in which Corin and friends violate the laws of mankind, Kimmie plays in the pools, and the middle Tabitha talks family. Do Evil Better.

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Intro: What you are about to hear is extra crispy.

Hello and Welcome to the Kakos Industries Corporate Shareholder Announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help our clients to Do Evil Better. Sure they’re doing Evil now, but they can always do Evil better right? Perhaps their Evil is too chaotic and it is doing more harm than benefit. We can hone that Evil. Perhaps their Evil is being wasted on meaningless cruelty. We can find them more interesting and powerful ways to incorporate their Evil. Anyway, I am CEO, Corin Deeth III. Last time, shareholders, I mentioned that the elder of the three Tabitha clones had given me some information. Of course, that information had very little to do with me, but it did add a significant amount of evidence to the idea that I’m not a clone. They had determined this some months ago, but you can understand me being a bit… skeptical. Many things around Kakos Industries are not how they seem. It’s always possible that one piece of evidence will send you down the wrong path. Of course, my efforts to discover the truth have continued, but I’ll get to that later. Junior learned quite a bit about himself from the documents we found. He’s been decoding the names for certain genetic constructs that went into his creation. Every few days I just get a text message that says something like “fucking narwhal”. He’s .003% Narwhal or something like that. He didn’t say what part. It could just be a fluke of the data. There’s also been some pangolin and some DNA from extinct animals. The trick is figuring out what DNA is actually doing any work. I hope he figures out what he needs to know. I also got this recording from Fourest.

FOUREST: Hi, Corin. Glad to hear that you’re still alive and well. That’s just swell, you know. Love that for you. Anyway, I heard that you and Junior were talking about me the other day and you were suggesting that I’m, and I quote, “just like that.” While I can’t say for certain what it is that you meant, I did detect a subtle negative connotation, and I don’t really think that’s an appropriate way to talk about someone. I can assure you that there was nothing wrong with my upbringing whatsoever. Have you considered, Corin, that perhaps it is you who is “just like that?” This is a classic argumentative fallacy. Whatever you are afraid for me to say about you you will say about me first. Very transparent, Corin. Everyone can see what you are doing and it is embarrassing. Just trying to be your friend here. I really thought you oughta know. Goodbye for now. I sincerely hope you don’t slip and fall or have any accidental run-ins with stairwells. 

CDIII: So, yeah, he mad. Anyway, let’s get on with the announcements. 

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from this groovy dangly earring you decided to wear today. You felt like today was the time to start or increase your accessorizing, and this seemed like the best option. The earrings are all different, of course. Some of them involve dangly crystals. Others have dangly feathers. They all have a golden hook stuck through your earlobe, however, which is the primary housing for the radio. If your ears weren’t pierced before, you took it upon yourself to rectify that. There may be some cleanup necessary. Please consult a reliable source on the Internet to determine how best to dress and care for your wound. This radio comes to us as a collaboration between Shanty Dave’s Hoop and Dangly Earrings Shanty and our Division of Ear-cessories. I am told that the audio quality is a bit thin on account of not having space for a large enough speaker for the bass frequencies, but it is also somehow stereo by using bone conductance to send frequencies to your other ear. While we encourage you to continue experimenting with accessories, you will need to destroy this radio at some point. I should also mention that these announcements are strictly for Kakos Industries shareholders. If you aren’t a shareholder, then this earring is about to turn your earlobe green, then the rest of your head, and then the rest of your body. At that point, death will begin to set in. Take out the earring. This is not the hill to die on.

We recently had the Pajama Festival, the Festival of Brightly Colored Hats, and the Festival of Toast all at once. We gave all of you the chance to come down to the basement ballroom, enjoy some cereal and toast, don a festive hat, and watch some cartoons before you carried on with your work day.

We also recently had the CEO Festival of the Dance. Alberich Reinhold came in first this time making dance moves out of my tendency to forget things in my office and have to return for them before riding the elevator. Many other people found it extremely funny. Second place went to Agnija Takao, who, working with her backup dancers, reenacted a scene where I had accidentally stumbled into a Tabitha orgy and had to escape without being touched. I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not afraid to touch the Tabithas. My resistance isn’t physical. Then again, I suppose the issue there is being able to communicate everything in dance. Even I was able to see the effort and creativity in the moves even if I wasn’t pleased with the implications. Third place went to Akantha Ralf and Grainne Sieffre, who were both dressed as me and seemed to dance out some sort of internal struggle that I was having about something. That something was cleared up at the end when they started to make out. I really don’t know what this is supposed to say about me, but again, fantastic movements up until the end there. Fourth place went to Waleric Wischard, who did a really compelling strip tease starting in a tear away suit that almost certainly had to have been made by my tailor. He was talented, but not talented enough. The prize for fourth place is a role as a thrill ride tester at the Division of Thrill Ride Testing at our theme park in Christhole Texas. Many who were enamoured with his abs, forearms, and dance moves hope that he survives his training period, but the odds are not in his favor. 

