in which we learn about the movement of the Kakos Industries building, Kimmie makes a friend, you get to taste home ownership if only briefly, and Baron O’Beefdip “wins” the Ruin-A-Life Drawing.

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Intro: What you are about to hear is sweet, savory, Salty, bitter and slightly metallic.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help our clients to Do Evil Better. I am CEO Corin Deeth III. Things have been getting back on track here at Kakos Industries. That might not be the case for you where you are, but maybe you’re in a similar situation. At any rate, you’ll be in a similar situation soon enough with any luck. We’ve learned what can be prioritized and what can’t. We’ve learned how to do things at home almost as well, or sometimes even better, than we do in the office. We struggled. We managed. We did the best that we could, both for ourselves and for Evil. We knew that we were not alone, but we suffered so much in isolation. Even as we begin to open ourselves up to the world again, we feel apprehension. It’s all so soon and so sudden. And at the same time, we realize that we have to make the most of the time we have now, because we never know when the better times will give way to some outside force again, be it health related, or civil unrest, or any number of other dark times that affect humanity throughout history. Have faith that we at Kakos Industries will have our hand in it, whatever it is. Even as we return to what might feel normal to us, there is a sense that we are not moving forward into better times, but somehow moving backwards in time. We cope the only ways we know how, and the habits we’ve formed over so many years are comforting in a way. I don’t know about all of you, shareholders, but I worry that old habits should be broken. When life gives you an opportunity for change, it is often wise to do so. To find new opportunities. To find new things to do. To fill our times how we wish instead of how we always did. To be more like what we wanted to be. Certainly, I’m at the peak of my game in terms of career and power and things of that nature. Being the CEO of the best Evil corporation in existence is exactly where I’m supposed to be. But at the same time I feel restless. I considered taking the whole business to the vacation location again, but the other board members decided it was too much to organize people coming back into the office and also moving all of their things to another building entirely. Maybe I’ll take a vacation of my own. I suppose jet setting around the world trying to kill Fourest was a vacation of sorts. But now that he seems so pitiable, the same excitement and urgency is gone. All the same, Soundman and I have been keeping firearms handy just in case we see him. We had to take classes to make sure we knew what we were doing. They’re also biometrically locked to us. There’s a whole insurance thing. At any rate, let’s get on with the announcements.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from a small house you just finished building. It was partly a puzzle, though there were instructions, and I have full faith that you completed it in time. There were some sections in a simplified nether dialect which shareholders should have no trouble reading. If you’re not a shareholder, and you can read simplified nether dialect, then you must be a shareholder of one of those other companies at least because you definitely are Evil. If you weren’t a shareholder before, either you are now, or the dark and horrifying characters caused some deep damage to your brain that you are unlikely to recover from. The simplified nether dialect’s characters were scientifically designed to be tolerable only to Evil minds. Oddly enough, the simplified nether dialect isn’t simpler than nether dialect, and isn’t even related. Go figure. Once you finished the house you started to hear this broadcast. Yes, the call was coming from inside the house. I’m told that it’s a small radio that is actually part of the furniture in the miniature house, but the hollowness of the model house helps to amplify the sounds. This comes to us as a collaboration between the Division of Domesticity and Frank’s Rental Furniture. At Frank’s, don’t ask about what the stain is. I think this project is pretty cool. Let’s move on.

