02/12/2008
I got nearly no sleep yesterday. I was so consumed with the extractor that all my previous appointments I either forgot, or simply blew off. Unprofessional and immature, I know, but I couldn't tear myself away from it. Now that I've exhausted myself and managed to break away, I now see what else I have to do.
Emma was a little upset that I had "flaked" on our little lunch, but I've promised her that I'll drop by either today or tomorrow to talk to her, and that I'd bring her even more little snacks. I realise this is spoiling her a little, but the girl has been through figurative firestorms, not to mention what she was like when we found her. She deserves a little spoiling every now and then. Of course, ever since Clef went on his little rampage I've been a little nervous about her safety. Granted, she's a maelstrom of energy, capable of warping life to degrees we cannot even fathom, but beneath that, is a small, lonely little girl, who really just wanted some friends. It's just I feel kind of bad for her. I know that's not very unbiased, but I have a soft spot for children. Besides, I think I made very clear to Clef exactly what I thought of his little "outburst".
I've received a clear estimation of when those new tools will be ready for the excavation. They've told me Friday, but that's if they push it to the limit. I've agreed with that, and added a bonus to their fee for being gracious about my demands. Still… I hate to leave this project alone for that long. But, at the very least, no accidents can happen there till then, so I guess some good can come of it.
I had put the dispersal of D-Class personnel here on hold for the past two days, until I choose the ones I want, making the rest of the site coordinators rather snippy with me. I had forgotten completely about it, due to aforementioned reasons, but I'll try and get down to it later today or tomorrow, before I speak with Emma.
I've applied for official project status regarding my working for an assistant, it being christened the "Olympia Project". I was actually hoping for it to be named after the Chimera, but I guess being named after Olimpia from E.T. Hoffman's "Der Sandmann" isn't so bad either. High Command aren't exactly entirely sure about exactly what I'm doing in this project but as long as I'm getting all this research done, they don't seem to care, unless I blow this place up.
03/12/2008
My interaction today with the extractor is something that was… unnerving to say the least. I still cannot believe what has happened. The composite soul… Subject Zero… despite that it does not want to be called that, I have nothing else to call it until it chooses a new moniker. I had never even once thought that something like this would occur when I started even that part of the project. I may have fostered something that will have an effect on the course of history far beyond what I can expect. I may have gone a little bit too far just for an assistant.
I had lunch with Emma today. Well, make believe tea, with plastic cutlery and several of her creations rather than dolls. I had to explain to her in her own terms what I was trying to do. I was trying to make myself a friend, although I didn't have the abilities that she did to make one, so I'd need her help. She was a little apprehensive when I told her exactly what she'd be doing in order to help me, but a few more bribes of chocolate and she was more than willing to go on with me. Sometimes I'm grateful that she's just a child and has no real concept of what she's doing to other human beings, or what will happen to them afterward. But it does make me feel the slightest bad inside, for having manipulated her, and for leaving this stain on her consciousness for the day she realises what she's done. Bah, if only Clef could hear me now. I hate being like this. I hate thinking he's right.
I still haven't made my selection of D-Class Personnel, and the coordinators of the site are really breathing down my neck. I've held up the entire experiment process for the rest of the site for the past three days, and they're getting more behind schedule than normal. I heard some mentions of "tarring and feathering" so I've resolved to make absolutely sure that I select them tomorrow.
I've been going over the makeshift instructions for the disassembler that Agatha had written after her experiments with it. I must say, it really does seem to be capable of some interesting things, although it seems almost as if she omitted certain things. I'll have to talk to her about it at length. Pick her brain about it, so to speak.
Speaking of which, I really must speak to Gears about the clockworks when I next see him. It really does factor in heavily with my little project, and there really isn't an instruction manual besides the experiment logs. I doubt if there's anyone in the world who knows more about that thing than he does.
Maybe the three of us could have lunch at some point…
04/12/2008
Subject Zero has taken to following me around. I can't see it, and it doesn't register on any scanners or anything, but I can feel it in a similar way to the way I feel the walker in my head. Its strange, because I can feel it observing my thoughts, my feelings, the inner workings of my mind. I'm naked beneath its mental stare, and not just because my hair is only just starting to grow back. I don't like being this vulnerable to anyone, ever, so I've tried to explain to it the idea of personal privacy, but considering its an entity that almost literally has its heart on its sleeve, it's been slow going.
I chose the subjects today for the project. One of them, who probably had a rough idea of what was going to happen, spat in the face of guard escorting them, calling him a freak, a monster for doing this to them, that the only difference between us and them is that they were caught. While it was physically directed at the guard, I can't help but feel that it was truly directed towards me. It's another one of those small reminders that I'm using people, rather than lab animals. Just another damn thing I have to repress.
