In which we hear from Corin Deeth I, Corin III goes on a date, and Plutho “wins” the Ruin-A-Life Drawing. Do Evil Better.

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Ryan:What you are about to hear is an assault on decency but like in a fun way.

Hello and Welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, everyone does Evil. You do Evil. They all do Evil. Because of us. I am CEO Corin Deeth III. Last time, shareholders, I had Violet looking for some records in the archives down in the archive basement. This, as you know, is an extremely dangerous activity, but I put her in charge because she is one of the employees I trust the most. As you might recall, things did not go so smoothly, so I’ve had to submit my request the old fashioned way and the archivists will get to it in the order it was received with a little wiggle room for importance. Believe it or not, just being an order from the CEO does not make it inherently any more important. That being said, I hope to hear from them soon. Violet eventually did agree to a medical evaluation, but not the kind I was hoping for. You see, apparently she has some certification in chiropractic or some other nonsense and that technically counts for medical evaluations, and she did the evaluation herself. I was understandably upset when I discovered this was the route she was going. I was then surprised that she, in her medical authority, did order herself some time off and rest, which she immediately began arguing with herself about. It was an interesting scene. It got pretty ugly. At one point, she was threatening both to call an orderly to take her inpatient, and was also threatening to knock herself out so that she couldn’t do that. She eventually agreed with herself to take a fifteen minute nap, and she did. Her eyes were closed. She was in REM sleep. She was also screaming at the top of her voice. She couldn’t remember the dreams she had, but did note that there were some similar complaints from neighbors back when she slept at home. We recorded the nap just in case it would help convince her to do things differently. She saw the video, and insisted that she would just need to bury herself in her work to get back in the flow of things. There’s only so much arguing you can do with someone, you know? We like that she works. Her work isn’t sloppy. We’re letting her get back to it.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from that bottle you’ve been keeping for a special occasion. This is that occasion. You may not have known why, but you knew now was the time to finally get it off the shelf and crack it open. I can’t know if it’s an alcoholic beverage or a soda. Maybe it’s a really old juice. Maybe it’s the original recipe of that adulterated energy drink they can’t legally sell anymore. You popped it open, poured yourself a glass, and you started to hear these announcements. You see, some time ago, we replaced the contents of that bottle with a liquid radio, knowing that we could trigger you to have the necessary experience to want to open it when the time came. Whatever it was you were saving, we thoroughly enjoyed it. We’re sorry you didn’t get to have it. What you actually have in front of you is something different. I am told that the highs are citrusy, the bass frequencies are reminiscent of dark chocolate and dates, and the mids are an honest sort of sweetness you only get from real sugars. This combines to form a surprisingly whole sound in liquid form. I am told that this radio comes from a collaboration between our Division of Dilution and Fitson’s Fizzables. I should also mention that these announcements are strictly for Kakos Industries shareholders. If you have been invited to share in this beverage by a friend of yours, perhaps because they didn’t realize where the urge to open the bottle came from, then they have just inadvertently made you a shareholder. Congratulations, and I’m sorry. Alternatively, if you stole this bottle from someone, maybe an old roommate or ex-lover, or maybe just during a home invasion, then you already know you belong with us. If these are your first announcements, then welcome. There is really no chance that you’re hearing these announcements without being a shareholder, but if you think that might be the case, then start running. Run, and never stop. Maybe, just maybe, you can outrun us. Probably not, but maybe you’re wilier than you seem.

We recently had the Darkest Universe Festival. At the last moment we had all of you open an envelope with instructions inside of it that were guaranteed to make the Universe Darker. The instructions said to punch your neighbor in the stomach as hard as you could. Look, it wasn’t the cleverest instruction you’ve ever read, but it worked. You made the Universe darker. We measured. Are we in the Darkest Universe? Well, that’s a little harder to say. Darkness is really in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?