I’ve been floating around the building recently taking stock of things. You see, the building rearranges itself. Sometimes it happens when we move offices from one place to another. Other times it happens when the building itself just rearranges. This can have all kinds of consequences of course. It’s a smart idea to keep tabs on where things are, at least the important things. In my wandering I found an office belonging to the old Division of Sketching Out Your Feelings. About fifteen years ago, they just kind of disappeared and no one heard from them again. It seems that the building had been rearranged such that they were entirely walled in. I found their basically mummified remains sitting at their drafting tables. It was a horrifying and deeply saddening sight. Instead of panicking and attempting to fight their way out fruitlessly, they took the remaining oxygen in their lungs and they started sketching exactly how they felt facing such an unexpected and rare death. I have one of the pieces hanging in my office. It’s detailed and nuanced, but I wonder how much I just think that because of the story I know about it. Kimmie took a quick look at it and said ,”Cool.” So I guess there’s that. It’s kind of this distorted face. It’s like a highly stylized scream. It’s chiaroscuro. Black and white with charcoal. Little bits of light glint what is an oppressively dark scene. It makes me feel something. That’s for sure. It also looks really badass in my office. We had the remains of the artists interred respectfully, and their families finally had the closure they needed. It was nice that we got to do that. I should mention that it is exceedingly rare for someone to become walled in because of the settling of the building. While I can’t tell exactly where they’ve been or what was in their way, it’s just not that common for a way to get closed off without another way opening up. Like, your routine walk around the building can get really discombobulated, but you can usually find another way of getting where you were going. You make a mental note, and you move on. 

I used the word settling, which is more accurate than rearranging. Our scientists have spent decades trying to figure out whether or not the structure here is itself sentient. The answer seemed to be generally no, but they were less sure about whether or not the building was technically alive.  I feel as though I have mentioned something about this before, but we do a ton of experiments in this building on the fundamental laws of nature, on the very fabric of the Universe. Things go wrong. Things get weird. We live with that. It just happens and there’s nothing we can do about it without just giving up on the science that we do in advancing Evil. We have to press onward. Certainly we have a tool kit for repairing damage to structures and life forms that are not available to the general public for complicated reasons, but none of us here at Kakos Industries are without at least a story or two about some close calls. Grace Rule tells me that the building will never harm me. That speaks to the living organism hypothesis, but I’m not sure if it’s true, or just a faith that she has. So far it has been true, and I have given the building many opportunities to take me down if it felt it was prudent. Perhaps we will never know. Perhaps the building is a form of life we don’t yet have the language or science to describe. Largely inorganic. Incredibly slow moving. 

There is a division dedicated to studying the building and keeping tabs on it as much as such a thing is possible. They measure the girth of the building. They measure its height and depth below the Earth’s surface as much as possible. They keep tabs on the various lawns and their adjacent, shall we say, neighborhoods. The building does expand periodically. We also build upward and downward all the time. The Division of Upward Mobility is responsible for adding floors. They are guided by a somewhat mysterious set of laws. Some of them are mathematical formulae, some of them are written in old books, some of them are aesthetics. But they build ever upward, sometimes irregularly. The stairs aren’t always where you think they should be, or where it would be most efficient. The hallways can be off by a few inches from floor to floor. There is a sense of geometrical calm to the architecture despite these oddities. From a distance, things look neat and tidy and like everything is where it should be. Mid-century modern design gives way to contemporary industrial, with warm and organic wooden construction right where you would want it to balance things just so. There is never a shortage of lounges or bathrooms. There is some competition for those upper floor offices, though. And that’s after one of the offices just slid off the top of the building one time. The view is really something you can’t get anywhere else. The sights in every direction are breathtaking. I don’t think there’s any better view anywhere in the world. You can see so much. Almost everything if you know where to look. 

There is of course also the DIvision of Mining and Tunneling, working ever downward into the expanding cave systems below the building. Partly, this ensures the structural integrity of the building. We reinforce it and ensure that it doesn’t slip or fall downward. And really, you can always use more basements, can’t you? I’m not sure we really know how many basements there are. There’s a lot about the building that is simply unknowable because once you know it, it isn’t true anymore. Even attempts to monitor the building electronically or using something fancier sounding, like quantum entanglement, rarely work for very long. I like to think that the message is that some things are simply unknowable, and that shouldn’t be frustrating. Instead we should be happy that there will always be new Evil to discover. Ever upward, ever downward, sometimes outwards, and always deeper into Evil. 

The Division of Kaiju Battle Reenactment just secured one of the offices at the top of the building. They’re going to be recreating a flying fight between MothQueen and MechaSkynasaur. They need an unobstructed view of the clouds for this apparently. I’m certainly excited to see it. 

