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Intro: What you are about to hear is the sound of a penny coming out of a well on the other side of the earth.

Hello and Welcome to the Kakos Industries Corporate Shareholder Announcements. At Kakos Industries we help everyone everywhere to Do Evil Better. My name is Corin Deeth III and I am CEO. Shareholders, I hope that you have been recovering well since the last broadcast. Obviously, Halloween didn’t go the way that any of us had hoped it would. The Deeth-lerium mist made everything a living nightmare until we finally figured out how to turn it off, which was still a couple of hours after the broadcast finished. At some point someone on the team responsible for running the mist came down enough to remember that they ought to switch it off. 

I am sure that you have many questions regarding what happened and what was rumored to have happened, but we should address those in a moment. 

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from the distortion from a failing video call. You may not remember who you were trying to talk to. You may not remember making the call at all. All the same, when the time came, you started to make the call, and then the call started to fail. It is failing in such a way as to bring you these announcements. I understand that this radio, if we can call it that, comes to us from a collaboration between our Division of Distortion, and QWERTYUIOPO, a technology company that has something to do with voice over internet protocols. The sound quality is a bit hard to pin down, and is maybe a bit spotty, but I trust that you can hear me clearly, and you will hear everything you need to. 

I should emphasize right now before we really get into it that this broadcast is exclusively for Kakos Industries shareholders. If you’re not a Kakos Industries shareholder, then I would recommend hanging up the call now. Otherwise, you may be subject to some subliminal messaging that will cause all kinds of untold havoc. Our shareholders are immune to this particular kind of havoc on account of having already had it unleashed in their lives by us. Sorry, but not really. Just kind of comes with the territory, you know?

We’ll start with my whereabouts at the end of the broadcast last time. When the hallucinogens wore off, I discovered myself in an actual cave system. Not the one from my hallucinations. Just a regular one. I was somewhere beneath the building just walking through caves. Initially, I thought I was on the verge of some kind of breakthrough. But then the further I got into these caves, the further away from the mist I got, and I gradually sobered up. This left me with another more concerning problem, which is that I was deep in the caves with no idea where the hell I was or any hope of retracing my steps. I have been trained in certain techniques for finding my way out of situations like this, but as you can imagine, there are no sure-fire methods of getting un-lost in a cave system you are totally unfamiliar with. Fortunately, this particular cave was not all that deep or complex, but it still took me around six hours to find my way out. I was starving, I was coming down from the Deeth-lerium, and I was exhausted, yet I was still in no worse shape than many of you. Some of you are no doubt wondering if I was able to discover any truths or secrets of revelations about my own existence, and the answer is unfortunately no. I just got lost in some caves. That’s the thing about psychedelics. Sometimes they take you where they want to, not where you want them to. To add to the frustration there, I actually attempted to take another dose of the Deeth-lerium, or more specifically the cocktail my grandfather had left a recipe for, but my tolerance after Halloween and the megadose we all took has made it impossible to get back there. I am hoping that sometime soon, my tolerance will return to normal. There is no telling.

Many of you are of course curious to know if the Man with the Long Long Hat was real or not. I have personally listened back to the recording several times. Unfortunately, with the way it was recorded, it is not possible to know if it was real or a hallucination. I understand that the reports of shadow people have largely ended, so I’m going to blame that on the mist just as I did last month. To this day, no one has been able to tell me exactly what they owe the Man with the Long Long Hat, or how they expect him to collect it, but all the same, the fear is quite real.  

Then there’s the other thing we should probably talk about. When I did manage to get back to the recording studio, it was empty except for a sizable puddle of blood on the carpet. A team was already getting to work cutting away at it to replace it with something in better shape. There was a smell of gunpowder, so I knew that something terrible had happened. I called Soundman and he was completely fine, which was a huge relief. I knew that Fourest might have come looking. In fact, he did, but you knew that already. Soundman explained that in his terror, he fired his weapon, and he struck Fourest in the abdomen. Against his better judgment, he then started to perform first aid on Fourest, attempting to staunch the bleeding. On account of how everything was, it did take emergency services some time to arrive. They carted him off to the infirmary where I understand the board told them to spare no expense in saving him, but unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he was pronounced dead when he got there. The board has taken possession of his body, probably for appropriate funerary rites. I feel some sadness for the whole situation. Obviously, he was a mean little shit, but he didn’t make himself that way. All the same, it’s hard to say that I’m grieving. Soundman has been going through some complicated emotions as well as far as I can tell. On the one hand, we know how he feels about pointing guns at me, and Fourest certainly did look a lot like me. I think maybe he worked out some stuff. Once he figured out that no one was going to punish him for this, I think he brightened up considerably. At the end of the day, it was self-defense. 

