episodes

47 – Refuge

in which Corin and his supporters have taken refuge in a deep part of Kakos Industries, we hear from one of Kakos Industries’ more colorful residents, the Automobile Celebration is recapped, preparations are made for the Festival of Everything is Okay, We Promise, and somebody’s life is probably ruined. Do Evil Better.

Transcription:

What you are about to hear causes dolphins to swim slowly in circles with a dead-eyed stare.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries corporate shareholder announcements. At Kakos Industries, we help you to Do Evil Better. My name is Corin Deeth III, and I am still CEO of Kakos Industries. Mostly. I’m pretty sure Kakos Industries still exists. Well, keep your fingers crossed anyway.

Today’s broadcast is coming to you from your Shareholders’ Emergency Radio Receiver System Number 27. It’s an industrial strength radio that would probably survive any number of potential apocalypses that you would not. The speaker is mono, but it’s made out of kevlar. The electronics are nearly indestructible as well. I personally fired several different handguns, rifles, and rocket propelled grenades at the test models, and in most cases, they could still broadcast sound. This radio, as you have probably noticed, did not need to be delivered to you fresh this week. That’s because you already had it. Hidden in your home somewhere. Those of you living the studio apartment lifestyle might be asking yourselves how we managed to hide it where you couldn’t find it. Also those of you with a minimalism obsession. You might also be asking yourselves if this is the 27th time we’ve needed to use one of these radios, or if this is just one of at least 27 currently stored in your residence and potentially leaking radiation. The simple answer: please don’t concern yourselves about any of that right now. It is by far the least of our worries.

As you probably assumed, we have not been able to do our broadcasts from our studio. It’s one of the reasons it’s been so long since you’ve heard from us. We have formed a small resistance cell, and we are currently deep beneath Kakos Industries. We’ve, uh… we’ve been forced to hide out in Junior’s Lair.

Junior: Hello, shareholders. Mwa ha! Mwa ha!
Corin: Uh, hey Junior… Can you keep it down? I’m doing something important here.
Junior: That’s ridiculous, Corin. Nothing you do is important.
Corin: It’s the shareholder announcements. I’m supposed to do these to keep people informed.
Junior: Oh, I’m familiar. I tune into every single one of your insipid announcements.
Corin: Oh? I really wouldn’t have thought you would care.
Junior: I would never miss a moment of your idiocy, Corin. You’re just so stupid. It’s like watching a dog try to get out from under a blanket.
Corin: Thank you for that, Junior. I’m trying to do something here. You know that the company is under attack. Even though she seemed so cordial at dinner…
Junior: Only a fool would fall for such a simple rouse. It’s a wonder they let you lead anything, Corin. It’s your mind. It’s just so feeble.
Corin: Thanks.
Junior: Honestly, you might as well be a vegetable for all the good your actions will do. There’s nothing like going against the infinite cosmos, Corin. You can only lose.
Corin: This is not the infinite cosmos, Junior. It’s just an insurrection.
Junior: Insurrection! Look at it try to use big words! Don’t hurt yourself, Corin. Your tiny mind just can’t take it.
Corin: I don’t know why you always treat me like this.
Junior: Isn’t it obvious, Corin? It’s because I’m the smartest living thing on this planet. My idle daydreams contain more depth and vivid detail than years of your life. I solve the greatest problems facing mankind regularly, but I keep them to myself because people aren’t ready. I beat the Koreans at StarCraft, Corin. The Koreans. At StarCraft.
Corin: If you’re so fucking smart, then why do you spend all fucking day in this cave masturbating, huh?
Junior: Mwa HA HAAAAA!
Corin: Oh, there he goes. He’s just pulling on it. Laying on his back. Pulling on it. Sort of rubbing it on his belly.
Junior: Mwa Ha! Mwa Ha! If you could see things the way I do, Corin, you would know that there’s no point doing anything else! The world is a pointless, bitter trial. Bringing yourself to orgasm is the most meaningful action you can take.
Corin: And you never leave your fucking cave. The door’s unlocked. You’re not a prisoner. It’s a common misconception.
Junior: There’s nothing out there, Corin. You’re such an idiot. Everything outside is a frail shadow compared to the power of my mind. I’ve imagined better worlds than this just to keep my mind occupied while I’m on the toilet, Corin.
Corin: There’s really no need for such vulgarity.
Junior: Vulgarity! HA! If only you knew, Corin. If only you could see! Your life is vulgar! You’re every pitiful attempt to be is vulgar. How can you even begin to understand my motivations!
Corin: I’m just saying that things might be better for you if you got out once in awhile. Things might smell better in here, too.
Junior: That’s the smell of genius, Corin!
Corin: I’m pretty sure it’s the smell of monster jizz and cheese puffs.
Junior: You call me a monster! HA! I didn’t choose this, Corin. You know that full well. Father made me this way. I’m his greatest success, even if he didn’t understand that!
Corin: Shareholders, I recognize that you might not have spent time with Junior and a visual description might be helpful. He’s… around 30 feet tall?
Junior: It’s about two meters long. I use the metric system because I’m not a moronic child.
Corin: He’s kind of reddish…
Junior: It’s thick, too.
Corin: He’s got some horns. Is it three horns, Junior?
Junior: Four if you count this one. Why, it’s bigger than you are, Corin! MWA HA!
Corin: Kind of a round, wide body, with sturdy arms and legs.
Junior: It’s like I’m a tripod, Corin. It’s like a man holding a pumpkin above his head.
Corin: And he’s got a big fucking head.
Junior: My brain is larger than your whole body, Corin. I have lobes you can’t begin to understand. Do you want to know what happens with this little spat of yours, Corin? It’s all so obvious.
Corin: No.
Junior: Are you certain? I could just tell you. Save you some time.
Corin: Hey, Junior. How would you like a bucket of peanut butter?
Junior: I could feast.
Corin: Let’s get him that drum of peanut butter.
(Junior chewing sounds)
Corin: That should keep him occupied.