The office across from my living quarters is still just filled with aquariums and fish. They don’t seem to be attended. They are fed, they are cared for, but I have never seen anyone else in there but me. It would be nice if that department just sank into the building somewhere else. It has a mild aroma that I’m not a fan of. And they’re not even the kind of fish that you can eat. 

Before I get too lost in the news around the building, I should talk about our recent festivities. We just had the festival of innovation. We had it in the usual place, with a live audience. I didn’t know what I was in for when I arrived. The various companies all organized and created a game of their own devising. They even made robots to certain specifications they all agreed to. So, it went like this. There were these long, cylindrical bombs. They had to be armed by being attached to the pelvis of the mostly humanoid robots. Then it was a question of getting that bomb inside of a cavity of a robot on the opposing team. Look, I know how it sounds, but everyone agreed to this well in advance and they all had escape pods if they needed them. And they did. Obviously you want to escape before the bomb inside your robot detonates. There was only one bomb on the field at any given time, and another bomb wouldn’t be released until the previous one was detonated. There was a mechanic through which the bomb could be detached and reattached to another robot so that a point could potentially be stolen. The teams were divided along terrestrial lines. Giant Ass Robots was the captain of the Earth team, and Thorgonus Imports was the captain of the supposedly extraterrestrial team. I don’t know what Dirk told his team, but they were ready to play in a way that the Thorgonus team just wasn’t. A red robot piloted by a handful of humans immediately got control of the bomb before thrusting it into an alien-shaped robot with a bunch of tentacles for a quick point. The Thorgonus team was then down a player, and they really couldn’t get ahead again after that. Another Giant Ass Robots robot took control of the bomb. It changed hands a couple of times as the robots scuffled, but it eventually ended up inside another Thorgonus bot. After that they were down two players and it was going to be hard to make up that deficit. The next bomb managed to take out two Thorgonus bots and the remaining pilots ejected, invoking the mercy rule. It might not have been a close match, but it was exciting to watch all the same. Still horny as hell for some reason, but entertaining all the same. It was nice to have this back. It was nice to have people around. It was nice even though the robots were super horny again. I’m not mad that this is still a thing after everything.

Coming up we have the celebration of self-love. I know you’ve been loving yourselves plenty recently, but we’re going to find a way to go deeper. Evil Con has been postponed. Maybe it will happen, but we might have to wait a little longer for everything to be back on schedule. 

Shareholders, were you aware that there is a mech builders club here at Kakos Industries? It really shouldn’t surprise anyone. I mean, we know what we do. I think Kimmie was surprised to find out also. I know that some of you out there take an interest in my personal life and I like to control the narrative, which is why I choose to share. I don’t need rumors. You might as well get a little bit of information and have it be correct. Anyway, they’ve had a few careful meetings so far and it seems fun. I’m not really a builder so much as an appreciator, so I stay out of it. It’s also important when you’re kind of forced into close quarters with someone not to crowd them too much for everyone’s sanity. At any rate, there’s another woman in the mech building community that Kimmie has made fast friends with. We encourage people of all genders and identities to engage with whatever fields attract them at Kakos Industries. That doesn’t mean that people don’t come to us with conditioning and preconceptions from elsewhere in the world. It seems like building flying robots doesn’t have the largest feminine contingent and it can be kind of a boys’ club. Edwina, the other woman in the club, usually goes by Eddy, has been giving Kimmie a lot of tips and help. She’s a lot better at navigating the machismo and social awkwardness in the space to get information, help, or whatever else. They’ve been making some really cool stuff. Boosters with multi-colored flames. Ridiculous but awesome melee weapons. I should also mention that Edwina is, well, hot. It’s just something about Evil that when you get close to it, you get more comfortable in your skin, whatever that skin might happen to be, whatever the size or shape. Confidence is an appealing thing. And Edwina just knows so much about these robots and their mechanics. It’s hard not to get wound up in her excitement. So, obviously I wanted to talk to Kimmie about this. I told her if there was a spark there, I wouldn’t be offended if she acted on it. I figured Eddie was a little closer to her normal thing anyway. She said “everyone seems to think they know what my normal is. Everyone thinks they know my history. What do they really know?” Kimmie is somewhat private. I do have permission to talk about these things, by the way. She’s on board with the “control the narrative” thing. It’s a consequence of being close to me. You either share, or get spied on. I felt like I had made a bit of a mistake or miscalculation. I walked it back. I said that I was just saying it was okay. I like Kimmie. We’ve been great friends for over a year now and I want her to be happy, even if, you know, that’s not with me. We haven’t put labels on things and I just wanted to get ahead of things. I always had some part of this in the back of my head. And it’s not like I’m afraid of being replaced anyway. I’m irreplaceable. Just look at Fourest. Am I right, Soundman? Yeah, I’m pointing at him, he’s pointing at me. He would be laughing if he weren’t so professional. That was a great one. Fucking got ‘im. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to get in the way if there was something Kimmie felt was worth pursuing. I don’t think she was all that offended. She’s too even headed for that. Always so chill. She said she’d thought about it. She’d have to move slowly there if at all. She can feel a mutual attraction, but Eddy keeps the conversation impersonal. Kimmie said she wasn’t sure if it had to do with a previous bad experience, an awkwardness, or maybe just a different preference in style of socializing. I sensed that I was treading into a subject where I didn’t exactly belong. She said, “besides, I’m not finished with you yet.” I couldn’t just let her get away with saying something like that. It’s not really an either/or situation from my perspective. Either way, I guess I feel like communication early can avoid problems later. 

