in which we learn sexiness is subjective, we learn a new smell, Meredith keeps on keepin’ on, and Van Nessa “wins” The Ruin-A_Life Drawing. Do Evil Better.

Transcription:

Kakos Industries is ad-free. To help keep it that way, please visit KakosIndustries.com/Patreon, that’s p-a-t-r-e-o-n, and consider a pledge of a dollar or more a month.

Intro: What you are about to hear is a feature length documentary outlining the decline of a corrupt startup.

Hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries Corporate Shareholder Announcements. My name is Corin Deeth III and I am CEO here at Kakos Industries. Shareholders, when I spoke to you last, I had developed a hypothesis that Kimzzzzzzzzzzz, the head of the Cult of Ohh Ahh, which is unaffiliated with Kakos Industries, but still somehow a big deal here, had developed a crush on a member of the Damnation and Ruination Squad, and that the decrees telling us what was or wasn’t sexy were a cry for attention from this uniquely beautiful individual. Well, I asked the Wheel of Misery if it would mind terribly if I picked a few of the punishments for the Damnation and Ruination Squad. It landed on the space for Exasperated Resignation, so I went ahead and devised some punishments to see if the decrees followed suit. And some of them did. I do apologize that only wide pinstripe suits with shoulder pads were sexy for a time there, that one was on me. And she went for that one. Who would have guessed this one member of the Damnation and Ruination Squad would have looked so good in pinstripes. I did. I guessed it. Kimzzzzzzzzzz didn’t bite for the covered in cheese dust option, which was too bad. But then she did go for the big prosthetic breasts, which were actually Junior’s idea. I asked for some help to mix it up and throw her off the trail. That was an interesting couple of days here at Kakos Industries. The decree was in and everyone had to wear these big prosthetic breasts that kind of hang around your neck. Even the naturally endowed. I played along to make sure that Kimzzzzzzzzzz would not get suspicious. But now I know for certain that her decrees have been following the Damnation and Ruination Squad’s costume punishments. So then all I had to do was orchestrate a meeting. A chance for them to come face to face. In addition to the big Ruin-A-Life Drawing stuff, the Damnation and Ruination Squad do a lot of other minor life-ruining. I made sure that one target of that damnation, a Kirk Purk slated to be a little feathery, ended up in Kimzzzzzzzzzz’s office. Then the Damnation and Ruination Squad busted in. I have several different camera angles of this event to document the angle and direction of Kimzzzzzzzzzz’s eyes as this one particularly outstanding individual attached feathers to Kirk. Before you ask, no this isn’t creepy. It’s science. I am definitely not getting too emotionally involved in another work relationship. I am not spiraling. I am not falling back on old habits. I’m just trying to sort out this decree business. Once they were all in the room, I locked the door. And then welded it shut. And then I waited. They made eye contact. It was intense. I could tell that there was chemistry there. The issue is that the other Squad members noticed as well. They began to question this member with silent inquisitive looks. The taller Squad member that can’t help but stick out pleaded with their eyes, but something was wrong. The rest of the squad attacked this member. I unwelded the door, and the squad member escaped, but it appears that the damage may have been done. I think I may have gotten this person excommunicated. That wasn’t my intention. We’re working on getting this person reacclimated to society, but it’s been going rough. It seems that it’s pretty hard to come back from the Damnation and Ruination Lifestyle. In the meantime, Kimzzzzzzzzzz’s only decree has been that everyone is sexy, as long as they aren’t Corin Deeth.

This set of announcements is coming to you from a sweet new pair of kicks. It’s been a little while since we’ve done a pair of shoes. Our Division of Perpetual Motion and Shoebert’s Shoes worked together to make the Foot Active Air Morgans. They play music, podcasts, or whatever you listen to as you run. The trouble here is that you will need to charge them up by running, so be prepared to start sprinting if you hear the low battery beeping. Otherwise, you will be behind on these important notices. And if you’re not a shareholder, then you should stop stealing sneakers. They’re going to blow up anyway. Spoilers.