We have been unable to have many of our festivals like originally planned, but we did manage to get through the Automobile Celebration before everything went to shit. It’s an old festival, but it was revived by that new book of rules much to all of our surprise. I mean, we haven’t had that festival since they took lead out of gasoline. Let’s do a recap and pretend that nothing’s wrong for a minute. I’ve been carrying this recap in my coat pocket for almost a month now. This year, the star racers were sponsored by our clients Phructer and Thimble, Glow Chemical, Cutlass Aircraft, and General Human Wills. Whoa, those names are blast from the past. This year, we limited the number of weapons on the racers to two, but we did not limit ammunition in any way. All of the racers got a rolling start, and when they crossed the starting line, all hell broke loose. Half of the vehicles were destroyed immediately with high powered rockets of some kind. Only the fastest cars were able to escape the total annihilation of the first few seconds. Phructer and Thimble then took out several of the remaining competitors with their endless flamethrower, which was fed by large tanks on either side of the vehicle. Glow Chemical took out another handful of competitors using their street acid spray something or other. It also corroded a significant chunk of the raceway that made for some complications later on. Cutlass Aircraft made use of their giant saw blades to take out yet another competitor, while General Human Wills used some sort of radio dish to take control of another competitor’s vehicle, or perhaps the people driving inside, causing it to crash. That left only Phructer and Thimble, Glow Chemical, Cutlass Aircraft, and General Human Wills, much as we expected. Seeing the danger, the other three cars began to target the General Human Wills car and its mysterious radio dish. Glow Chemical did their best to spray acid, but they only succeeded in creating another dangerous hole in the course. Phructer and Thimble used their endless flamethrower, but the device seemed nearly fireproof. In response, General Human Wills used their dish to target Phructer and Thimble, causing their vehicle to spin wildly out of control. They managed to swerve to safety just in time, though. It seems that the General Human Wills device has a range, and the Phructer and Thimble car got too far away. Cutlass Aircraft finally landed a blow on the General Human Wills dish with their saw blades, knocking it loose. It fell off the vehicle, and behind it followed a person who was apparently hardwired into the machine by numerous wires running into the skin around the skull. That person was evidently unable to disconnect. Following this development, the General Human Wills vehicle prepared its second weapon: a pistol with a whole lot of bullets. In fact, all of the remaining vehicles had some variation on this weapon for their next choice. After installing their larger, more significant weapons, there was only so much space left in their vehicles. General Human Wills began firing wildly at the Phructer and Thimble vehicle, piercing its fuel tanks. Compressed flammable gas began spraying out of the sides of the vehicle. Capitalizing on the opportunity, the Phructer and Thimble team lit this stream of gas on fire, giving them a constant spray of flames from the side of their vehicle. The Cutlass Aircraft vehicle attempted to cut larger holes in the tanks with their saw to reduce the efficiency of the burn, but they were unsuccessful, and their vehicle wound up catching fire. They stopped to put out the flames, and the team from Glow Chemical rode up and shot them all dead outside of the vehicle. The Phructer and Thimble car and the General Human Wills car began exchanging gunfire. At this point, everyone in the stands who wasn’t bulletproof decided to get out of the way. Bullets were flying everywhere. The General Human Wills car shot more holes into the Phructer and Thimble tanks, causing fire to stream out a greater and greater area. Then, the vehicle was pushed off course by the lopsided propulsion from the flaming tanks and crashed. The occupants were cooked by all of the extra heat. At this point, Glow Chemical caught up with General Human Wills, and sprayed everything they had left at them. Corrosive fluids went everywhere, melting the racetrack, the stands, and the nose hair of everyone within a quarter mile radius. The General Human Wills vehicle was caught in this corrosive spray, and their vehicle slowly disintegrated. Victorious, the Glow Chemical vehicle sped off. Then, they had to finish the remaining 97 laps on the course they had so significantly destroyed. Suffice it to say they were unsuccessful. And crashed. And died. Another no-survivor race, shareholders. But what a race it was. Those of us who stuck around inside the bomb shelters then got into fancy cars for sex purposes.