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go To recently unlocked a hatch in the floor of the Division of Physics. It actually leads back into that room through the ceiling. I asked if it was a stable wormhole. They said, “Nah, it’s not that cool.” Maybe there’s like a tunnel or something.

The Fucking@Home program spit out another elaborate sexual position and our army of volunteers took to trying it. It was called the Torus, like the shape, not the mythological animal. Oddly enough, the position doesn’t look that much like a donut, but Jasmine Aashna told me it had to do with higher dimensions that we can’t perceive. I may be a simple man, but it just looked like a bunch of people sucking each other off. Nothing wrong with that, just, you know, that isn’t what’s most sex. I mean, it was a lot of sex, but it was missing that x-factor. 

Meredith Gorgoro sent me yet another picture of a new monster in Hell. This one was all asses. I’m starting to think she has a kaleidoscope or something and is just messing with me. It was just a freaky ball of asses. I can only imagine what’s coming next.

They say that Evil once set up a kiosk in a mall selling best friends’ and couples’ jewelry, and that every pair of friends or romantic partners that bought the jewelry ended up killing each other horrifically. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we’re taking credit for the fear you feel going into a grocery store, the panic you feel encountering a stranger in a shared space, and the anxiety you feel getting close to another person that will likely be there a whole lot longer than you want. Of course, there are many reasons why we probably aren’t responsible for these things. But we are. And if you doubt us, then take another quick glance at that simplified nether dialect. There might be a misspelling and we wouldn’t want you to miss it. 

Baron O’Beefdip has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As you know, this means that Baron’s nemesis will experience a life ruining turn of events. That nemesis is Peggy Pegs. We gave the Wheel of Misery a solid spin. Nothing spectacular, but plenty enough. It landed on the space for Uncommunicative. From this day forward, Peggy Pegs will be 30% more uncommunicative, which will certainly cause some problems for them. As we know, communication is incredibly important. I feel like I was just talking about that. For Evil measure, Baron O’Beefdip will be 13% more communicative, which can be its own can of worms. Congratulations on the win and best of luck.

The Damnation and Ruination Squad have been running around in styrofoam octopus costumes. They really only cover the upper halves of all of them, so they’re still indecent from the waist down. I mean, it’s not that bad considering what they wear sometimes. Oh well.

This brings us to the end of our broadcast. I need you to crush that house. Destroy it completely. Stomp on it. Break it up. Throw it around. Then throw it out. I hope that you are adjusting well if adjusting is what you need to be doing right now, shareholders. Until next time. The numbers are next.