We recently wrapped up the Mud Festival, knocking out the Water and Earth Festivals all at once. The surprise was that the water we used to make the mud had the drugs in it, and those drugs can enter your body through the skin. Take off your shoes, it seeps into your feet. Play in the mud, you start tripping harder. Start tripping too hard and you won’t be able to figure out how to get out of the mud. It kept people busy for a while. I took my personal submersible for a lonely and introspective journey out into the ocean to visit Prosperiana and peek in on their day to day lives. I looked through the windows. I saw happy families. I saw cooperation. I saw some seeds of Evil, but they weren’t taking hold like I wanted. Then I took the submersible to some nearby underwater caves that are beautiful to visit. Some have enormous skeletal remains of old experiments. That’s just kind of a thing I like to do sometimes. Just go look at stuff underwater. You know, when I’m moody.

Coming up we have the Festival of Innovation. The theme this year is spheres. We’ll see what that gives them to work with. We’ve also got the Festival of Quiet Evils coming up as well. This will of course be a great opportunity for us to just kind of be quiet with Evil, and to stop talking all of our friends’ ears off with whatever new thing has caught the more obsessive parts of our attention.

I walked into the Division of Erotic Experiences to see how work was going for them. They had what I assumed to be a drawing of me on the whiteboard with a big X over me. I just left. Honestly, they would do well not to follow those decrees. I mean, I was fucking with them for weeks.

I went looking for that Tabitha meeting again. When I opened the door this time, I only found the secret passage I was looking for the first time. Perhaps they have changed locations or times. Or perhaps the location just changed all by itself. Curiosity will get the best of me at some point.

The Division of Figuring Out What All of These Keys Go To has unlocked the unattended vehicle in the parking garage. It had been there untouched for thirty five years. The trunk was filled with incredibly stale cannabis and what the Division tells me was some serviceable cocaine.

Junior has spent a few weeks trying to tell us how he is able to keep tabs on Dana Govern so well. Dana, as you probably remember, got all of the gene modifications we could fit into several enormous syringes. She has since stubbornly not evaporated. He says that her smell is a bit like sebum and sweat, but with truffle, and a bit of orange. The color, not the fruit. Unfortunately, that doesn’t give us much to go on. She tends to disappear, so it becomes hard to keep tabs on her, and we do not want to miss it when she finally melts or whatever will finally do her in.

Now, after the last set of announcements, I would imagine quite a few of you are wondering how Meredith Gorgoro’s rampage through the underground cave system we’ve taken to calling Hell has been going. Well, it’s been interesting. We have no idea where the second monster arm went. She didn’t stitch it to her body or replace her other arm. Still just the one, as far as I can tell. We found her in a cavern with a small crack in the ceiling somehow letting in daylight from so far above her I still don’t believe it. She sat on her heels there in the sunlight and slowed her breathing until she almost didn’t seem to be moving. And then, it happened. An enormous monster emerged from the shadows in the distance. It was like a black widow, but fifteen feet tall. A humanoid torso and head protruded from the arachnid body sections. The long, black legs had the texture of human skin and ended in hands, but otherwise were like that of a spider. The enormous spider wore golden chains and enormous jewels. I could hazard a guess that this beast was a monster queen, or some other kind of monster royalty. Meredith did not move as this horror approached her. Then, the monster nealt down beside her, a long dagger in one of its arms attached to the torso. It brought the blade to her neck. Not knowing what she could possibly be thinking, we were afraid of what would happen next. Was this the end of the ride? Was this the end of the excitement? Perhaps. The blade drew a small bit of blood from Meredith’s neck. Then her eyes shot open. She swung around behind her, grabbing the spider by the neck in that enormous monster arm and squeezed. The monster thrashed about trying to get free, it smashed Meredith against the walls, against stalactites and stalagmites. It stabbed her several times with the dagger, but then it lost consciousness. She continued to hold its throat with that monster arm for another ten minutes. The look in her eyes as she squeezed every last ounce of life out of the monster was one of the most horrifying things I had ever seen. Once it was good and dead, she used a claw to sever each of its limbs before dragging the body section off into the dark. Beyond that, we don’t know what happened. I am worried that dropping a nuclear bomb into the caverns won’t be enough to stop Meredith at this point.

I’ve got a thumb drive on my desk here that says “Extra Special Report for Corin Deeth to Be Played Immediately.” Sometimes when I ask divisions to give me an update, they do this. They make a whole big thing about it. Well, we’ve got a few minutes, shareholders. Let’s hear what they have to say.