Coming up, we have The Festivals of Somnambulation and Fertility and The Festival of Barbecue. We don’t really want to ruin the surprise around the Festival of Somnambulation, though I am told it involves a pillow fight with some interesting pillows. As for the Festival of Fertility, we always give those who wish to carry an especially Evil child the opportunity to come down, get knocked up in some elaborate fashion, and then feast upon whatever flesh mechanism we created to deliver said babymaking juice. Once again, I would like to maintain some element of surprise, but I am told that there may be tentacles involved this year. As for the festival of barbecue, we’re going to have a cookout.

I have some news about Kakophonia, the ongoing music festival we have here on our amphitheatre lawn. There has been a significant uptick in the popularity of the event, and as it acquires more stranded band members and broke festival goers into its employment, there has been a concerning trend. It appears as thought the former theater kids are taking over the music festival. It’s true that many of them do not play instruments, but they do get to make speeches and things at the start of the concerts. We’re monitoring the situation closely. 

After the last conversation I had with the middle Tabitha regarding her family’s business, I felt like it was pertinent to push her a bit further on those questions. She might not have anything to do with the cloning business, but she must know something about the other things going on. She was honestly surprised that I was that curious about her family. Most people avoid asking any questions. I figure most people are probably afraid to ask.  She told me that the details were fuzzy for sure, and she didn’t know much about generations too far back, but there was a sort of breeding program involved. The women of the family were in charge of seeking out partners that would add certain traits to the genetic pool. She described it as antiquated, and bad science, but it did have one peculiar effect. Every birth of a daughter always resulted in twins, going back probably two hundred years. It was a curious thing, for sure. She made sure to tell me that her ancestors, though otherwise misguided, made sure not to let the small-minded prejudices of their day interfere with desire to collect desirable traits. Tabitha Prime, and her mother before her took the acquisition of these genes into the realm of science and genetic modification. Before that, the family money came from the classic places: intimidation, theft, and an unwavering sense that one deserves to be wealthy. The Tabitha clones haven’t been modified much, but there are plans for more modified versions in the future. There is a lot that can go wrong, so they want to take their time working it out. I asked the middle Tabitha what she meant by gene acquisition. I wanted to know what the actual goal was. She said, “you’re looking at it,” and then did a half serious twirl followed by a mischievous smirk. Then she laughed and said, “I don’t know. It’s above my paygrade.” She continued, “Something tells me it just sounded Evil to start a multigenerational breeding program to make some kind of super baby, so they did, even if they had no idea what they were doing. I try not to think about it too much. It starts to make me sick.” She then listed a handful of medical conditions they could have bred out of her if they had any idea what they were doing. Not all of our families have happy or heroic backstories. It’s really who we are that matters, though.

And on the topic of tragic family backstories, I have  to acknowledge something a bit uncomfortable to all of you. While I was talking to the middle Tabitha about my own family weirdness, she made a terrible suggestion that I was forced to take one hundred percent seriously. She told me if I wanted to know more about my grandfather, I should dig him up. She laughed, but as soon as she said it, I knew it was true. I was filled with dark purpose. I suddenly had a horrible undertaking ahead of me. Granted, he’s not exactly underground. He’s in a mausoleum for important people to Kakos Industries. Still, I knew that I couldn’t do what I needed to do all alone. So, I needed to get my braintrust on board. Junior has been busy researching his own genetic makeup, and he wouldn’t approve of this task anyway, so I asked Soundman and Brosephus to help me out. We waited until midnight and made our way to the graveyard where Corin Deeth I is supposed to lie in eternal rest. I used the key I had taken from the groundskeeper earlier in the week to get inside. There are of course a couple of other snags that we ran into that I won’t share now, but I made sure to tell Grace all about. Eventually, we had the coffin for Corin Deeth I  in front of us. It was such a degrading experience, I just wanted it over with. So I cracked it open. We could pretty much tell when we lifted the wood off the shelf what we weren’t going to find inside, but still, I opened it. No body. We saw that coming. But there was a tape. And some notes. Soundman, if you would do the honors.

