Olympia - SCP Foundation

The professor felt a familiar, cold linoleum under his feet as he padded his way through the facility. It had been a long time, but everything still felt like how he remembered it. The entrance hall looked exactly the same, sans the furniture and decorative pieces. He could still remember coming through here on the first day, excited and ready to begin work on the project. Things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped with it, but he'd gone as far as he could. Those early days had been full of hope, that they could make the Foundation stronger. They were pushing the threshold of cross-anomalous testing to a point that had never been passed before.

General Anders tried to suppress his laugh as he watched the new director plod past the security checkpoint. It was completely ridiculous, having a dog of a man in charge of a project like this. Even if it was a brainy dog. Anders shrugged, and went back to reviewing the documents he'd requested. D-Class requisitions, anomalous relocation forms… just more weight dragging the project behind his schedule.

The roof of the research halls loomed imposingly overhead as the professor wandered through them, reading the sign of every door as he passed. Wehrner… lost him in '76 . Jacob… he left in '78. There were a few empty offices, ones that had the names removed for various reasons. Still, they'd had some good work in here. It was a place where history had almost been made.

This was always the most boring part of the job, the component stage. Measuring the subject's health, age, weight, and all that jazz… it was so tedious. He didn't even get to disassemble them, that was in assembly. All he got to do was count, cut and repeat. He wiped his gloves as he continued the prep. While he was thinking about it, they really ought to send them some more potent painkillers.

The professor recoiled as he caught a whiff of the old D-Class dormitories. Shaking his head, he quickened his pace. The D-Class had only been used for scientific purposes, which was a cause to strengthen the Foundation. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe some people had criticized him for allowing the waste to occur, why he hadn't tried to stop it. It hadn't even been his fault… Anders had ordered the D-Class. So it was the general's fault. Anders had been removed from the project, so the blame had lain with him.

The man looked up at the huge instruments suspended above him. They glistened in the dim light, with a copper sheen and several looming shapes in the dark. Something in the mess of gears began to emit a low hum, and the restraints around his wrists began to tighten. He sucked in a breath as a dull pain shot up his back, and slowly pulled up the spine. It felt agonizing, like someone dragging a sharp, burning hunk of iron down his back, stopping every few seconds when it got stuck and had to yank down itself to be dislodged. It continued to his neck, and he felt a sharp pain in the base of the skull. Soon, doctors would come to look at him, deem him an improperly formatted component, then move on to another test subject.

There was a door in the back, leading into the primary testing chambers. Most of the lab and test equipment had been left in these rooms, due to their antiquity making them unsuited for current Foundation testing. The professor passed by imposing lead pipes, interspaced by brass contraptions, with the capability to performing all sorts of biological testing. Release pipes jutted out of the walls and ceilings at every door, with the doors themselves being made of smooth steel. He walked by them, remembering the daily grind of testing, trying to find that one room.

Alan placed the body in front of 158, and pushed the procedural conditions to the optimal means. He sluggishly returned to the control chamber, and watched the machine do its work. On the first day, removing the souls of the condemned had seemed wicked cool, but since then the luster had worn off. It really was just a monotonous job. Push button, remove soul. Push button, send soul to another dude. He wasn't even doing any souls for the project, these were just test souls. Heh, there's a job he never would've dreamed of before. "Professional soul extractor".

Soon, the testing chambers gave way to the containment chambers. The prototypes had all been held here, each a new drain on resources. Even though the successful prototypes had been few and far between, each failure had taught them a little more about how these objects worked. Sometimes the lessons had been costly, but they always learned new things. At the end of the endless sets of concrete boxes and steel entrances, there was a simple wooden door. Kain pushed it open.

He had spent his last day with her, playing some catch. She always loved playing it with him, laughing every time he retrieved whatever she had thrown. They had finished playing, deciding instead to rest on the linoleum floor. Ruffling his head, they rested together. When the guards came, she refused to go. Didn't want to end up like the others, decommissioned and forgotten. He told her it was okay. That they were only taking her for a medical check before they let her go with him. She trusted him.

As of 7/19/████, all activity related to Project Olympia has been discontinued. Overwatch Command has deemed it to be a gross waste of resources, and permanently removed support for the project, with personnel assigned to work with it being moved to alternate sites. A hearing is to be held with the project administrators to determine how the project was able to continue as long as it did despite the lack of any concrete results. Prototypes and other equipment have been slated to be decommissioned.