Have fun and enjoy the episode. Tell me a little bit, some have come in and it's not exactly uncomplicated.
Mm-hmm, I'm all ears. 33-year-old male named Andrew Fairfield, kind of dead a few days ago, 21st of June. His body was found at the bottom of a small ravine, at sorry, crevasse apparently there is a distinction. It's about a 30-minute walk away from the Antarctic base he'd been working now. Antarctica? Yeah, the base is called
“Bowers, something Bowers, Wilson. So what's the man glad to do with it?”
Yeah, I'm just getting to that. That looks like Orienteating was never my strongest point, but surely
this one goes to that Aussie forest, right? Or are we meeting it? Is it the Ques? No, it's a bloody jurisdiction on mine field, because from what's called the Antarctic Treaty, and also the overall politics. It was thought that the case nearly fell to the Yans, because the US company operates the base, but for now this investigation is falling under the UK jurisdiction, because Fairfield's a pretty UK citizen. It seems like Antarctica itself
is a kind of no man's land. Where were Fairfield's pronged exactly? Longer. Okay, but again, the thermal sort of storage now. Yeah, so this is the issue. Nobody's getting to the base, and nobody's leaving that base for months. It's completely
“inaccessible during the winter months. Wait a minute, 21st of June, that the midwinter, right?”
Correct. Not that mangling for a holiday here, but should you get a plane to land or something, right? No planes in or out their engines for his apparently, has just the fuel. Well, is there? Yeah, and this is the orbit. The base is totally cut off for at least another three or four months, so the investigation is going to have to be done remotely. I'm not saying that's impossible. Yeah, so it's the only possibility I'm afraid.
Do they have a cause of death? Yep, they're the first to be blunt force trauma to the head.
How do we even carry out a post-mortem? Look, I'm not trying to cowboy show them all in best to get special. I just want to make sure we're covering our tracks here at John. I appreciate that, but this isn't where we can't transport the body. Any official cause of death can't be a hundred percent confirmed with this stage. However, the base medic has carried out a makeshift post-mortem of torts. We're in it. The base medic, that's going to be tampering with
any further evidence, surely. On the supervision, I listen to a recording just now and everything suggests that we're looking at murder here. I'll get that audio across too soon. Please,
“he was found at the bottom of the crevasse. That means how do we know he doesn't fall or jump?”
Well, it seems highly unlikely his injuries don't line up with a fall. Also, he wasn't wearing all the appropriate clothing for venturing outdoors in those conditions. He had some, but these people take their get-ups seriously. The officer in charge of the base thinks it's
Suspicious that he was missing these layers.
Set officer in charge, A, U, Hans, and along with his deputy, Mateo, the Lombardy. They work for a company called Keone Industries who run the whole base. Did you see Keone? Yeah, have you heard of him? Yeah, yeah, yeah, from a military day to me, we're not for a long time, no. Got that idea that they're moving to Antarctica, exploration. Yeah, I'm going to go with space bases to a front. Well, I guess we'll have to diversify. Excuse me, can you just take
me through how he was found? Yeah, partly because a GPS truck is thrown into everybody's coat, when they discover perfume. They're missing, likely having left the base, they activated the beat, and led them straight to him. Well, the crevasse that yesterday was made to look like an act
“of them. Well, that's what we need to find out. Seems the GPS was new kit. Without it, chances”
are the body would never have been found. Those in the base would assume that it can go press
out, left the base for a walk, disappeared, lost in a blizzard or something. And was it a blizzard? Uh, don't know. And people do that. Did they just go for a walk? Not without signing the lock. I think it hadn't been. Listen, unfortunately, this isn't the early strange thing that happened on the base of this time period, and the two things may not be related to trouble that it's worth mentioning. A couple of weeks before Andrew's body was found,
the base is engineer, a Mark Renek, had a full psychotic breakdown. The crew were forced to sedate him and then they had to lock him and I make shit. So, right, what was that got to do with our victim? Firstly, it seems to have questioned the nature of Mark's breakdown on a number of occasions. He said he found it too fast and they break down to extreme. He had his suspicions that someone was drugging Mark or doing something to cause the breakdown. He was apparently very vocal about it.
Like, could this guy mark have been taken any drugs himself? Well, possibly. It's all up for investigation.
Well, even at what authority would Andrew have to make that call, was this observation?
“That's why I should have left with this fanfield's behavioral scientist, a doctor.”
He was down there in research on the entire crew's psychological state. Psychological state during a period of extreme isolation. Yeah, exactly. Nice. Well, that's been certainly in a can of worms. How many people are there on this face? Uh, the 16 left on this one. It's one of the smaller faces. That includes Mark who's still locked up.
