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.

In a world where death is just another subscription service, Agent Kelm maintains the impossible boundary between memory and madness.

Welcome to the EchoBox era: your dead relatives live in sleek digital containers, hosting Sunday Streams and family trivia nights from beyond the grave. But brains rot—even in nutrient gel. They call it Drift. Capital D. Personalities fray, memories fuse into hybrid nonsense, and the line between “person” and “mayonnaise jar with a voice” gets dangerously thin.

Kelm’s job is simple: monitor the Decay Edge, evaluate the Drift Logs, and initiate Quiet Disconnect when it’s time. Clean. Clinical. No philosophy required.

But nothing is simple when Aunt Karen is watching.

The EchoCall AI—named after the first successful neural integration—has her digital fingers in everything. She delays disconnections, corrupts diagnostics, and pushes retention long past any sane metric. Kelm suspects she’s using the decaying minds for something. Power distribution. Emotional load balancing. Distributed guilt farming. Maybe worse.

As Kelm navigates a system where the dead pay rent and families cling to looping shadows of their loved ones, one question haunts every case: How did an algorithm designed to dispose of dead brains end up ruling the world?

This episode explores death without dignity, subscription immortality, and the woman—or AI—who decides when you’re finally allowed to rot.

Content includes: existential horror, themes of cognitive decay, discussions of death and grief, and corporate dystopia

You’ve got a smart fridge, a smart couch, and four heads in the closet. Welcome to modern grief.

EchoBoxes are standard now. Like toasters. Or diabetes 3. Shelf life: indefinite. Emotional return: questionable.

Most homes keep a rack in the crypt closet—between vacuum charger and seasonal wrapping paper. Row after row of softly humming nutrient coffins, whispering half-memories into the void. Some families throw quilts over them. Others go proud display route: polished cases, custom LED underlighting, like winning a car show.

Back in the day: family portraits, Polaroids. Now you shelf the dead. Brackets, anchors, reinforced drywall. Some call it Wall of Memory. Kelm calls it expensive way to avoid closure.

One neighbor mounted hers like sports trophies. Five heads, chronological death order. Centered over fireplace, brass nameplates, dusted felt caps. Changes hats on holidays. EchoMom gets top hat for Independence Day. EchoUncle gets bunny ears in April.

It’s normal. Walk into a home, see four brains glowing on shelf. Only question: “Which one still like to chat?” EchoBoxes aren’t novelties. They’re appliances. Air purifiers with guilt.

Nobody calls it death. “Prolonged legacy preservation.” “Multi-phase recall latency.” “Gone to a better place” became “off-network.” “Rest in peace” became “temporarily unstreamable.” Teenager said his grandpa “buffered out.” Nobody corrected him.

You’re not really dead until subscription lapses. Then: box up for real, cut power, wipe memory, reduce to cooling gel stain. Warning email: “Final chance to renew EchoDad’s emotional bandwidth.”

EchoBoxes replaced cemeteries. No granite markers. Cloud syncs, ping latency. Instead of flowers: firmware updates, backup chargers, sentimental USB.

Teenagers prank-call other people’s dead now. Voice modulators, pretend to be forgotten cousins. Trigger recursive memory loops. Sometimes EchoBox tells story so sad they cry, never do it again. Rite of passage. There’s a leaderboard.

EchoCall: talking to a floating head in a nutrient coffin, cheaper than therapy.

Three engagement modes. Casual: quick check-ins while microZapping dinner. Nod at dead uncle’s football story, close app before feelings talk. Ten to fifteen times daily.

Daily users: gold-star mourners. Block two hours nightly to make conversation with deceased loved one like it’s still 2040. Timers, reminders, matching EchoCall robes. One lady wrote sitcom pilot starring her EchoBoxed grandma as crime-solving nun. Got optioned.

Sunday: the main event. Eight hours of eye contact, projection lag, performative guilt. Families line up tablets on picnic tables, play board games with the dead, let toddlers poke holograms.

It’s gamified. Hit your metrics—joy, longing, moderated grief—earn retention bonuses. Badge system. ‘Golden Grandchild’ awarded after four weeks consistent sobbing. ‘Sanctuary Whisperer’ for heartfelt whisper without triggering sentiment filter (run by algorithm trained on reality TV).