We also had the Nudity Festival. Like I mentioned last time, we rented out an abandoned shopping mall for all of us to be naked in. We even staffed the mall with various retail employees who could actually sell you things, including clothing, but you weren’t allowed to try anything on for obvious reasons. The people we hired were a mix of randos and Evil people, so some of them were clothed, which I think added to the complexity of the experience. We managed to turn the carousel on, but we did have to sanitize the seats in between riders for somewhat obvious reasons.  

Coming up, we have the Festival of Mud. Long ago we combined the Earth Festival and the Water Festival, hoping to make them more Evil by summing them. Mud is pretty Evil, all told. Every year, we wet down several of the lawns here at Kakos Industries and just let people get into it. We wet down the amphitheater lawn, which complicated some things, but I’ll get to that later. It’s really surprising to me how many of you are thrilled by the idea of getting drunk and then covering yourselves in mud, and then rolling around with each other, because if I’m being honest, there isn’t an amount of money you could pay me to do that.

I just got a package from the archivists. Apparently they found a tape they thought might tell me something. Soundman, would you mind doing the honors?

CDI: Grace, I just got a package from the board. Inside are a number of photographs. Headshots, full body pictures, sometimes more. There’s a note with the pictures. It says, “Just out of curiosity, which of these people looks the most impregnatable.” That’s not a word. I looked it up. Anyway, I know what they meant. I don’t really understand why this keeps happening. You know, at most companies, they’d just hire a new CEO. They wouldn’t worry about all of this nonsense. It’s antiquated. It’s gross. Just hire someone. You know, at most companies it would be weird to have someone stay CEO this long also. In none of my years of working here has a single catastrophic event or major disaster ever been blamed on me. The building was nearly destroyed once. We’ve had all kinds of failures. There was even one year when we significantly underperformed expectations in nearly every metric. The heat never fell on me. At most companies, they would tell me to fuck off, give me my severance, and then I’d get a gig somewhere else. Not here. Here, even in my worst years they’ve been trying to get me to make a child. Well, I made one. Maybe not the way they expected, but I made him. He’s about fifty percent me. The other fifty percent… well, we tried some things. We got creative. They didn’t like him. I don’t see how that’s my problem. Maybe they should have let me move on. You know, sometimes I’m not sure why I resist this so much. It would be virtually effortless to give in. Give them what they want. But then… What do they do with the kid? You know I wouldn’t get to raise the child. They wouldn’t want me anywhere near it. So they raise the child in some sort of board approved environment? That’s no place for a kid. I might not be able to remember my childhood, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. There’s a part of me, you know, that thinks it would be hilarious to just organize some sort of nasty free for all, and then see these wackos compete to see who can give birth first. I assume firstborn is part of the equation, but maybe I really don’t know what they have in mind. You know, it’s funny, the most fatherly I ever felt was with the surrogate. I knew there was something of mine inside of her, even if there was very little of her in there, and I felt something. But what they’re expecting of me isn’t organic like that. It’s mechanical. Why? You know what I mean? Why? Just why? Maybe one of these young ladies should just take my job, you know? It would make more sense than this.”

CDIII: Well, that was a lot. I have the same questions you know. I also have more questions. I guess that gives me a decent segue into the next topic.