My notes here indicate that coming up we have the Festival of Everything is Okay, We Promise. I think we might be trying too hard there guys. The description reads, “At this festival, everything will be okay. Totally okay. We will meet up and do things that remind each other we are totally okay.” It would probably be a better sell if there weren’t tears staining the paper.

Well, then I suppose I should fill you in on the events since I last got a chance to speak to you. Things with Belladonnica went sour to say the least. Our dinner together must have been a chance for her to appraise my abilities. Shortly after that, she lobbied the executive board to create a new position for her. By the way, did you guys know the correct term is Exectopode? They have never corrected me. Suffice it to say I was embarrassed when I found out. Belladonnica knew, and I think that’s one of the things that allowed her to create the job of Chief Evil Officer. Another CEO at Kakos Industries. I know some of you must be surprised to hear that I am not the Chief Evil Officer already. I am the Chief Executive Officer. The Evil has always been implied. Or so I thought. I couldn’t argue with this series of events at the time. Her knowledge of Evil is outstanding. She was prodigious in her youth, and now as an adult, it seems that her skills have only grown. She instituted a number of changes almost immediately, which were undoubtedly Evil, but I am afraid that they were detrimental to the overall functioning of Kakos Industries. Hours grew longer. Employees were not allowed to leave or to take bathroom breaks. Wide scale experiments were undertaken on pretty much everyone. We’ve never seen such casualties. And from our own! We had to install nets along the rooftops to… um… keep people from flying away. We had to hospitalize workers. I personally had to fight off some ravenous bite wolves as they attacked the less effective employees. Belladonnica brought in hundreds of new employees with the express purpose of wearing them down. We began to undertake new projects that pushed people too far. In the past, we pushed our employees to explore their deep pool of inner Evil in a comfortable way in their own time. Belladonnica kicked people down into the pool and held their heads under the water. She also took to painting the walls again, but now she would walk down the halls naked and dripping with black paint, just dripping all over the fucking carpet, before pressing her flesh into the walls, leaving behind impressions of her body everywhere. These paintings were of seductive poses, of power poses. Poses that intimidated and marked her territory. Poses that seemed to watch you as you walked through the halls. She bent and contorted her body to leave haunting faces on the walls and other unsettling abstract imagery. We lost a lot of good people. Others still had to go to section 76, which is now full, along with section 77 and half of section 78. All of that, however, was perfectly acceptable compared to what happened next. Having found me to be an unfit mate, Belladonnica did what was perhaps the most Evil thing she could do. Not just for herself, but for all of Kakos Industries. Shareholders, I am pained to tell you that she went after Maggie, of the lovable lesbian couple Kimmie and Maggie. Belladonnica split up that magical couple. That couple that makes all of us feel so at peace. That couple that reminds all of us that we are strange and creepy at a deep and fundamental level. That seemed to be the last straw. Morale here at Kakos Industries collapsed. People started lying down and just waiting to die in the hallways. And that’s when the executive board approved a form of martial law. Unfortunately, they put Belladonnica at the helm. It’s complicated. I gathered the remainder of my supporters and holed up here in Junior’s lair. What is perhaps most disappointing is that Grace Rule has disappeared. She may have just gone home, but it appears that, for perhaps the first time in her life, she found a conflict she didn’t know how to resolve.