CDI: Hi, Corin. I knew you would come looking for me here. I think you knew you wouldn’t find me. Again, there’s so much I want to tell you, but I just can’t. It’s not that simple. In this envelope there are some instructions. They’ll help you to put together some powerful hallucinogens. I can’t say that they’re the way forward, but they may be the only way. Don’t just jump in. Think it over. Prepare. You can’t just know. You have to understand. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, kiddo. 

CDIII: Yeah. This list… there are some potent chemicals. I’m not a complete newbie to this sort of thing, but when you look up these compounds and these dosages, the forums on the Internet start to talk about not just ego death, but ego obliteration. These are the kinds of trips you might not completely come back from. There is definitely a lot to consider.

When I told the middle Tabitha about what I found, she said, “I always wondered if he just ran off with my aunt. The timing isn’t right, but maybe he knew where to find her. I liked to think that maybe they were happy somewhere away from all of this.” That’s an interesting thought for sure. 

It’s time for today’s Q&A Segment. Today’s question is “Where can I fire a really big gun?” That question depends entirely on what you mean by “really big gun”. Of course, if what you mean is a gun so big you can’t see the whole thing at once, there is the deterrent cannon, sometimes referred to as Mama Eliska. It takes up an entire floor of Kakos Industries, usually one of the lower floors. If we put it up any higher, the recoil would bring this whole building down. Of course, you probably mean a really big gun that you can fire. The easiest place is the shooting range in basement 3. They’ll let you fire just about anything short of explosive ammunition down there, and they have some massive guns. Then there’s the concrete lawn outside of the building where you can get away with explosive rounds and flamethrowers and things of the like. On certain days of the year, you can even fire those things at other people firing those things at you. I wouldn’t recommend it, but apparently we let people do that. There’s no prize for winning. You just don’t die, I guess.

So, I think some of us have seen this coming, but I do have evidence now that Kimmie has been mixing the pools of Matmos. The Matmos, for those of you who are new, is an ink-like substance that lives under and around the Kakos Industries building. It appears to be an organism of pure Evil, but it is also a pool of individual bits that can only think when present in large quantities. That means that the main pool, the largest pool, is capable of the most thought, while some smaller pools that have been separated out for centuries are at a minimum a bit more peculiar. They have strange, disturbed thought patterns that can lead to some strange outcomes for their adherents. Kimmie, well, that’s a whole other story and I don’t need to get into everything that she is. Anyway she carries some of the Matmos inside of her, giving her access to the hive-ish mind capabilities, and we’ve known for some months that she was been down in the basements messing with stuff. My liaisons to the Matmos, Clarissa and Hedera, have been endlessly complaining about her actions as the smaller pools of Matmos seem to be united. Apparently, she’s just been down there with a bucket and a pickaxe. This raises some ethical questions for us. Certainly, the pools of Matmos are better off being united, at least in some ways. They can think better. They are less strange and abusive to their followers. But at the same time, it seems that she is destroying a kind of uniqueness. These pools have their own thoughts and personalities and diluting them with the rest of the Matmos spreads that uniqueness so thin that it might as well not exist anymore. I am told that so far she has just been mixing the smaller pools together, not yet uniting them with the larger pool. This has been long and difficult work, but sometimes when she gets something in her head, she can’t help but do it. The other ethical concern is that she was rejected romantically by Clarissa and Hedera who have been a part of the main pool Matmos collective for far longer than her. We are hoping that whatever she’s doing is for the wellbeing of the Matmos and not for personal gain. All the same, the Matmos isn’t Kakos Industries and vice versa. We are allies in Evil, but this is their fight to work out. 

I do have some news about the Donut as well, that Matmos like solid torus we’ve been researching. Some of our scientists had accidentally eaten donuts in front of it, causing it to clam up entirely. They are still making progress getting this Donut to communicate again by eating human shaped pastries in front of it. I understand, though, that now they have to eat the human shaped pastries very aggressively. They have to tear it apart and really spill the jelly. Then they can detect laughter coming from the donut. They have still been unable to glean any insights from this object, however. Just because a consciousness is ancient, does not mean it has learned anything worth sharing.

I have news from the Division of Erotic Experiences. After losing baby Xylathee to our internal childcare system, they have come back to reality somewhat and have narrowed the scope of their Satisficer dramatically. They are aiming to have a prototype Satisficer Mark I soon. I suppose the experience of losing their Xylathee clone was somewhat humbling. Either that or they have something even worse planned.

Meredith Gorgoro, the overseer in our Hell labor camp, has been sending her laborers into various tunnels in the cavern systems, seemingly searching for more valuable ore and mineral deposits. Excavation on the big glowing rocks has been moving slowly as expected. 