I managed to have a sit down with Gears today. He was in Bio-Research Area-12 for some reason or the other, I'm not exactly sure why, but the point of the matter is that we got talking. I told him about the project I would be doing, and he clarified how I'd have to use the clockworks. I won't be able to use it in the way I planned. Instead of using each singular organ, I'm going to have to alter the entire subject, then hope I get the result I was looking for… This seems like it might be a little tedious. And expensive in terms of test subjects.
The tools are almost done. I'm not sure if it's loyalty, fear, or the fact I paid them extra, but they're really going at it, working flat out to try and get them done by tomorrow. Which is good. Very good. I want this excavation to go as fast and as smoothly as possible. And that should be possible with these tools.
I'll be utilizing Emma tomorrow if the excavation doesn't get in the way, and the reassembly during the weekend.
09/12/2008
There was an accident.
We never realized how brittle the outer shell was, only noting its hardness. When we started using the advanced tools, a large fragment of it shattered, very violently. Up to four men were hit with it. The system locked down instantly once the alarms went off.
Within five minutes, the infection had spread throughout the entirety of the staff interred within the area. Within two hours they had utilized all technology inside for their own purposes. Within five hours they had broken containment and attempted to infect everyone else on site.
We had to evacuate the entire site in three hours. That included all SCP. And the infected…
It took us three days to lay them down. Three days. Three WHOLE days in which there was no research done, another twenty five people were killed or infected and cost over four million in damages. We're still cleaning up the biomass.
To say this was catastrophic is an understatement.
So now, because of all this, I have three O5's on my ass, laying the blame for this at my feet having lobbied for excavation so much. Not to mention the paperwork for the thing has amassed into a pile so large, it's in danger of becoming its own sub space dimension.
Everything I've had going has been put on hold. The projects for the entire site have been set back for months, some of them years. The only good thing is the amount of strange bio-tech the infected engineered. If we're lucky, and if I campaign it correctly, I might just get out of this mess better than I started.
11/12/2008
Gah… Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork… I'm drowning in the goddamn stuff, even with the walker working around the clock when I sleep. Evaluation reports, incident reports, repair reports, eyewitness interviews, budgets for the Site, letters to employees families, files for possible new employees, the list goes on and on and on. Makes me wish the fellow who invented bureaucracy is burning in hell. Bastard.
On top of that I've received word of a crazy freak dimension that's opened up to some weird alternate version of this world with the Foundation, only that everything is hideously wrong, and the Foundation is populated by idiots and assholes, where even the D-Class personnel are given guns, and SCPs run rampant. Apparently doctors Clef and Kondraki are exploring it, and the reports they're sending back are both bizarre and frightening.
I've almost completed the clockworks area of the Olympia Project, much to the joy of Subject Zero, (Who still hasn't chosen a name I might add). Still, the processing of raw materials with the clockworks is hard and grueling, involving much time and effort on my part, and the expenditure of more and more, subjects and pieces of equipment. I never thought I'd say this about an experiment session, but I want to finish this one as soon as possible.
Emily is absolutely in fits at me repeatedly "blowing her off". I've tried to explain the complexity of the situation, but you know how children sometimes are. So, in order to appease her (as well as several other SCPs, raise morale, and just generally lower the number of escape attempts) I've told her that we would be celebrating Christmas in the facility. Since this is her first year here, and she's never been… able to celebrate Christmas in her previous life, and so I told her that this would be a good one. I even told her about Santa Claus.
In reality, I was planning to do this thing anyway, but why not use it to calm a force of nature while I'm at it too, huh?
The biomass has finally been fully collected from the excavation incident and, although they're trying not to appear it, the higher ups are rather interested in the tech that was recovered. Of course, inter site politics being what they are, I'm going to make it cost them. For the good of humanity of course. Not that some of them would understand what that was, even if it bit them on the ass…
12/12/2008
Still on the paperwork. Still no end in sight.
At least I got most of the experimentation with the clockworks finished. The machine is interesting, but working with it does take lot out of you. You have to be prepared for everything. That includes running tests for everything. Because sometimes, it'll give you one thing that turns out to be another, such as the time one researcher believed he had a device that could reverse time. Instead, it somehow sucked it from the air. At least, that's what we think happened, as deduced from the notes we found. Ashes aren't exactly talkative.
I'm going to start work with Emily tomorrow. She seems happy about it.
Started making the preparations for whole "Christmas" thing, but with between the mass of paperwork and the Olympia Project eating all my time, I really only got to devise a gameplan, and even then, it was sketchy at best.
Subject Zero has been around me twenty four seven, and I have to say, now that I'm getting kinda used to its (her?) presence, its not actually that bad. Like having an imaginary friend that's actually real. Apparently it (she?) can feel the thoughts of those around it (her?). Fun stuff, although I think it (she?) may be a bit of a gossip. I've never heard so many things I didn't want to know about my colleagues. Especially those ones about the bread. Coincidentally, I'm not eating in the cafeteria again.