I think we’ve caught up with the big questions, so let’s get on with the broadcast.

We recently had the Festival of Anti-Celebration and Black Friday. Obviously, we try not to tell you exactly how to anti-celebrate, lest it start to appear like formalized celebration. As for Black Friday, we had a line out the door for a special mystery box. The mystery box was filled with personal varnish. We found a way to get rid of it. I hope that you find some use for it if you ended up with it. 

Coming up we have the Yule festival, which is exciting as always as all of you come down to celebrate the darkest night of the year for us up here in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ll have drinks and entertainment and all of the usual festivities. Yes, I will be dressed as a Krampus monster, and yes, I will have to spank you if requested. 

We also have the “rhymes with festival” Festival, and this year, you all selected the Westival. Apparently it’s going to be wild west themed with saloons and cowboy hats and whatnot. I have been informed that the chances of hootenanny are rather high. 

Then of course we will have our New Year’s celebration, which will be the next time you hear from me. 

The Kakophonia Festival has returned to a somewhat normal level of operation. As we know it is intended to be a music festival that sustains itself by first draining the resources of the bands and attendees, and then using the bands and attendees as a workforce to keep everything going. During Halloween there was some spooky music that devolved into everyone running away from shadow people, but now the programming has calmed down. The trouble is that the programming is still heavily improv-related. I understand that they have had a long form improv routine running for about two weeks now without much interruption. The performers sleep on stage in character. The show is titled “What are we going to do with Jeremy’s Pickle,” which I understand came from multiple audience suggestions way back at the start. I do not know if they intended for this event to run so long, or if they just haven’t been able to yes-and their way to any kind of conclusion. This is the live performance equivalent of the halting problem.

The middle Tabitha, whom I have been spending a great deal of time with, was able to avoid the worst of Halloween. She apparently had a similar tolerance to me, and was able to get free of the event, though it seems as though she still had an uncomfortable psychedelic experience that she has been resistant to telling me about. 

CORIN: Shareholders, I have a bit of business I forgot to take care of earlier. I, uh, I have to make a call real quick.

(ringing)

DIRK: What is it?

CORIN: Hey, Dirk. What are you working on?

DIRK: It’s a robot.

CORIN: Well, that much is obvious. It is what you do after all. WHat does the robot do?

DIRK: RObot stuff.

CORIN: Like what kind of Robot stuff?

DIRK: Did someone ask you to call me up?

CORIN: Your three spouses all asked me to call you up. Do you want to talk about it?

DIRK: It’s just a robot, COrin. Nothing to get so upset about.

CORIN: You sound kind of upset yourself, Dirk.

DIRK: I’m fine. Everything’s great. I’m doing great. Okay

 I’m making a big violent robot, just like everyone wants me to.

CORIN: How violent? WHat does it do, Dirk?

DIRK: Just violent robot stuff. THe usual. 

CORIN: Specifically, what does it do, Dirk?

DIRK: Okay, fine, Corin, if you have to know, it crushes your balls.

CORIN: What?

DIRK: It’s got all these big actuators and pistons and they work together to just destroy your balls.

CORIN: What?

DIRK: There’s a little cubby here. You can put your balls right in there. Then all the pistons and actuators work together to completely smash your balls into nothingness.

CORIN: What?

DIRK: And it calls you names while it’s doing it.

CORIN: What kind of names?

DIRK: Not ones to say in front of your shareholders, Corin. Real nasty stuff.

CORIN: Why?

DIRK: Sometimes life just busts your balls, Corin. It’s just like that sometimes. Life just takes your balls and grinds them into a fine powder.

CORIN: Dirk, how is this robot going to destroy anyone’s balls? Are they going to put them in there?

DIRK: That’s just it, Corin. They put them in there themselves. They let the thing just obliterate their balls.

CORIN:  How. How do you convince them to do this? Or is it like a sex thing?