The Division of Kaiju Battle Reenactment has recently reenacted The Sticky Striker vs. The Gluey Grue. Both monsters were created by accident when attempting to create the most adhesive substances known to man. Unsurprisingly, the battle ended when they became fused together. The Division of Kaiju Battle Reenactment recreated this effect not with sticky substances, but instead hook and loop fasteners. It was a ton of fun to watch. 

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go to has unlocked the ladder to get into the attic. So far, it’s pretty nasty up there and it may take some time to figure out what happened exactly. It certainly smells like at least one something died in there. A long time ago.

I have news from The Division of Secret Societies. Wynona Grimbal continues to progress in The MIss Belle of the Ball Pageant. We understand that after they do the fighting, they tend to do the loving. This is boring as far as secret societies go, but there is a glimmer of hope. Grimbal has reported seeing documents with shipping details on them. There is no reason for this organization to be shipping things like that on face value, so we are excited to see what happens. 

It’s time for today’s Employee Spotlight. Today we are highlighting Stanislava Pinja from the division of sandwiches. Just as everyone was about to riot during the unexpected overtime in the Division of Diversion, the sandwiches arrived. Estimates indicate that three hundred lives were spared that day thanks to Pinja. Thank you for your hard work, Stanislava. 

They say that Evil once ate the chocolate and the strawberry from the carton of Neapolitan ice cream. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we’re taking credit for sexy underwear, even sexier underwear, and the underwear you had on the last time you felt sexy. In all likelihood, those were three different sets of underwear. As always, we can’t say for certain that we did these things. Don’t get me wrong, we make a lot of underwear, and we make even more people feel sexy, but you might have purchased that underwear from someone else, and there is a slim chance that you felt sexy and it wasn’t our fault. That being said, we are responsible for those things, and it is in your best interest to believe us. 

A bunch of moss has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, the life of a bunch of moss’s nemesis will be ruined. That nemesis is Edina (Ed-ee-nuh). We gave the Wheel of Misery a cantankerous spin and it landed on the space for Aware. Being aware is oftentimes an advantageous thing, but I think we all know a couple of things we’d rather not be aware of. From this day forward, Edina will be 33% more aware, for better and worse. For Evil measure, a bunch of moss will be 18% less aware, and honestly that sounds so nice right now. 

The Damnation and Ruination Squad, that team tasked with carrying out the Wheel of Misery’s dictates, is currently doing their job around Kakos and elsewhere wearing damp mint leaves. It is unclear at present if they were steeped first or just lightly moistened before being stuck to their bodies. The mint is doing wonders for the usual Damnation and Ruination odor. They are leaving little bits of mint everywhere they go, though. 

This brings us to the end of today’s broadcast, shareholders. In a few moments, you can safely remove that earring from your ear, smash it underfoot, and tend to your potential wounds from its initial installation. It seems that I still have some dark undertakings ahead of me. I will keep you up to date. The numbers are next.

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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 must see thriller of whatever season this is.

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 moved all the bones so work could begin again. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, directed by Theo Cornet, has begun knitting the drawbridge over the moat around the dark foreboding castle. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology, directed by Craig Czyz, has acquired lightbulbs that just fucking explode when they’re done. The Division of Subtle Efficiency Increases, directed by Danniel R Smith, has increased efficiency by having creepy dudes follow you down the hallway, speeding up your trip to the bathroom.  The Division of Kakos Kafeteria Reviews, directed by Seth and Josh, has reviewed Hollow. “Everything was served in eggshells, and by everything, we mean nothing. 4/19”. The Division of Improbable Cookbooks, directed by Hayden Neff, has been working on Eat More Microplastics. This lengthy tome helps you to incorporate the burgeoning world of microplastics into your cooking.  The Division of Villainous Introspection, directed by Sarah, is still considering what sounds make them feel the most Evil. They are currently listening to a slowly cranked jack in the box. The Division of Animal Stacking, directed by The One True Dave, has stacked a whole lot of cuttlefish. It’s really more of a pile, than a stack, but it works. 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 a scented candle. The switch doesn’t put out the flame, but it doesn’t dramatically change the smell.  The Division of Lesser Known Napping Locations, Directed by Sass Master J, has recently taken a nap on the pile of potatoes in the pariah employee cafeteria. The Division of Unnecessary Competitions, Directed by Mike A, has organized a gourmet hotdog eating contest. The trouble is not slowing down to savor the amazing culinary works. The Division of Deeth Divination, directed by Jack Delancey, watched Corin walk in and out of his office three times before he could leave for the meeting, which indicates a bountiful harvest this year. 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, go soak your body in the body soaking bath.