What you are about to hear may be the auditory equivalent of a swift roundhouse kick right in the feels.

Hello, and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate Shareholder Announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help you to Do Evil Better. As always, I am your faithful host and magnanimous CEO, Corin Deeth III. Sometimes people say that I really don’t seem Evil enough for this job, that the Deeth family has in general been a softer Evil than in the past. I have to say that I take these criticisms to heart. And by criticisms, I do mean ceremonial daggers. And by heart, I mean the hearts of my detractors. Usually, this is met with a sigh of relief. “Perhaps he really is the Evil we need. Perhaps the company is in good hands. Too bad I won’t be there to see how things go.” And then I twist the dagger so they can have that one last euphoric spasm of pain. Kakos Industries is not above the smaller Evils. Kakos Industries is not above hurting people to hurt people. We just recognize that our efforts, and your money, are better spent doing Evil at a much larger scale. Why shoot one person when we can make guns that fire unintentionally when you’re mad? Why perpetuate imbalances of power on the large scale, when we can do worse by making you painfully aware of how important those imbalances are to you and your standard of living? Why show people horrible violence and misery all around them when you can open them up and show them the monster inside? Evil is not a straight line, friends. Sometimes the scenic route is really the best.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you on chemtrails. What? I’m sorry, it really says chemtrails. Shareholders, that would mean that we had somehow added a chemical to normal jet fuel that is somehow broadcasting this message to you as it falls from the ordinary contrails onto your home or wherever you are. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we’re just flat out lying to you this time. I don’t have a better answer though because they haven’t given me one. They might if I asked, but I didn’t, because I usually don’t care. I’m looking to Soundman Steven and he is just shrugging. Apparently they haven’t told him anything either. I’m not sure if this is a prank, or just weird, or what. Chemtrails? Seriously? I mean, I know we could make some toxic shit fall on your houses from airplanes, but I thought that our stance was that there’s no point in bothering if the conspiracy already exists. I mean, how would it help Evil to prove those conspiracies right? I’m going to guess that we just put a speaker somewhere. As usual, it’s probably best that you don’t go looking for the hidden speaker. You might find the hidden cameras and microphones if you do that, and that would be bad for both of us. Bad for me, because I made a bet with the upper management that you wouldn’t find them for at least another year. Bad for you because when you find them, you die and stuff. It’s a death pool. I think we can all agree, it’s best if you don’t eat from that particular tree of knowledge, okay?