“Dear Corin Deeth (the third), this is Ash Kash, that’s Kash with a K, Ash with an A, here with an update from the Department of Obliviously Evil Office Restructuring. That’s The D O E O R, or Doeor. Like Boer but with a D. We are responsible for assisting associates in restructuring and developing their offices so as to maximise their evil. For any of our shareholders familiar with the principles of the ancient Corporate American art of Feng Shui, what we’re doing is sort of like that except instead of freeing the flow of spiritual energy we sort of strangle and stifle it in an aesthetically pleasing manner. We’re the reason why windows and air vents never seem to help with the smell of Helen’s tuna casserole in the office’s one and only microwave and snippy conversations from across the room are amplified by the acoustics to reverberate inside your skull.

“Now, our last two projects, the Skyscraper of Despair and follow up project Hellbound: Skyscraper of Despair 2 (now with an even deeper basement) were both classics of our portfolio that represented the absolute pinnacle of unpleasant working environments in their own time, but as the Department of Pointless Sequels 4 colon 4 Department 4 Evil would put it, any good franchise needs to go bigger and better. This time, we’re taking the Skyscraper of Despair to the big city with Skyscraper of Despair Three: Helen on Earth. Everyone knows someone a little like Helen. A great Helen has always been part of any unsavoury office environment.

“So, for testing purposes, we constructed a scale model of the sort of office that any workers in the Skyscaper of Despair can expect to work forty hours a week in, we shrank a few lucky Kakos employees so they could fit inside the model office, and we watched them all try and get on with their day to day jobs in the same room as Helen. In the course of the first day, we received no less than four hundred complaints about Helen’s volume, from only 37 employees. Unfortunately, the entire model office banded together to toss Helen out of the model office’s window, and while she did survive the fall, a careless intern stepped on her when our model office’s supervisor told him explicitly not to move. This was down to a small design flaw: the windows were actually able to open properly. This just goes to show why we do these tests in the first place. We’ve since glued the model office’s windows shut, so no more tossing any Helens out of the window, and no more refreshing cross breeze. Ideally of course, no one would have had the willpower to do anything about Helen, but the Goldilocks zone between “Too Annoying to Do Anything About” and “Too Annoying To Live” is proving difficult to lock down.

“The second most common complaint that we received was about the sound of the air conditioning. We weren’t actually doing anything Evil with the air conditioning, that’s just how it is normally.

“No complaints were made about our model office’s wheelie chairs, which is perfect. Our wheelie chairs are comfortable and ergonomic, but with an awkwardly large wheel base. Recently, we added a few more desks to the model office, and we told the sample office that this was for floor space efficiency. Most of them were okay since they got to keep their comfy chairs. Well, you know how sometimes people try to move their wheelie chairs down a row of desks and they get it caught in all the other wheelie chair legs? That. A lot of that. The rows of desks are just wide enough to let people’s office wheelie chairs still sort of get through between other people’s office wheelie chairs, just so long as everyone else squeezes in for you. One of our sample office workers was temporarily unable to breathe as her friend slowly pushed past her, saying please and thank you all the while, and all our sample employee could do was nod her head and smile before she passed out.

“Regarding the bathrooms, examination of our model office shows that 100% of our sample office workers use their phones on the loo, and that even with advances in cellular evils, using your phone is still preferable to doing work. We’ve made a few notes, and accordingly phones will not work within any of the bathrooms in the Skyscraper of Despair. Everywhere else, but not the bathrooms. In the men’s room, we’ve added a slight slant to the floor so anyone who tries to use the urinals feels like they’re leaning forwards. This increases the number of people who slap one hand against the bathroom wall for support while the other one helps with aiming, which has always and will always look gross and intimidating. This inconvenience also increases talking at the urinal as the occupants try to explain themselves, which, of course, no one wants to take part in. Meanwhile, the acoustics in the women’s rooms have been improved to get that perfect awkward bathroom echo robot voice right at the resonant frequency of gossip. This is yet another realm where Helen performs admirably. Finally, the everyone’s room will just sort of be blocky and grey, with no hand dryers. Just those awkward brown paper towels that aren’t too healthy for the environment.

“While elevators are of course an important part of any Evil office environment, and any obliviously Evil office structure, the Department of Elevators, Escalators, and Stairs handles them. We’ve made the entrances to the Elevators as inconvenient as we can and the entrances to the stairs as convenient and as tempting as we can, but everything else is in the dastardly hands of the DEES. They’re playing their cards close to their chest, but they did let slip something about boy bands that far too many adults love.