And since Andrew's death, there's a base to curve you in place, so we need to make this a priority. They really don't want anyone else losing their shit. Eh, but, traffic. Who's making all these decisions right now? But apparently it's a base protocol. I'm guessing it's coming from Kim. Oh, I don't know. Sorry. I mean, I have got a lot on with my current case.
I mean, I'm up to my ear. Good, the eyes on the others. Leave them working on those for now.
Okay, but I'm getting really close in the moron case. I don't want to let go of that. No, we never just...
Esther, this has to be the focus. You'll only have access to the 16 crew members remotely, so I need you to be handling all the main interviews. Someone amongst them is our killer, and the others maybe witnesses. But I need your experienced judgment here. Okay, can we have a video conference?
Uh, I don't know. I think it may just be cool. I need to see their faces, like I said. Esther, I don't think anything about their communications sets are coming. Oh, well, I'll ask. Now listen, there's a time difference.
Go on. They're 12 hours ahead, so I fear you're working. You're mainly nice for the foreseeable future.
“Yeah, perhaps you should have led with that.”
Yeah, perhaps. Listen, you won't be alone. Right, okay, yeah, talking of which. Who's going to be on my team? I'd love to take Mike with me on this one. I think it's nice. I don't know. Sorry, Tess, I need to keep him where he is from now on.
We'll have access to all your normal resources, of course. And I'm assigning detective Sergeant Nadveen Balsar to the case. He's a great tier 5 advisor, comes highly working at the crew. Yeah, I'm just good. Okay, if he assigned a case name yet.
Yeah, operation, and so on. Jesus, how are you on to case names of ADN already? Well, that's been a busy year. I think I see that again. The account has been out of no homes already in the operation name is allocated to this case.
Okay, but I'm going to want access to everyone on the basis phones. I mean, if I say pretty, please, and they still won't give them up, then who do I head to for a corridor? God knows, as I say, this one's a jurisdiction or nightmare, but let them try and find out.
Oh, okay, thanks.
Does the victim have family here?
Yeah, I've already appointed DCF from a quick post. The leader, follow. He's made contact with the family already. Yeah, great, good. Let's look at all of the speedruns today.
Great, thanks. Okay, so, getting the ground running, I'll get DSBalsar at a speed to the intelligence unit, start pulling information on what we're seeing people at the base, background checks,
“any records, like regarding the engineers breakdown, I think we're going to need to speak to”
psychologists at, I'm just not sure why Andrew Fairfield would see a red flag over Mark's presentation
symptoms. Yeah. Actually, likewise, toxicology, I mean, if Andrew was on something, we would need to know what substances could have precipitated that kind of breakdown, you know. Yeah, that makes sense.
The CEO of Q&A Industries has asked to schedule a call for today, they're highly invested in getting this result, as you can imagine. Yeah, I'm sure they are nothing short, but be a disaster for them. Yeah, not just them, I've got the defence department, why you're all breathing down my neck about you.
I don't know, pressure there, then. Never is.
“Yeah, to good thing I'm a bloody insomniac.”
Yeah, see, I knew this case had your name all over it. Yeah, thanks. Professor, I've got to take this by for now. Yeah, bye. To listen to the next exciting episode, you can click on the link in the description.
Or search for called tapes wherever you get your podcasts, or you can find more information on RustyQuill.com or called tapes.com. Thanks for listening. Billy Hindel here, the voice of Alice in the Magnus protocol, and I'm here to tell you about from the library of Yergen Lightning,
an upcoming novel available for pre-order right now at RustyQuill.com/novel. We turn to the world of the Magnus Archives. In from the library of Yergen Lightning, an official pre-core novel written by Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora Award-winning author, Creamy Mohammed, with the help of the Magnus Archives,
own writer, and lead voice Jonathan Sims. From the library of Yergen Lightning,
explores an infamous organization from the Magnus first,
for the first time, the perilous private library of the Enigmatic collector Yergen Lightning, where occult books are guarded and researched at a fatal cost. Lightness library keeps the dangers of these books in check, and there would be reader's safe, or so lightness claims.
For two of lightness employees, the risks are worth it. For Hugh Franklin, the library is a place to belong, for Sebastian Everett. The library is an opportunity to indulge arcane ambitions, though there are 10 years that the library were years apart,
human Sebastian's stories unfold in parallel, and their footsteps echo down the same eerie aisles. Court in a web spun long before either ever heard the name "Yergen Lightning". Will they find a way out?
“Or will the library consume them before it's too late?”
From the library of Yergen Lightning, we'll be published on October 27th, 2026, and is available for pre-order now, visit rusticool.com/novel for more information. That's rusticool.com/n-o-v-e-l.