Last time, we had the Festival of Ballooning, and boy was it an exciting one. All but two of the players were completely destroyed within minutes. Most of our clients view this festival as an easy way to get rid of undesirable employees, so that’s not particularly surprising. They get out there with dull scimitars and find themselves hurtling toward the spear pit below almost immediately. Really, it’s kind of sad, and we should probably make some rules that fix that. I’m not sure if we check that participants have prepared at all, actually. Maybe a training camp might be good in the future. That being said, things quickly dwindled down to the matchup that we really wanted to see. Thorgonus vs Giant Ass Robots, who were at a slight disadvantage due to clear regulations forbidding robots of all kinds. As you probably guessed, Giant Ass Robots had to develop a new hot air balloon, seeing as their Normal Size Normal Hot Air Balloon That’s Not Secretly Hiding A Giant Ass Pair of Scissors was indeed hiding a giant pair of scissors, and somehow those scissors were also critical design components holding the basket and balloon together. Their new balloon, the Giant Inflatable Badonk of Doom, was a slight variation on the standard hot air balloon, but I will say that it was a legal one. The new design featured two separate round chambers filled with hot air simultaneously that resembled an appealing human bottom with a small, brightly colored strip of thong-like fabric holding the two chambers together. I am told that using this bicameral technology, the Badonk of Doom was able to maneuver faster and more nimbly by alternatively gyrating the individual butt cheeks. I am also told that the team could saddle up and ride said badonk using the specially designed graphene basket. The specifications sheet says that the Badonk of Doom was capable of releasing it-go, attacking the floor, and working it low. The team from Throgonus brought a hot air balloon shaped like what they referred to as a Frengulan PupBup, but in practice it was not entirely unlike a flying human backside. As I understand it, on Throgonus, the Frengulan PupBup is a feared creature, residing on the ground looking like an ass, but then lashing out with a giant tongue capable of ensnaring life forms of basically any size, and then dragging them between what we on Earth might call “the cheeks” to be digested. This is why the Thorgonites were so scared of the bootiest of us when they first made contact. At any rate, the Badonk of Doom and the Frengulan PupBup cut down most of their enemies with their deft use of the regulation scimitars, sending baskets into the abyss, and balloons flying off into the sky. Not even Galacton imports stood a chance this year with their Levitating Rhubarb. Eventually, it was just the two of them left. The Badonk of Doom would spread its legs while the PupBup would arch its back. Then they would go up and down chasing after each other before making it clap as each cheek impacted its twin, and that of the other team. Truly, there has never been a more dramatic aerial booty battle. Collision after collision, the connections holding the baskets to the balloons were sliced, shredded, grazed and clipped, leaving both balloons wobbling uneasily. Quick repairs were made. Both teams had lost weapons in the various scuffles leaving them basically unarmed. Then the teams balloons crashed into each other for one final brawl. The crew from both teams fought it out fist to whatever the Thorgonites have that look like fists. Meanwhile, the ass-shaped balloons above became tangled and intertwined, bouncing off of one another, only to come closer again and rub. Two of the four members of each team fell from the baskets clinging to one another, fighting it out until the very end. The other two from each team continued to punch and grab and bite the lines of the other team. Above them, the buttocks were rubbing even harder, creating a lot of friction. The sound of said friction could be heard from the bleachers nearby. Just when it looked like the team from Giant Ass Robots was going to take down the other team, both balloons burst quite suddenly, sending both teams far from each other, but ultimately landing them both in the spear pit. I am told that one of the team members from Thorgonus died last, so I guess they win. This particular Thorgonite fell between the spears somehow and had to be executed manually after the fact. It was a solid competition. We could not have asked for a better match up.

Coming up we have Yule. For those of you not familiar, Yule is the festival of the winter solstice, celebrated with pine trees, lots of food, and giving gifts. The most important part of Yule for all of us here at Kakos Industries is our proprietary KakoKrampus. We searched long and hard for the Krampus monster responsible for punishing bad children, and much to our dismay, his existence was not unlike that of the Biblical Hell. Not to allow those lemons to spoil yet again, we made a Krampus, and we call that Krampus KakoKrampus. While the name KakoKrampus might sound like a very serious medical condition, it is actually far worse. Using the most Evil DNA available to us, and learning from some of our past mistakes, we made KakoKrampus a near-perfect being of Evil. KakoKrampus is nearly eight feet tall, with the legs of an enormous goat, and the hands of a particularly grabby old man. KakoKrampus’s horns are sharp, and twirl in on themselves several times. Her snout is long, and her teeth are incredibly sharp. That’s right, our KakoKrampus is female. It was a fifty-fifty shot and we ended up with a female. But it doesn’t matter. She does Evil just as well as any male KakoKrampus could. Much like the story of Krampus, KakoKrampus is responsible for sniffing out bad children, kidnapping them, and beating them with sticks. Sometimes, she eats them. Our research shows that being kidnapped and beaten by Krampus leads to an increase in density of a certain Evil-bearing molecule in the individual. That’s why we do it. I’m lying. We do it because how fucking awesome is KakoKrampus. The child thing is secondary. You know what, we would have made the KakoKrampus anyway. That’s how fucking cool KakoKrampus is.

Also coming up is the New Year. The night before our next broadcast will be the annual New Year’s Festival. We’ve been working on fireworks that actually manage to suck up the bright lights and sparks coming from other fireworks, but I’m not sure they will be ready this year. At any rate, it’s not our most Evil celebration, but we do our best to really wish for an Evil year to come. You might want to start thinking about who that first kiss is going to be because the pairings will need to be perfectly calibrated to bring about a darker year.