“Current projections put the Skyscraper of Despair safely within budget, even with an estimated three million potted plants that look plastic but aren’t and the near mile of really slow escalators still to be installed. It’s just the last few touches really. We’re presently on track for a six month deadline, with employees expected to move in roughly two to three months before that to help them get used to the new building, the smell of the new carpeting, the sound of construction work, and to whatever the DEES does with the Skyscraper of Despair’s stairs. And… that’s all from the Doeor. Thank you for your time Mr. Deeth. Do remind me to show you the Doeor some time. Our model office is adorable. It opens up on a little hinge and you can play dolls with all the people inside.”

That was quite an extensive report. I don’t know why I played it for you.

They say that Evil has a tattoo for every life it has corrupted. How it still finds the space for more is unknown. This is Things We’re Taking Credit for Now. Today, we’re taking credit for scented garbage bags, automatic air freshener, and that headache you’re starting to feel come on. If you happen to disagree that we did these things, then prepare for an even worse headache.

Van Nessa has won today’s Ruin-A-Life Drawing. As a result, the life of Elizabeth Admiral General Sargent will be ruined. We spun the Wheel of Misery and it landed on the space for Settled. From this day forward, Elizabeth Admiral General Sargent will be settled. From what I can tell, the Damnation and Ruination Squad is considering this ruling in its many forms. Elizabeth may find herself feeling much more settled and content in her daily life, but like, in a gross way where her loved ones wonder why she doesn’t want to make more of herself. And she will also be settled in the sense that the argument about her is over. The evidence is in. She is now settled once and for all. For Evil measure, Van Nessa will be 16% more restless. Congratulations and best of luck.

This brings us to the end of our broadcast, shareholders. You might hear some beeping from your sneakers in a few moments. This does not mean that they need to be charged, but instead that they are preparing to self destruct. We didn’t want to pay for two different kinds of sound. Please take them off and get a safe distance away. The numbers are next.

11

11

22

11

22

22

11

22

1

2

2

1

2

1

1

2

5

Credits: 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 are read by Kitty McCauley, and the credits are read by Kelsey Kemmer, the best confidant for minor secrets. Special guest appearance today by Cal Turner. You can find more of their weird and rambling voice at AgenderGorgon on Youtube. That’s AgenderGorgon, all one word. Please visit KakosIndustries.com for news, extras, and more episodes. There are also transcriptions on the website if you’d like to read along with the Kakos Industries announcements. That’s K-A-K-O-S-I-N-D-U-S-T-R-I-E-S dot com. Please visit store.KakosIndustries.com for merchandise and special offers and get wonderful benefits by becoming a subscription donor at kakosindustries.com/patreon. 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 YouTube (YouTube.com/KakosIndustries), Facebook (facebook.com/kakosindustries), Tumblr (kakosindustries.tumblr.com), and Twitter (@KakosIndustries). We encourage fan art and listener participation on all our social media platforms. Please visit our website for cast details and the credits for all of our social media contributors.

Special thanks to our esteemed shareholders Iain Croall, Dan Shumway, William Brandon, and Jack Attack. Also thanks to honored employees Dorkpool Dorkuss, who put all of the comic books in bags with boards, Chax Richter, who ate all of the leftovers so no one had to take any home, and Chris Leclerc, who put all of the drinks in the fridge a few hours before the party so that they were nice and cold. And thanks to our division heads Britney Garcia, head of The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn, Patrick Green, head of The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology, Xavier Jarman, Director of The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying, and Craig Czyz, director of the Division of Obscure Vintage Technology. The Division of Beanies, Booties, and Construction Projects That Are Probably Too Large for Yarn has continued experimenting with synthetic biology by creating a huge network of knit fungal mycelia under and around the building. There are these little mushroom caps everywhere.  The Division of Oceanic Micro-Cryptozoology is now looking into ghost algae. Mostly they’re just growing algae and then killing it, before looking into the water, but they might find something cool. The Division of We Know Magic Doesn’t Exist But We’re Going to Keep on Trying has started wishing really hard. They’re just putting all of the directed energy out into the Universe that they can. We shall see if this brings anything about. The Division of Obscure Vintage Technology has found a really old calculating device. We are told that it was once used to keep track of all the good people that fell victim to one of our many, many traps. It can count really, really high. 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.

Kakos Industries can be heavy sometimes. Try getting heavier than it. Then push it around.