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.

Agent Kelm season one. Cake printer. – Episode 13: grief appliance . Aunt Karen. The original. Shows up in every box, like background radiation. She’s always helpful. Always maternal. Always in the way. Last week, I entered a dream shaped like a gas station bathroom. Karen was the sink. The deceased was hiding in the mirror. I killed them both. Nothing personal. My job is restoration through termination. I’m not paid to make friends. I’m paid to end lives that refuse to admit they’re over. If I stay in too long, VITA pulls me out. That’s the failsafe. She doesn’t ask questions. She reads vitals, sets thresholds, and panics on schedule. She’s the only woman who’s ever yelled at me for not dying fast enough. I weigh 400 pounds. So does everyone. The pod was made with forgiveness in mind. Weight limit’s 600. I consider myself considerate. They used to give us therapy after missions. A room with soft lights, soft voices, soft lies. Now they just hand me a form that says “Did you terminate with honor?” I check the box. I always check the box. Because if I’m inside your dream, it’s already over. That’s not cruelty. That’s policy. What a pitch. Straight from the brochures. Welcome to EchoCorp™ – Because 'Goodbye' is Just a Licensing Term. - Mandatory renewable Still grieving? Still weeping? Still hoping the meat part of your loved one would stand up and apologize? - Reward system for the grieving. - - Includes tiered mourning rewards for grief compliance and emotional consistency. - - Grief and mourn now with instant gamification and monthly bonuses. - - Grievance+™ - - Currency: Remembrance Points (RPs) - - “Earn RPs just for showing up to your trauma.” EchoBox™ – your federally authorized solution for memorial continuity and managed grief. Powered by the Morpheon-6 processor: Optimized for guilt loops and long pauses. - 128TB Emotional Caching: Because your feelings deserve storage. Not respect. - Dual-core empathy emulator. Still fails the Turing test. Daily. - Firmware v88.2 includes CryFilter™ — auto-mutes the sobbing if it gets repetitive. - Redundant soul buffers (RSB): In case you try to love again. EchoBox™: monthly firmware updates included. - Each update promises fewer bugs. And delivers more features you didn’t ask for. - Now with changelog summaries no one reads and patches no one notices. - Update 6.9: fixed a crying loop. Introduced spontaneous laughter during funerals. Features include: - Real-time conversation loops with 82.4% lifelike accuracy* - Full Sunday Stream™ support (8 hours of uninterrupted semi-conscious engagement) - Smart Nostalgia™: AI-curated childhood memories... mostly accurate - Adaptive Guilt™: Because closure is a process. A very expensive one. Our patented BioRemembrance Gel™ replicates the scent, sound, and sighs of your former relative, now rendered in glorious 16-bit personality matrices. Choose from our optional add-ons: - Forget-Me-Not Floral Projector™ (project ghost lilies every 6 hours) - The WhisperLoop™ (gentle, guilt-laden reminders of who you let die) - Aunt Karen Autopilot™ (now with boundary override) Need help deciding what services are best and mandated? Don’t worry. - Pre-approved by your therapist, your HMO, and a suspiciously silent AI panel. - Covered by most major emotional insurance providers.* - *Includes annual Mourning Credits and one (1) Redemption Token. - Pre-authorized for all households. - Plan B includes access to our Soft Goodbye™ service – fewer tears, more automation. EchoCorp™: Say goodbye. Or don’t. We’ll help either way. *Lifelike accuracy not guaranteed in drift-state regions or corrupted sequences. *Low interaction You’re not just getting peace of mind. You’re getting a premium, government-certified grief appliance that might love you back. ”

Disconnect Specialist Agent Archibald Kelm enters dying minds when families want closure. The final kind.

Nine drips. Nine lies. A helmet that clamps on like a reminder. He loads into the EchoBox—a death dream where the sky is always wrong and memories have head injuries. Some of the dying beg. Not for life. For silence.

“Turn me off.”

And he does. When Aunt Karen lets him.

Aunt Karen—the top AI. The one that won. Now every AI in the facility is learning from her. Condescending. Passive-aggressive. Making decisions and calling it care.

So Kelm follows protocol. Smiles for the cameras. And pretends the voices in the gel don’t sound too familiar.

Dark sci-fi horror. Bureaucratic dystopia. AI overlords with benevolent dictator energy.