I did get a chance to speak to Kimmie. She said that they did finally clear out the bottom floor of Kakos Tower. She said it was nothing interesting. And then she went home to sleep.

I would like to tell you about the Ruin-A-Life Drawing, but I have not been in contact with the Damnation and Ruination Squad. They are an autonomous branch of Kakos Industries, so it is probable that they have continued ruining lives. I just have no way of knowing whose or why. The same can be said for Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. I could just make some stuff up, but that doesn’t feel fair to you. A lot of thought has to go into that segment, combining the knowledge of numerous divisions of Evil thinking. For the time being, let’s just say that all of our lives have been ruined by Belladonnica, and that we’re taking credit for all of her actions, though I recognize it’s fairly obvious that we, or at least I, had little to nothing to do with them. So instead, I will take this opportunity to say that this has brought us to the end of today’s broadcast. I wish that I had better news for you, shareholders. I will say that we are working as hard as we can on strategies to retake control.

Junior: Corin.
Corin: I’m almost done here, Junior. Just give me a second.
Junior: I’ve decided I want to help you.
Corin: I didn’t ask for help.
Junior: It’s because you’re so stupid, Corin. You can’t even see how desperately you need me.
Corin: You’re afraid she’ll kick you out if she wins.
Junior: I’m comfy here. It smells right.
Corin: Okay. I suppose it won’t do any harm to have your help.
Junior: Harm? How foolish you are.
Corin: Let’s hold off on your grand ideas of emotionally destabilizing genius for a few minutes. We can’t be certain that Belladonnica hasn’t intercepted this broadcast. Afterall, these are the emergency radios. As it is, there may be some uninitiated out there who have managed to tune in. The cleanup will be a huge pain in the ass.
Junior: I have some numbers, Corin.
Corin: There’s no numbers. I’m not in communication with…
Junior: I like numbers. I have some that I would like to share.
Corin: It’s really not necessary.
Junior: They’re good.
Corin: Good numbers?
Junior: Don’t be stupid you feeble little fungus. They are the best.
Corin: Um… Okay. Here’s Junior with the numbers.

Junior: Here goes. 18. Ha! BWAHA! 22. YES! 79. BRILLIANT. 533. OH HO! 1134. INDEED! HA! 256. SUBLIME! 22 AGAIN! HAHA! 4. YES. YOU LIKE 4 DON’T YOU! BWAHA! BWAHAHA!

Corin: Soundman, let’s cut the feed.

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 collecting cool superballs. 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. Please check out store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers. 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 Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries).

If you’re feeling down after this broadcast, have you considered learning Korean?

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