I let the middle Tabitha take me on a date. Now, I know what you might be thinking this is a terrible idea. I suppose you’re thinking that if you’re on my side. If you’re on the side of the board or on the side of Tabitha, then you’re probably all in favor of this. You’d love to see me do exactly what they want me to. You want to see me give in and… produce an heir? Is that really it? Well, I felt confident that she wasn’t going to try to hurt me, so a civil date was okay. I had some free time. Maybe I wanted the attention. I don’t know. It sounded nice. She suggested dinner at a restaurant not too far from the pastoral lawn. The menu was filled with breads and sauces and all kinds of delicacies. I didn’t have to pay. I don’t think she paid either. There was some other arrangement, I suppose. There was a pond next to our table with geese and all sorts of fish. They had flowers blooming all over the place filling the air with sweet, comforting smells. Tabitha, in all of her incarnations, is a beautiful woman, both in terms of nature as well as style and poise. You can see that she has taste and self-awareness. Nothing about her is gaudy or flashy. She makes the statement she wants to make, and she doesn’t make it loudly. I’ve spent time with a variety of wealthy and powerful people, and I can say without hesitation that almost all of them have been driven mad by their fortune. No one in that position can deal with their privilege and luxury being basically the result of a dice roll, and they can afford not to have to think about it. Tabitha, or at least the middle Tabitha clone, didn’t seem like that. Maybe I can’t see it yet, or maybe I don’t want to for some reason. Well, we can all think of reasons. Some flattering, some less so. She was genuinely funny. She wasn’t cruel or overly sarcastic. When she had a criticism to share, it felt less like a burden and more like a relief to hear it. This might sound strange, but it’s possible that she knows a bit about what it’s been like to… Well, be me, whatever that means, and more importantly, whoever exactly it is that I am. I mentioned the absurdity of the situation. She agreed. The whole thing seems kind of ridiculous when you get right down to it. She said that she never worried too much about any Evil imperatives, or heirs, or anything like that, but there was something about me that seemed worth getting to know all the same. I almost believed her. In my line of work, the manipulation can be so thick and so pervasive. It’s everywhere. Everyone wants something. You get used to being able to see through it. You see simpler minds than yours working away at obvious plots. But then you worry about what it might look like to see a mind more complex than yours working away at ulterior motives. Would you be able to tell anything was happening? You probably would not. She said that there was something weird about me that she found appealing, which was odd because she’s supposedly in her ladies-only phase. This… this isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. Do I have a vibe or something? Anyway, we finished our meal, and she suggested we float on the pond for a little while. I was assuming we would be renting a swan boat or something like that, but there was just an old rowboat on the bank. We pushed off and started to float as the sun set. As far as plans go, this was timing out perfectly. Then, she was quiet for a while as the first stars started to poke through the oncoming darkness. She explained how strange it was growing up as a clone, not knowing if shr was supposed to avoid the mistakes of your predecessors, or make the exact same mistakes because there’s really no other way. She talked about the difficulty of finding her own personality. All of them have different personalities, but some things also repeat themselves. She wasn’t expected to be the same Tabitha as the others, but she was expected to be Tabitha. The feeling is like being caught between a cloud and a vagueness. The older one tried to follow in Prime’s footsteps too much. She ended up too concerned with work. The youngest one I know of is acting out, or maybe she’s just young, but the middle one said she wasn’t young in the same way. She wouldn’t tell me if there were more of them somewhere. Infant tabithas. There were a lot of things she wouldn’t tell me. She said it wasn’t out of malice, and she insisted it wasn’t to try to change how I thought about anything, it’s just that some things are close family secrets. I’m not sure I believe her. I’m not sure it matters. She steered the boat back to the shore. She told me she needed to get home. We walked back to the restaurant. She hopped into the back seat of a dark SUV. There was another car waiting for me. I hate… I hate that this is working. I don’t think I’m prone to rash decisions. All the same, it feels like I’m betraying some sort of core belief when I say that I wouldn’t mind doing that again.

The Kakophonia music festival has gotten started. So far, the acts have mostly been smaller indie bands, though, due to the Festival of Mud I mentioned earlier, it did have a viral moment after festival goers decided they needed to be covered head to toe while also doing handfuls of drugs and periodically rubbing together. Really, you can’t get much better promotion than that. Since then, several of those concert goers have gotten jobs with the music festival. The cycle has begun. We’ll see how long it lasts.

It’s time for today’s Q&A Segment. Your question: Where can I get into a fight most easily? The Division of Truculence, Bellicosity, and Pugnacity strikes me as an obvious answer. The next best place might be Employee Lounge 13. It’s kind of a divey employee lounge, and there’s a rough crowd most nights of the week.