11

22

44

66

99

11

22

33

55

11

22

11

22

44

88

4

8

0

Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth, and the composer of the music. The introductions are read by Ryan Jenkins, and the credits are read by Briauna Kittle,a polar bear with max beach craft . Please visit KakosIndustries.com for news, extras, and more episodes. There are also transcriptions on the website if you’d like to read along with the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Please visit store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers and get wonderful benefits by becoming a subscription donor at kakosindustries.com/patreon. You can submit one time donations at paypal.me/kakosindustries. You can also purchase gear and other items for the production at kakosindustries.com/wishlist. Join our community at kakosindustries.com/discord. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at inquiries@kakosindustries.com. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on your favorite podcasting service, and connect with us on YouTube (YouTube.com/KakosIndustries), Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), Instagram (@kakosindustries), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries). We encourage fan art and listener participation on all our social media platforms. 

Special thanks to our esteemed shareholders, Lex, Jack Attack, Valerie Koop, Dwight Spencer, Damien Scott-Viker, and A. Rupert. Also thanks to honored employees Calico, who farmed the turnips, and Rocket who grew the arugula. And thanks also to our division heads. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, directed by Bellamy Cornet, has knit an aqueduct. It actually holds water somehow. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology, directed by Craig Czyz, has recently acquired an old Dark Mega USSR synthesizer that is capable of collectivizing through sound alone. We can never play it. The Division of Subtle Efficiency Increases, directed by Danniel R Smith, has gotten rid of Merida. She was a small drag on all of us. The Division of Saying It the Long Way, directed by Dino Schroeder, has been workshopping “Weellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll when asked in such a direct manner requiring such a direct response with no way to wiggle my way out of expressing myself I guess I would have to admit that I clearly am about to throw sand in your eyes to run away.” The Division of Kakos Kafeteria Reviews, directed by Seth and Josh, has reviewed the Nugget Emporium. “Everything you could want in nugget form, including gold. 11/13”. The Division of Improbable Cookbooks, directed by Hayden Neff has been working on Foraging for Danger. It’s a guide on what not to eat in the wild. If you’re a coward. The Division of Lesser Known Napping Locations, directed by Sass Master J, has found the Division of Warm Blankets. They were disbanded some years ago, but the blankets are still warm. The Division of Uneven Surfaces, Directed by The Doctor, has been examining the teeter totter on the playground. They have observed it become completely level, and then swing wildly toward the uneven again just as quickly. The Division of Hallway Wandering, directed by Jack, has been strolling down Hallway 9998. It’s slightly gummy and you always seem to take a piece of it with you. The Division of Animal Stacking, directed by The One True Dave, stacked like a whole bunch of rattlesnakes. No one wanted to stick around to see how long they remained stacked however. The Division of Suspiciously Specific Charitable Donations, directed by Hemlock Yew, has made a donation to a charity for reforestation in the amount of $420. The memo line of the check simply said “blaze it”.  The Division of More Monday Mondays, directed by Odie, has discovered a way to make Mondays that much more Monday. It is that fucking headache you get every monday morning, but just a little worse. The Division of Villainous Introspection, directed by Sarah, has looked long and hard into the mirror. Why does Evil come so naturally for us, they wonder. Why does it flow from our every action like it was nothing at all?. The Division of Creative Upcycling, directed by Trash Baphomet, has turned old newspapers into an ultra-dense cudgel. You could really hurt someone with that thing.  The Division of New Card Game Mechanics, led by Finn, has developed a new card for a popular trading card game that converts into scissors to cut other cards up. It is banned in all but the most seedy of tournament play. The Division of Silly Ways to Run, led by Davis A, has devised an overhand running style with the heels pointing out toward the sides, and the hips jutting forward. Our esteemed shareholders, honored employees, division heads, and other Patreon patrons are the best. If you want a thank you in the credits, your own division, or other great rewards that help to keep this show running, please head to Kakosindustries.com/patreon. That’s Patreon: p-a-t-r-e-o-n.

Kakos Industries can be dark. Try playing it a soothing melody.