Statement of Thomas Neill, regarding his experiences working in malarial research during the spring of 2010.
Statement[]
Thomas Neill worked under Neil Thompson, who was looking into ways to cure Malaria, specifically in making a blood substitute that attracts mosquitoes more than people. They had thousands of mosquitoes at the lab that they used for testing. The blood substitute, dubbed 'haemoglobish', was stored in a bag which had a similar texture to human skin, and even had human hair implanted in it.
In 98% of cases, the lure worked, but funding started to dry up (although Neil may have claimed this due to gambling debts). Neil was descended from the 19th century physician John Snow and had a Victorian syringe that John had once owned. In order to pay his debts and raise funds, Neil decided to sell it. The buyer of the syringe is Mikaele Salesa, where he and Neil exchanged the item and payment in the Three Greyhounds pub in Soho.
After the syringe was sold, strange things started happening around the lab. It became unbearably hot, and the mosquitoes stopped buzzing around their cage, instead waiting on the cage itself. Those working in the lab couldn't find a reason for this sudden change in behaviour. When the blood bags were placed in their cages they would swarm with a new ferocity onto the bags. George Larson, one of the lab technicians, removed one of the blood bags and accidentally dropped it. Instead of the heamoglobish, the bag contained human O-negative blood infected with malaria, yellow fever and a number of other diseases. The lab was locked down to be decontaminated.
Neil became enraged, grabbing a fire extinguisher, he charged into the mosquito cages in an attempt to kill them, as though he blamed them for the recent problems at the lab. The mosquitoes swarmed on him, sending him immediately into shock before killing him.
Thomas was given a glowing recommendation by the facility, and he managed to land a lab tech job at King's College, which involved working with students.
Post-Statement[]
Tim was not able to find anything about this statement from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Neil Thompson (John accidentally calls him Neil Thomas) died on 30th May 2010 in a lab accident. Sasha obtained a copy of Neil's death certificate which listed his death as blood loss and death by misadventure.
John mentions he has been talking to Rosie about contacting Mikaele Salesa. Apparently, Salesa has not been seen for almost two years. Rumours in the trade about his whereabouts vary from an early retirement, to dodging a jail sentence, or even "he was shot dead in Colombia for stealing a priceless artefact from a drug lord."
Thomas Neill died in 2015. Although John is not aware of his cause of death, his house was full of antibiotics, so it must have been something very unpleasant.
Supplement[]
John wonders why Tim is working at the Institute: he has a first in Anthropology from Trinity College and worked at a publishing house for 5 years. Then, for no adequately explained reason, he joined the Magnus Institute. Why would he stay after the siege of Jane Prentiss? Martin interrupts the supplement and John decides to record the supplements somewhere more private in the future.
Continuity[]
- Mikaele Salesa was previously mentioned in MAG 14 and MAG 38.
- At the end of the statement, Thomas Neill refers to Neil Thompson as Neil Thomas. Then the archivist does the same in his recap, calling Neil Thompson Neil Thomas.
| ATTENTION! SPOILERS AHEAD!! This section contains information from later episodes of The Magnus Archives and may contain major spoilers for the setting and plot. Continue at your own risk. |
- Related Entity:
- Related Beings:
- Mikaele Salesa is not connected to one single Entity, trading in all kinds of supernatural artefacts. He used to work for Jurgen Leitner and stole his client list after the library fell. He is protecting himself with an "Old camera with a broken lens" in the post-change world.