I have news from the Division of Erotic Experiences. They’ve made the Satisficer, the sex toy they’re working on that they hope will be able to accommodate everyone’s sexual needs, capable of changing colors. They took one piece of feedback I gave them that hardly mattered about the purple color and they made the device capable of changing colors. They did not take any feedback about the barbed tail, however, and so far there have been three serious injuries. One of those was actually the tail nearly strangling someone to death. I think part of that is intentional behavior, but things went a little haywire. I’ve tried talking to them about taking it back a few steps and focusing on the essentials before giving in to feature creep, but they won’t. On the plus side, the marketing team tells me that if they accidentally make a demonic sex toy,and nothing moe, there’s a big enough market for that to make money, so I guess I can let it go for now. 

Many of you will remember that last time we were investigating some sounds of intense pleasure emanating from deep within the building, and we were able to save the lives of a few of the people subjected to whatever had been so intensely pleasurable. We now have a blurry picture of whatever it is causing people to experience that pleasure and nearly or actually orgasm to death. It appears to have tendrils and many different orifices. How it moves is currently unknown. An employee heard suspicious sounds and went to see what was going on. This employee apparently interrupted whatever the thing was doing, causing it to bolt, but they did snap the picture before it could get away. None of the people who were involved with this menace died, but many were concerned that they wouldn’t be allowed to “receive the blessing” now that they had been spotted and exposed. This is some cult stuff for sure. The survivors will be interrogated for information.

Meredith Gorgoro, the overseer in our Hell labor camp, has finally come down from whatever trip she was on due to the glowing stones. She’s been talking about her visions. There were apparently some amazing creatures and what she is claiming were images of an earlier Earth. We are continuing to look into this.

I don’t have much news regarding the Matmos. Kimmie is still missing, but the hooded figures haven’t done anything new or unusual. Clarissa and Hedera, my liaisons to the Matmos have still been weird, but they always are. 

Speaking of Matmos-like things, I have news about the Donut. Apparently, it saw one of its handlers eat a pastry donut, and it hasn’t spoken to anyone since. They are working on a sufficient apology to smooth things over.

The Division of Kaiju Battle Reenactment has recently reenacted Big Ol’ Bunny versus Wild Hare. This battle originally took place in Noneoftheabove, New Mexico with few witnesses. To this day, no one has taken credit for creating either of these monsters and that’s unusual. Usually, when there’s a big monster fight, the standard response from any Evil organization worth their salt is to take credit for everything. It’s possible that this is because the evidence for this battle is so scant. There are two eyewitness reports, and a huge rib bone later found in a nearby cave. The rib bone may have been from something else. And also, where was the rest of the beast? What ate it? Anyway, the battle was a lot of fun to watch, and the backdrops were beautifully painted mesas. As always, nothing beats a wild hare.

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go to has swallowed a key that seemingly unlocked their minds. The key may have been made of psychedelics.

I have news from The Division of Secret Societies. Our efforts to infiltrate and eventually take over the Miss Belle of the Ball Pageant have been progressing. We haven’t gotten too many of the details, but our operative, Wynona Grimbal, has been showing up to the building with significant bruising around the face. You would think that a fight club that is also a beauty pageant would avoid hitting the face, but perhaps it is some sort of initiation. Wynona says she’s getting close to something, but she’s not sure what it is just yet. 

It’s time for today’s Employee Spotlight. Today we are honoring Gerold Neilos from the Division of Trees. You see, the best time to plant a tree is twenty five years ago, which is when Gerold planted a tree. It’s some kind of maple. Anyway, it happened to be in just the right place to stop the runaway forklift from smashing into a rack of fragile crystals. That was real clutch. The tree is hanging on, but likely will not make it. On the upside, Gerold planted a variety of other trees and continues to plant trees where we might need them in twenty-five years. Thank you for all you do, Gerold Neilos.