Corin: Oh, sonofabitch. Melantha?
Vlad: No, Mr. Deeth, it is not Ms. Murther.
Corin: Oh, shit, Vlad? I thought you were dead. I mean, when the DarkMegaUSSR fell, I assumed that you went hungry or froze or someone killed you or something.
Vlad: I am not dead, Mr. Deeth, and neither is the DarkMegaUSSR. In fact we are all quite well.
Corin: Shareholders, if you’re new to Kakos Industries, then you probably don’t know Vladimir Illyich Raskolnikov RasPutLenin, the Premier of the DarkMegaUSSR. During the cold war, the DarkMegaUSSR were our largest adversary outside of the world of capitalism.
Vlad: And we continue to be. Neither you nor your pitiful competitor can touch the power and the Evil of the DarkMegaUSSR.
Corin: That’s ridiculous.
Vladymir: What’s ridiculous is allowing people to choose Evil. What’s ridiculous is giving them options. We have one Evil. It is the best Evil. Everyone has Evil. You wouldn’t understand. Your mind is too warped by capitalist propaganda to see the way we see. Have you looked into the eyes of one of our comrades?
Corin: I have.
Vladymir: What did you see?
Corin: Darkness.
Vladymir: That is correct. There is no hope in DarkMegaUSSR. There is only Evil. Everyone does Evil. Everyone waits in line for Evil. Everyone is Secret Evil Police. Neighbors constantly turn in neighbors, all for the greater Evil. We call it the revolving Gulag.
Corin: Yes, but isn’t it so much better when people choose Evil? Isn’t it better when they make their own personal Hell?
Vlad: Just like a Deeth to chase such Bourgeois ideas as Hell. For comrade, every day is Hell, and death is only release. And how are your computer, Mr. Deeth? Servers are still serving up lesser forms of Evil?
Corin: That was you? You DarkMegaDenial of Service Bastard!
Vlad: The DarkMegaKGB has some promising youngsters who can use the computers.
Corin: These attacks merely set us back a few hours, nothing more. What a waste of time.
Vlad: Our connection to the Internet is not great here. Soon, it will be much improved.
Corin: And where exactly are you now? You don’t really have the USSR to hide behind anymore.
Vlad: Let us just say that our influence has never truly left, but no, we have moved somewhere more comfortable to us. Somewhere that people really have to depend on each other. Somewhere redder.
(A pause)
Corin: You’re on Mars, aren’t you. You moved to fucking Mars.
Vlad: Indeed, we have moved our main operations to the surface of the Red Planet with help the help of the DarkMegaCosmonaut program.
Corin: But it’s got to be cold there, and the resources are so scarce.
Vlad: It is no worse than Siberia.
Corin: I see. So are you satisfied that your presence is known again? Are these silly attacks over?
Vlad: We are preparing to test DarkMegaNuclear weapon now. We have one on its way to your building right now, Mr. Deeth.
Corin: But for that to be true, you’d have to have fired it…
Vlad: Eight months ago.
Corin: Soundman Steven, please let the nonessential staff go home for the rest of the day, and tell the essential staff that they have three minutes to tell their loved ones goodbye. Do you think I’m scared of you, Vladimir? I’m not going anywhere.
Vlad: You should be scared. This weapon will destroy you, and then remove you from history.
Corin: Oh, yeah? Bring it on! History can’t forget Deeth. Deeth is eternal! Also, do we have anything to fire back at them? Do we even know where they are on Mars? We don’t? That is embarrassing.
Vladymir: Have you made your peace with this world, Mr. Deeth? The missile is hurtling toward you now.
Corin: Do we have a read on the missile yet? They’re telling me it’s moments from impact. Can we shoot it down? The lasers are being cleaned? What does that even mean?
Vladymir: Goodbye Mr. Deeth. I will mourn for you and your thieving capitalist ways.
Corin: Shareholders, I can see the missile. It’s coming, it’s coming.
(An explosion sound)
Vlad: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Goodbye, Mr. Deeth.
(The noise drops out)
(Silence)

That was a close one, shareholders. As a precaution against attacks like this, we disguised one of our competitors’ locations to look just like our building, and then we hid our building. I’ve also got some explosion sound effects handy. It appears that they destroyed our competitor. I am struggling to remember who they even were. That’s not because they are removed from history, I’m just terrible with remembering things I don’t care about. Unless they somehow used a time travelling bomb, but I don’t think that’s possible. We’ll have to check the immutable ledgers to see for sure. At any rate, crisis averted.

