SCP Foundation: Entries

SCP-2761

Dr. Watkins: What the hell is—

Dr. Nakamura: Holy shit.

Researcher Liu: Is it possible that this fish could have originally been one you engineered?

Dr. Watkins: (Stammers.) I— I—

Researcher Liu: It appears that its genome is very unstable, and is somehow able to express the genes of other animals it eats. Is it possible that something could have gone wrong with the gene splicing in its early stages?

Dr. Nakamura: I mean — It... It looks like it could possibly be... I mean... it's definitely yellow, so— But that looks nothing like a pipefish, and ours were only about twenty centimeters long —

Dr. Watkins: Oh, shit.

Researcher Liu: Dr. Watkins?

Dr. Nakamura: Pearl? What's wrong?

Dr. Watkins: Son of a bitch. I should've known he'd do something like that.

Researcher Liu: Dr. Watkins, please, explain what is going on.

Dr. Watkins: Higgins. I caught Higgins pulling some shit during the first few weeks of initial gene splicing.

Dr. Nakamura: ... Pearl. I thought you had Higgins fired after the stunt he pulled with the Peanut Jellyfish. You let him work on my team?

Dr. Watkins: He's one of our lead geneticists, Marcus, it's not like I could just get rid of him. Do you understand how difficult it is to splice more than a third of the genes from a goddamn fruit to a fish and still make it act like a fish?

Researcher Liu: Dr. Watkins, Dr. Nakamura, if you please.

Dr. Nakamura: I apologize, Mr. Liu. You see, our, um, Scenty Fish project. It encountered quite a few bumps in the R&D.

Dr. Watkins: That is a gross understatement. There are fifty chromosomes in a pineapple to work with and the puffer species we were working with only had —

Dr. Nakamura: So, it seems that, without my knowledge, Pearl decided to temporarily hire Dr. Gregory Higgins to my research team. He has... since been terminated from Aquagene for unprofessionalism.

Dr. Watkins: You see, Mr. Liu, Greg was a bit of a wild card in our department. He was smart, brilliant, even. But, he... He'd like to do his own little side projects, even sometimes made unauthorized modifications to our fish because he thought he could improve their marketability.

Researcher Liu: I see. Were there any incidents leading up to our capture of this specimen?

Dr. Watkins: (Sighs and rubs temples.) Unfortunately, yes. In about the fifth week of development, I caught Higgins tampering with a batch of the baby banana pipefish. He was... making them more carnivorous, more yellow. He said he thought it would be [EXPLETIVE] hilarious if we could sneak a biting banana into the local grocery stores. Obviously, it was a gross breach of conduct, and not even within our main market of interest. So I confiscated them. However, Rayleigh wouldn't be in for proper disposal till next morning, so I left them locked in my office with a note on the door.

Researcher Liu: If you were able to retrieve them, then how did —

Dr. Watkins: When I came into work the next day, the fish were gone. I asked Rayleigh if he had gotten rid of them, and he said he hadn't even gone around to pick up stuff yet. So I went to Higgins. He said he'd disposed of them himself, even walked me to the takeaway unit to prove those things were there.

Dr. Nakamura: Pearl, are you saying that he made —

Dr. Watkins: Mr. Liu, is there anything else unusual you found in this fish's biology, apart from the fact that its genome was highly susceptible to change? Particularly, diet?

Researcher Liu: Yes, actually. We've taken waste samples from this organism. It appears that it contains a multitude of gut flora usually found in people, along with various carcinogens.

Dr. Nakamura: (Silent.) Oh my god.

Dr. Watkins: ... You've got to be shitting me.

Dr. Nakamura: So... Higgins must have made more of those things after he took them back, put the originals in the disposal unit and then—

Dr. Watkins: And then flushed the rest of them down the goddamn

<End Log, 1350>