DIRK: Oh, I wish it was a sex thing, Corin. That would be great. But it isn’t. It just calls you names, and pulverizes your nads. 

CORIN: How is this going to work?

DIRK: You just sidle up into it, and it crushes your balls. With pistons and stuff. 

CORIN: Your family wants you to step away from the machine, Dirk. They’re worried. 

DIRK: It’s just a statement, Corin. Jeez. Like performance art.

CORIN: I know that you’re upset about losing Mr. Billies.

DIRK: He was the best hamster, Corin! He was the best friend a roboticist could have! And he wasn’t even mechanical!

CORIN: You know they don’t live that long, Dirk. This was bound to happen.

DIRK: It’s just like life has taken my balls and atom-smashed them out of existence. 

CORIN: I’m sorry, Dirk. It will get better though. 

DIRK: Sure, COrin. Sure. Okay, I guess maybe this was some high concept nonsense. 

CORIN: Go spend some time with your family, Dirk.

DIRK: Fine. I’ll do that. That’s a smart idea. And maybe… maybe I’ll put Mr. Billies in the balls cubby and send him off with a robotic salute.

CORIN: I guess that makes sense.

DIRK: Thanks, Corin. I’ll talk to you later.

CORIN: Any time, Dirk.

Okay, back to the usual announcements. Soundman has just reminded me that I forgot to talk about the Matmos and Kimmie. Things are still getting weird. The Matmos twins are still doing actual work one or two days a week in business casual. It’s a strange sight. Kimmie has informed me that as much as she would like to just dump the pulls back into each other, a slow trickle is the only way to achieve the right results with the least amount of chaos. Various Matmos carriers have been showing up to work for the first time in years still. We’ve been doing our best to meet their needs and get them back into the work force. A lot of them have also needed extensive dental work. We’ll bill them for it later. 

It’s now time for today’s Q&A Segment. Today’s Q is “Where is the best place to relax at Kakos Industries?” This depends once again on what your exact definition of relaxation is. We have a basement that essentially functions as an opium den. Many of the people down there are pretty relaxed, at least at the moment. That’s probably not your kind of relaxation, though. We also have the Kakos Spa, which offers a full spa experience complete with hot tubs and massages and cucumber slices. It’s not my thing, but a lot of people really love it. Then, of course we have the various lawns, and the friendly lake, many of which offer an unspoiled experience of nature, which many people find to be quite serene. It is definitely possible to relax at Kakos Industries. I just don’t know if it’s wise. 

I have news from the Division of Erotic Experiences. Progress on the Satisficer is moving along slowly, but they have started a parallel project. I understand that this has a niche appeal. Apparently, they liked the sound of my hallucination from last time so much that they are designing this separate sex toy to slurp up whole dudes. Like their whole bodies, I guess. Yes, Soundman, I know what the kink is called. So do the shareholders. There are also some rumblings that they may be considering yet another device that gently squishes you between giant toes… or, well, giant breasts. On the one hand, I’m glad their trip was informative. On the other hand… well, it feels a bit personal for some reason. 

Meredith Gorgoro, the overseer in our Hell labor camp, has continued to experiment on the crystals they’ve found that glow when you breathe on them. We did send down a probe that was able to take a sample. We want to make sure that this crystal formation doesn’t have the hallucinatory effects of the last glowing thing. We’re also beginning to wonder if there’s something about this cave system that was able to preserve weird ancient life in various glowing formats. If this is another one, well, we’d better keep an eye on it. The researchers down in the cave system are still slowly tracing the outline of the glowing stones to see if they can learn more about that formation. 

The Division of Kaiju Battle Reenactment has recently reenacted The Disposal vs. the Recycler. These were both half-machine monsters that were originally designed to help with waste disposal in various ways. They were working at a garbage dump together when apparently something went wrong between them, and they had it out. The reenactment captured a lot of the details of the original fight, including the ending, which is a bit ambiguous. No one was there to see exactly what happened at the end, but the meat parts of both monsters were turned into a uniform slurry, and the machine parts were taken apart and organized by their components. 

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go to finally unlocked the suitcase that was leftover from the plane crash some number of years ago. Inside was a variety of hypebeast sweaters, all water damaged. They have been auctioned and apparently the story behind them was more valuable than the logos for once.

