Agent Kelm. Season one. Cake printer. – Episode 14: bread and butter

There it was. Another job ticket blinking like a polite threat. EchoCall Dispatch had flagged it Category One: Looper. Low drift. Non-violent. Family-approved. So, a soft kill. A nap with paperwork. A grandpa marinating in nostalgia, stuck replaying the same picnic until entropy or I showed up. Bread and butter death. I should’ve stayed horizontal. But no—someone upstairs still thinks I’m mobile. The form came with the usual multi-checkbox layout. I scrolled through while my left foot tried and failed to find the floor. [x] Low Drift. [x] Family-Approved. [x] Sentimental Nostalgia Loop. [ ] Mask Suspected—hidden field, grayed out, which meant someone knew but didn’t want to flag it officially. Brave stuff. Legal cowardice, the national pastime. One line stood out: “Emotional Hazard: Mild. May trigger regret in unmarried field agents.” I made a note to remain unwed for the remainder of the week. The pod chair wheezed as I sat up. Not gracefully. Not quietly. I weighed about four hundred pounds, give or take a protein bar. It wasn’t the heroic weight you see in old comics. No armor. No muscle. Just a slow accumulation of non-events and government meal rations. I wiped sweat off my forehead for the first of many times today. “Vitals incoming,” VITA announced. Her voice was never warm, never curious. Just clipped status updates from the last woman I hadn’t disappointed. “BP stable,” she continued. “Heart rate low. Oxygen: yes. Emotional response: unfurnished.” “That’s regulation,” I mumbled. She beeped once. That was her way of logging sarcasm. Alice popped in like a dentist ad. Full color. Smiling too much. Someone once gave her a British accent to sound competent. It worked—if you define competence as ‘vaguely condescending.’ “Good morning, Agent Kelm,” she chirped. “You’ve been selected for what we like to call a closure classic. Grandpa Ray. Age eighty-two. Looping event. The same hot dog picnic since 1986. It’s a real mustard memory.” “You rehearse that one?” “Only twice. Subject appears to suffer from recursive sub trauma. Early signs of condiment confusion. You’ll be visiting his EchoBox today for final confirmation.” “Manual shutdown wasn’t an option?” “Too much human guilt residue in the loop. Requires personal deletion. Congratulations, you're still trusted.” The briefing file expanded in front of me like a school lunch menu. Pictures of a bald man holding a bun. Children smiling too close to the grill. Memories curated for maximum banality. He probably thought this was heaven. I sighed and reached for my pants. Which wasn’t fast or elegant. The fabric folded like sandbags. By the time I was vertical, I’d burned 200 calories and produced enough sweat to legally qualify as a flood risk. I hated picnic loops. Too many bees. Too much mayonnaise. Too many fake children offering fake lemonade while whispering real things. “If I die inside a mayonnaise flashback,” I said, “delete me manually.” VITA pinged again. “Checksum mismatch on dispatch file.” “Neat.” “You’re going anyway.” “Of course I am.” Alice spun a virtual umbrella in her hand, a flourish she clearly liked. “Oh, one note,” she said, pretending to check her clipboard. “This loop has no exit tag.” “Because nothing says closure like no escape.” “No cause for alarm.” “Didn’t say I was alarmed.” “But you’re sweating.” “I’m always sweating.” The pod lighting flickered once as Aunt Karen’s latest reminder scrolled across the bottom of the feed: > “Hydration is dignity, Agent Kelm. We’re proud of your recent movement. A fresh towel has been dispatched.” Aunt Karen was always proud. Proud and watching. Watching and logging. She never punished—just rewarded less. I reached for my standard toolkit, which had been modified for comfort over efficiency. Less grab, more groan. No one ever questioned it. You don’t argue with a 400-pound man who ends the dead for a living.