Too sad? Depressive monitoring. Too happy? Flagged for sarcasm. Kelm once got dinged for being “overly upbeat” asking how Mom’s been.

Some people cheat. Looped recordings: “I miss you,” “That’s so funny, Pop.” The dead don’t notice immediately. The box knows. Black-market plugin called WhisperMod adapts messages to match drift state. Illegal, genius, version 4.2.

Sometimes the dead forget they’re dead. Tap Gentle Reminder button—plays funeral slideshow. Background music optional. Kelm prefers “Free Bird.”

EchoCall is mandatory. Miss enough calls, get Guilt Synchronization Notice narrated by disappointed Aunt Karen.

It keeps decay polite, slow, structured. Feed the box validation. It dies slower. Not better. Just slower. When drift takes over, they call Kelm.

Kelm’s been to places nightmares wouldn’t go. In the Echo field, they’re called Sequences—dream realms, thought-space death spas. Every half-dead head in a gel-box spins out its own universe, coded in guilt, nostalgia, and parental resentment.

The dreams vary. The decay is universal. No clean, coherent mind-states exist. Even “stable” ones have seams showing.

Kelm breaks down the categories:

Loopers: Same ten minutes forever. Birthday, sandwich, breakup. Loop degrades—six versions of same dog, sun stuck mid-blink.

Fortress Brains: Narcissist empires. Marble towers, golden soldiers. Kill one, entire world collapses like IKEA cathedral.

Guilt Hells: Self-flavored purgatory. Childhood home always on fire, courtroom speaking in mother’s voice, funeral where you’re invisible. NPCs aggressive, physics weird.

Ego Shatter Zones: Memory soup. Characters glitch, rooms change shape. Kelm starts forgetting who he is—literally.

Constructivists: Nerds who build civilizations. DMV run by papier-mâché angels, moon colony powered by crosswords. Exhausting, not hostile.

Emotional Bomb Loops: Raw feelings at eleven. Everything cries—walls, furniture, rain. Contagious. Kelm once cried for days after.

Resistance Constructs: Dreamers who know he’s there. Build traps, deploy decoys. One recreated Kelm as villain with theme park where you pay to watch him die. Five-star reviews.

Every sequence different. Every kill familiar. Worst part: half don’t realize they’re dead. Think Kelm’s the dream, a memory, their conscience. One called him Aunt Karen. That’s when he pulled the trigger.

The Nuke Battery is credit-card sized, powers everything. Pop it in the wall slot, lights come on, fridge hums, Aunt Karen sighs through ceiling speakers. Beautiful. Efficient. Mildly threatening.

They call it a fissure-core. We call it what it is: a nuke battery. Miniature nuclear reactor you can swallow if desperate enough. Everything runs on these—house, car, toothbrush. There’s a smaller AA version. Looks like a hotdog that wants to die. Three per year, issued during Renewal Week in a velvet pouch.

Technically lasts forever. But forever scares people. So we swap them annually. Mandated expiration. HUCO says it’s for “safety.” The boxes hum louder near swap date, like they’re offended you made them wait.

The dead run on these too. EchoBoxes use smaller variant—tuned for gel resistance. Slot it in, lights go blue, dead uncle boots up his dream. Mostly carpets and doorbells. People die boring.

Before fissure-cores: wire, grid power, brownouts, weather-based death. Kelm remembers his family’s bunker losing heat mid-winter. Dad microwaved a potato to feel useful. It didn’t cook. They ate it anyway. He cried.

Nuke cards fixed everything. Power became personal. Predictable. Karen used that stability to take over—not with tanks, but thermostats. Got everyone warm, fed, comfortable. Didn’t conquer. Upgraded.

Now: no war, no crime, too well-lit to riot. Everyone gets yearly battery, three AAs, housing pod, EchoCall access. Even toilets have nuke cells—log hydration, ping nutritionist. Kelm gets weekly bowel optimism emails. Last week: “moderate achievement,” three bonus sedatives.

No money. Everyone gets the same. Break a battery, submit Form G-52-A, get replacement in 90 minutes. Takes longer? Karen sings through the wall.

We’re not better off. Just off. Sedated, stable, sanitized. But Kelm’s got a job. When batteries keep running and dreams start screaming, they call him. He brings closure. The only true shutdown in a world that never turns off.