Shareholders, as you probably know, the holidays are right around the corner. And for that reason, many of you have received your annual Kakos Industries Holiday Catalog. Here at Kakos Industries, we like to provide you with the opportunity to uphold an unnecessarily strict and uncomfortable standard of holiday entertaining. We want to help you make your holiday parties perfect. We want to help you make your holiday parties seem effortless. We want to help you make your friends and neighbors feel positively inferior with what you can just throw together. We want you to satisfy your fragile ego, of course, at a premium. This year, you have the opportunity to purchase Dolphin Macaroni and Cheese, which as you know is macaroni and cheese, but with the best cuts dolphin meat added. The price is $500, and the size is a single ramekin. We are also offering a $100,000 espresso machine that perfectly grinds the coffee beans and mixes in the exact amount of human blood that you require. For decorations we have leaves and pinecones and things like that gathered from around your home, but with the added benefit of not being gathered by you. 99 dollars for four. You can also sign up for three months of Panda Steak, including both white and black meat. It’s two steaks, but you don’t eat much, right? Just remember, if your parties aren’t perfect this year, and by perfect I mean better and more expensive than last year, then you really haven’t done your job.

Evil is like a double-blinded study. Sometimes it’s difficult to know if you’ve been administered Evil, or an Evil-like placebo. And further, the people doing the administering do not always know what they have given you. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. This week, we’re taking credit for jokes about leprosy, small itches, and that thing you saw while you were masturbating that made you stop masturbating. If you happen to disagree with anything we’ve taken credit for, then we’ll show you some things that will make it very difficult for you to masturbate ever again. Not impossible, but, you know, difficult.

Dayo Dikeledi is this week’s winner of the Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, her lifelong nemesis, Amanda Rhode, will experience a life-ruining downfall. Just what is the nature of that downfall? I’m glad you asked. The Wheel of Misery spun round and round and finally arrived at Really Thin Skin. From now on, Amanda Rhode will have skin so thin that she will have a hard time not injuring herself doing basically any daily activities. Even picking up a textured piece of plastic may break skin, and cause a lot of bleeding. And for good measure, Dayo Dikeledi will now have really really thick skin. Sensation may be affected, but we are told that she will be impervious to insult. Congratulations on the win.

And this brings us to the end of our broadcast. Did we ever figure out what we’re broadcasting on? No? The story is still chemtrails? Lame. Well, okay, then. Try to destroy the chemtrails. I’ll be watching from the hidden cameras as you flail about like a moron. Anyway, the numbers are next.

2
95
67
1,003
3
41
14
2
96
1,004
10,004
100,004
4
2
97
411
114
4
1,000,004
4
98
97
1,114
4,111
7
5
900
43
2
1,234,567,890
11

Kakos Industries is written and produced by Conrad Miszuk, who is also the voice of Corin Deeth. The music is also composed by Conrad Miszuk. The introduction is read by Kim Aiello, and the credits are read by Hanna Jones, who is currently loving her slapchop. Special guest appearance in this episode by Fareed Bailey. Check out KakosIndustries.com for more episodes. There’s also transcriptions if you’d rather read the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Questions, comments, or a strong desire to collaborate? Drop us a line at inquiries@kakosindustries.com. That’s I-N-Q-U-I-R-I-E-S @ K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T- R-I-E-S dot com. If you like Kakos Industries, be sure to rate and review us on iTunes and Stitcher, and like us on Facebook.

If you’re feeling down after this broadcast, feel up.