SCP-4222 being disentangled from a net.

Item #: SCP-4222

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4222 is to be contained and protected in its natural habitat. Foundation naval assets are to maintain a 5km zone of exclusion around the approximate location of SCP-4222. Civilian vessels approaching the zone are to be redirected using cover story SCP-4222-A ("rescue operation").

MTF Mu-17 ("Sea Shepherds") are tasked with tracking and protecting SCP-4222.

In the event of atypical value fluctuation by City Trust International Bank stock, a marine veterinarian is to assess the health of SCP-4222 within one business day. Personnel assigned to the SCP-4222 containment team are prohibited from purchasing CTIB stock.

Description: SCP-4222 is a Northern bluefin tuna with the City Trust International Bank corporation (CTIB) located in its gut.

SCP-4222 displays no anomalous physical properties other than possessing a financial institution in place of a digestive system. The processes by which SCP-4222 interacts with telecommunication devices and ships/receives materials are not yet understood. Monitoring of wireless transmission indicates that all CTIB transactions are being conducted through SCP-4222; intercepted communications1 confirm that the company's routine operations are occurring inside of a bluefin tuna. No CTIB offices or employees have been confirmed to exist outside of the tuna.2

City Trust International Bank continues to operate, and is financially entangled with 23% of the companies on the New York Stock Exchange. Disruption of the company's operations would cause severe economic instability and threaten the normalcy of the world economy.3 Research on extracting the corporation from the gut of the entity is underway.

The point in time at which City Trust International Bank went or became inside a tuna is the subject of ongoing investigation.

Addenda:

+ Intercepted communication sample

– hide block

From: EstevezJ@████.███

To: WilliamsM@████.███

Subject: Nice work

Congratulations, your call about the conversion rate from squid proteins to deutchmarks was dead on. Unfortunately, Kelly is still out on sick leave - she's been working out of the lower intestine, and that last round of bowel parasites is crossing right through her. We're going to need someone to lock in those trades by the end of the day, the sooner the better.

Get this taken care of, then meet me at the gallbladder after close of trade for a round of enzymes. My treat.

-J

James Estevez

Junior Vice President

Protein Acquisition and Absorption

City Trust International Bank

North Atlantic Region

~~"Capital isn't scarce; vision is" - Sam Walton~~

+ Exploration log 4222-001E

– hide block

An autonomous probe was installed in a bait fish and fed to SCP-4222 to assess its internal anatomy.

Mission commences. Tongue and gill interiors appear normal.

4 seconds: Probe enters the throat. Video shows typical interior of bluefin tuna esophagus. Typing and easy listening jazz can be heard.

12 seconds: Probe enters the stomach. Stomach contents appropriate for a bluefin tuna4 are visible in addition to stomach walls and digestive fluids. The toe of a wingtip shoe is visible protruding from from the stomach wall on the right side of the frame.

13 seconds: A female arm passes through the frame, holding an Android smartphone on which it uses its thumb to type.

14 seconds: A discolored square is visible in the upper part of the frame, with patterns resembling text. Text is illegible, though with formatting that suggests a contract or financial document. Thick fingers5 emerge from the walls of the stomach and begin stroking the interior of the square.

15 seconds: The outline of a face is visible beneath the stomach acid at the bottom of the frame6. The face expresses intense duress and makes motions indicative of drowning.

17 seconds: Stomach wall contracts on the left of the frame as gas bubbles shift in the digestive acid. Cheering and excited vocalization by a group of about 15 voices can be heard in the distance.

18 seconds: Camera reaches the duodenum.

19-278 seconds: Camera rests against sphincter leading into large intestine. Sounds of office equipment and gurgling can be heard periodically.

279 seconds: Camera passes through duodenum into large intestine. Texture and coloration of organ walls are clearly distinct from fish digestive tract; analysis later confirmed that the interior of the large intestine was human rather than piscine.

280-284 seconds: The autonomous probe, which is sized for the bluefin tuna digestive tract, ruptures the wall of the intestine. Heavily muffled, extremely distressed vocalizations can be heard.