They say that Evil once showed everyone how it was done, only for them to find out they still couldn’t do it. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we are taking credit for toothpicks, matchsticks, and that nasty splinter you had that one time. Of course, we can’t know for sure that we did these things, but we’re really confident about it. We’re saying it confidently. You should believe us. It’s really important to believe us. Especially for your health. 

It’s time to announce today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. The winner of today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing is Demelza Salisbury (De-mel-za Sauls-bree). As a result, the life of Demelza’s nemesis will be ruined. That nemesis is Alex the Bitch. We gave the Wheel of Misery a complicated spin and it landed on the space for Hard. Now, there are times in your life where you might want to be hard, metaphorically or physically. Alex, will not have the choice. Alex will be hard at all times. Or, at least 45% harder than usual. For Evil measure, Demelza Salisbury will be 13% softer, for better and worse. Congratulations on the win, and best of luck.

The Damnation and Ruination Squad, the team tasked with making the Wheel of Misery’s mandates come true, are currently doing their jobs wearing hazmat suits, but not like in the way you would expect. Some of them are inside out. Some of them are tied around the waist. None of them are worn in a way that seems particularly protective. Well, at least it’s not sticky.

This brings us to the end of today’s announcements, shareholders. I will keep going with my investigations whether anyone wants me to or not. Hopefully I will have new information to share next time. If the middle Tabitha asks me on another date, I think I might have to go along with it. There’s something I need to learn yet, I think. You may finish that beverage now. It will pass through your system harmlessly. Until next time shareholdmore, The numbers are next.

33

33

34

34

35

35

36

36

37

37

34

34

4

4

0

RYAN: 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 and credits are read by Ryan L Jenkins, the you didn’t know you needed until it was too late.

Find transcriptions and more at KakosIndustries.com. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Visit store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and get wonderful benefits by becoming a subscription donor at kakosindustries.com/patreon. Join our community at kakosindustries.com/discord and follow us on social media. Fan art really makes our day. Drop us a line for whatever reason at inquiries@kakosindustries.com.

CONRAD: Special thanks to our esteemed shareholders, Kristina Kirkland and Bryan Slizard Becker. Also thanks to honored employee Calico, who ran the auto clean cycle on the dishwasher. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, directed by Theo Cornet, has started to re-re-knit the rake tracks around the stones in the zen sandscape. This process may technically be endless. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology, directed by Craig Czyz, has acquired a floppy disk with a lot of nasty stories on it. The Division of Subtle Efficiency Increases, directed by Danniel R Smith, has increased efficiency by offering to let people go home early if they finish all of their work and a little extra.  The Division of Kakos Kafeteria Reviews, directed by Seth and Josh, has reviewed A Handful of Olives. “They make you eat it out of their hands and it leaves a little to be desired. 5/6”. The Division of Improbable Cookbooks, directed by Hayden Neff, has been working on “Cocktails to make Parenting Bearable”. The cocktails help. Somewhat.   The Division of More Monday Mondays, directed by Odie, has made Mondays that much more Monday by scheduling, and then cancelling, happy hour. The Division of Villainous Introspection, directed by Sarah, is still considering what sounds make them feel the most Evil. They have moved on to percussion albums mainly consisting of impatient bell ringing. The Division of Animal Stacking, directed by The One True Dave, has stacked a hundred butterflies. You’re better off not asking questions you don’t want the answers to. The Division of Things That Have Switches that Shouldn’t Have Switches, directed by Her Foxiness Miss Dr Indigo J S Vulpes XIII, Esq. has put a switch on Leon. He wasn’t difficult to turn on before, but now it’s trivial.  The Division of Lesser Known Napping Locations, Directed by Sass Master J, has recently taken a nap on the sunny lawn. Many people nap on the sunny lawn, but you have to be an expert to find the very best hill. 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.

RYAN: Doing Evil can take a lot out of you. Make sure you’re getting enough electrolytes.