I have news from The Division of Secret Societies. I now know what personal varnish is and I wish I didn’t. Many of you got some and know as well. Wynona Grimbal, our operative inside the Miss Belle of the Ball Pageant, has certainly impressed her peers with her sales, but things are looking a bit suspicious at the moment. She apparently outperformed the next best hunbot by almost one hundred percent. We may need to be less heavy handed in our approach. Some research would also have served us. 

It’s time for today’s Employee Spotlight. Today we are highlighting Bau Bakari from the Division of Shredding. They paused destroying the evidence for a few minutes to deliver a blistering guitar solo, and we all needed that. Thank you for what you do, Bau Bakari.

They say that Evil once cheated at the game on your behalf just to sow discord. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we are taking credit for dragons shooting lasers from their eyeballs, wizards shooting fire from their glowing staves, and the disappointment that neither of these things is real. Now, you might be saying that we can’t possibly be responsible for the nonexistence of magic, and I say, fucking prove it. You can’t, can you? Might be better for you to just believe us, huh?

Pethrai D’Arkos (pe-dhri d-Ar-kohs) has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, the life of D’Arkos’s nemesis will be ruined. That nemesis is Mel Hartman. We gave the Wheel of Misery an effortless spin and it landed on the space for unfashionable. I think we can see where this is going, but I need to emphasize something right at the top. You can’t just make someone zero percent fashionable. You can’t max them out on unfashionable-ness. If you try… well, a lot of times it ends up making them more fashionable. We will be aiming to reduce Hartman’s fashion sense by a solid 20% but we dare not go any lower on the off chance that we somehow make this person more fashionable. Likewise, we have to be careful about D’Arkos as well. For Evil measure, we will be making D’Arkos 60% more fashionable, which might be a bigger issue than it sounds like. Congratulations on the win and best of luck.

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 squash guts. On the one hand, I like this one because it’s cheap. On the other hand, the cleanup is a bit of a problem. And also, squash guts do not do anything about their nudity, nor do the guts help with the aroma.

This brings us to the end of today’s broadcast. I know that things have been a bit uneventful since Halloween, but we’ve really just been doing our best to get back on track after everything that happened. You may have realized that the video call that you’re getting this broadcast through is coming to you on what is apparently not even one of your computing devices. It’s one of ours. And it needs to be destroyed. Do not look through its files. Do not attempt to wipe the hard drive. Get a hammer and end it.

The numbers are next.

66

66

66

67

66

66

65

66

64

64

66

64

6

4

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 knife in the back of the knife in your back.

Special guest appearance in this episode by Anwar Newton. As Dirk Cornelius Sexsplosion.

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 caught the bottle of expensive wine before it could hit the ground. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, directed by Theo Cornet, has completed the supports for the second story, but has gotten a little lost in the weeds on creating potential secret passageways. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology, directed by Craig Czyz, has acquired a mold used for making savory gelatins from the 1970s. It is already Evil, no need to acquire a special variant. The Division of Subtle Efficiency Increases, directed by Danniel R Smith, has increased efficiency by making employees’ work the source of a strange itch they can only scratch by completing their assignments.  The Division of Kakos Kafeteria Reviews, directed by Seth and Josh, has reviewed Human Gavage. “You walk up the counter, they put a funnel in your mouth, and then fill you with corn. 3/9”. The Division of Improbable Cookbooks, directed by Hayden Neff, has been working on Fondon’t. It’s a book of things you can technically melt or dip in a melted substance, but probably shouldn’t.  The Division of Villainous Introspection, directed by Sarah, is still considering what sounds make them feel the most Evil. They are currently listening to recordings of open mic nights on repeat. The Division of Animal Stacking, directed by The One True Dave, has stacked a rack of black yaks.  The Division of Lesser Known Napping Locations, Directed by Sass Master J, has recently taken a nap in the air guitar studio. WHen they’ve got their headphones on, it’s actually quite peaceful. The Division of Unnecessary Competitions, Directed by Mike A, has organized a reading competition for documents in the Kakos archives. It’s not a question of volume so much as stamina. 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 chair. When set to off, it functions like a normal chair. When set to on, watch out. The Division of Deeth Divination, directed by Jack Delancey, watched Corin straighten his tie. They are expecting one hundred years of rain. 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 , kiss yourself if nobody else will.