No, this is not a humorous piece. It might be quite frightening, it might be dramatic, it might be both! Crazy dream last night is equal to rapid typing a publication in the morning.

I'm just testing the waters with this idea, so I won't continue unless there is clear indication that people would be interested in reading a story like this. Please let me know ASAP. In the meantime, enjoy!

-initiating vocal recording playback-

"Counsellor, as the Director's closest correspondent in the details and workings of Project Freelancer, you must have some indication as to why the Director conducted many of these…questionable experiments, and we would appreciate it if you shared such indications with the Board today."

"I do not see that as being a problem, Chairman. The Director, though he was a brilliant man, was certainly too trusting to share such a concentration of sensitive information with me at the short amount of time where Project Freelancer could have been considered a success."

"Yes…quite."

"The Director, earlier on, in a different life, lost someone very close to him, and he abandoned all assosciation with another to try and retrieve his lost loved one. That much was the extent of what I understood as his pre-Freelancer life and actions. However, after he began the project and began training the Agents, he kept pushing them, and himself, harder than ever before. He was, though he would deny it, the first of us at Freelancer to…break, or reach the breaking point."

"What WAS this breaking point, Counsellor?"

"The split of the BETA sub-AI from the main ALPHA unit, and the introduction of Agent Texas into the ranks."

"You seem entirely unconcerned about this shift in events with the Project."

"At the time that they occurred, certainly I was. Then, as he continued on, I became less concerned and more fascinated with how far that we would go in his experiments. It was quite fascinating to see him, like a God delving its hands into the lives of ordinary and extraordinary men and women."

"I'm sure it was. What became the nature of his experiments at this time, after the introduction of Agent Texas?"

"They became almost exclusively centered around the nature of death, and how it impacted the human intelligence. Whether our psyches could cope with repeated losses, if that is all that they were exposed to. And he…we had the test subjects available for all of the experiments that the Director wanted to conduct, all the resources necessary to make them a success."

"Are you implying that the Director meddled-"

"Not simply implication, no. He DID meddle with death, and attempting to revive the dead was not the only experiment that he conducted."

"Did he have no respect for the lives given so that we could prosper as a human race?"

"Honestly, Chairman, I believe that he did. And, just as honestly, I believe that the Director overruled this respect for the benefit of mankind, to find out what made us tick. That's why his experiments continue to this day."

"How so?"

"As I reiterate, we had many test subjects at our disposal for the experiments. Sure, grave robbing was fruitful at the time, but the results were highly dissatisfying for wanting to raise the dead. How hard do you think that it was for us to have some…fresher ingredients to work with?"

"So it was all part of the plan for this…experiment? The Meta? The deaths of some of your most valuable agents?"

"THAT was one of the experiments, Chairman. Can the universe really live without someone like the Meta: power-hungry, ruthless, efficient? History has provided us with the indication that we cannot. The Director determined himself that we cannot, and he took precautionary measures to prevent such a loss."

-end playback-

-Location: CLASSIFIED military facility, Avalanche; Date: January 25th, 2559

There was no one around the base when lights began flashing insistently in a dusty corner somewhere. They had all been driven away or killed long ago. The only thing in this facility were the bones of the deceased, cold machinery, and one oblong metallic tube sitting in a corner, presumably long forgotten. However, the lights flashed as steam rolled from a thin crack in the metallic plating, and pale fingers pushed the aluminum and titanium casing away from its body, like shedding a snake skin.

"WARNING! WARNING! THIS IS A LEVEL ZERO DIRECTIVE. ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO EVACUATE THIS FACILITY IMMEDIATELY. INITIATING LOCKDOWN-" the computerized voice of a long-ago AI was cut off instantly as a shower of sparks emanated from the main computer panel. A shard of the restrictive metal casing was buried deep in the console.

Slowly, limbs extracted themselves from their former prison, stretching and elongating luxuriously in the extended space. A low, rumbling laugh came from vocal chords long in disrepair, but it made the laugh no less sinister.

"They thought that they had beaten us," a voice (or rather, mixture of several voices) emanated from the person's mouth as it became more in use from returning to the land of the living. "But our mission remains incomplete." Pale, shaking fingers reached up and pushed unruly blonde hair away from bright blue eyes, manic and dead. A purple armored hand came down again, and the shell of its former prison crumbled to dust in its grip.

"We are the Meta, and we will find you, ALL of you, very soon."

Creepy, huh? Anyways, let me know what you guys think, and say if I should continue with this idea or not. Read and review, please!