285 seconds: Transmission ends as camera is audibly crushed.

4 hours after the conclusion of Exploration 4222-001, reports were detected that Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA had admitted CTIB Chief Financial Officer Jacob Chapman with severe abdominal pain and herniation.7 Foundation automated surveillance was alerted when hospital records stated that "drone parts" were extracted from Chapman's large intestine.

Agents Larson and Reynolds were dispatched to investigate. Contact was lost with the agents shortly after they reported entering the hospital. The agents' implanted tracking devices recorded that they had been transported to the vicinity of SCP-4222; marine rescue teams were deployed, but were unable to locate the agents. Over the next several days, DNA from each of the missing personnel was found in stool samples collected from SCP-4222.

Further exploration of any physical space inside SCP-4222 and/or contractually associated with City Trust International Bank requires L4 approval.

+ Cost Reduction Proposal 4222-018CR (excerpt)

– hide block

Starman (Mu-17 Delta) and trainer during equipment check.

Protection of SCP-4222 requires diverting SCP-4222 from commercial fishing routes and oil spills, diverting sharks and orcas from its location, and ensuring that it is not trapped in discarded nets or other debris. Frequent intervention by divers is required: 336 dives per year on average since initial containment.

Though diving operations are relatively safe and inexpensive, the entity's anomalous properties have proven hazardous to the financial health of human divers. Interfering with SCP-4222's movement path or accidentally passing underneath it can result in the loss of retirement funds, revocation of mortgages, damage to credit scores and in one case the repossession of a set of SCUBA equipment being worn by a containment team member.8 The largest part of SCP-4222's budget in 2017 (64%, up from 49% the previous year) was used to reimburse personnel affected by these phenomena.

To decrease risks and costs associated with SCP-4222, the containment team recommends forming a task force of bottlenose dolphins trained to protect the object and confine it to safe locations within its natural habitat.

Approval was granted following a cost-benefit analysis and Ethics Committee vote of 6-1 in favor. A panel of marine biologists and behavior specialists was convened to develop an appropriate training program for a pod of eleven bottlenose dolphins9 designated MTF Mu-17 ("Sea Shepherds").

Since MTF Mu-17 began operation in January 2017, there have been zero Foundation casualties associated with SCP-4222. The constant proximity of the mobile task force to SCP-4222 has made it possible to reduce the zone of exclusion from 5 to 3 km, lowering the cost of containment by over 20%.

UPDATE November 2017: Following the discovery that the anomaly interacts with the finances of Mu-17's trainers and handlers, 4 of the dolphins10 were trained to teach and reinforce skills related to containment protocols. This action successfully eliminated the need for daily management by human personnel, lowering containment costs by a further 28%.

UPDATE August 2018: Following the escape of Starman (Mu-17 Delta) and Zippy (Mu-17 Kilo), bottlenose dolphins in the wild have been observed herding and collecting bluefin tuna using techniques derived from Foundation training. Efforts to locate and amnesticize all dolphins and other marine mammals exposed to such techniques are underway.

Media and academic reports of dolphins establishing tuna-based economies are to be discredited.

Footnotes

1. See addendum "Intercepted Communication."

2. See addendum "Exploration log 4222-001E."

3. Attempts to wall off or otherwise artificially contain SCP-4222 in a single location have resulted in immediate and severe anomalous fluctuations in the global currency exchange.

4. Biomass composed of tissues from smaller fish, stomach acid, polyps.

5. Analysis of finger proportions indicate that they belong to a male, approximately 50 years old, with a BMI in the "overweight" category and a moderate probability of dying from heart disease within 3 years.

6. Face appears to belong to a male 20 to 40 years of age, but detailed analysis is obscured by digestive fluid and partially digested sardine tissue.

7. Rupturing of the stomach through the abdominal wall.

8. The SCUBA equipment was later found on a Galapagos penguin on the coast of Fernandina Island.

9. Benny, Starman, Ranger, Ursula, Zippy, Rex, Morgan, Charity, Roscoe, Wallace, and Tank

10. Starman, Ursula, Roscoe, and Zippy.