Absolute Gravity

Someone was humming a familiar song about beautiful dreamers. I was lying in a field. But not just any field. It was the one I used to escape to when the world got to be too much. At that tender age, it didn't take much. Just first crushes and arguments with my parents over grades. It was my secret place. Or at least I thought it was when I didn't realize I was sharing my life with something else.

I could feel the sun shining through the stalky plants, casting dappled shadows on my skin that blocked the light. Someone hummed as they ran their fingers through my hair. As if they were contemplating adding daisies like Clara did when we were little.

"Where is he?" I asked as my consciousness grappled with the past and present. I'd never brought anyone to that place. And that realization was enough to keep my brain from locking into the memory. It couldn't be real.

“Who?” she replied.

But she knew. She could feel my thoughts. She just liked the sound of her own voice. Beata's voice. Or at least how I imagined it because I had no memory of her actual voice to judge. Chaos never spoke with an accent. She spoke like me. So maybe it was my own voice I was hearing. Or maybe it wasn't a voice at all. Just thoughts that my brain interpreted into words.

"Bucky."

"On the other side."

"Why can't I get to that side?"

"Because there's too much of me and very little left of you."

"Why am I here?"

"This is where I brought you that day. We had a different conversation then. You wondered why I chose this place."

"Why did you?"

"Because it helped when you were younger. I was so small back then that I couldn't use your Darkness yet. Not even to manipulate your dreams. I couldn't take you back to these safe moments. This is where you brought yourself when you had to help yourself."

"And why do you feel the need to take me back to safe memories?"

"To take your pain away. Pain doesn't bother me much. I can cut myself off from it and let you rest."

"Is that why I can't wake up?"

"Perhaps."

"Or do you just not want me to?"

"That too."

I sighed and opened my eyes. She had my head resting on her lap. Her legs were outstretched, one arm propped in the dirt to keep her upright. Her other hand aimlessly tangled in my hair. Back when I was young, and kept it cut to my shoulders because it always got in my way. The grass tickled my skin, and clouds drifted by on warm, lazy breezes. The sun was shining, and the air felt warm but not overbearing. Like the first few sunny days in spring.

Chaos was wearing Beata's face again, smiling down at me like a mother would if she were admiring her child. But she wasn't my mother. And I hated that she took that form as if she wanted me to feel something toward her. I didn't. So I sat up and forced her not to touch me. I tucked my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. My body felt small again. Gangly and young.

"Why are you so gentle with me if you're actively killing me?" I asked.

"I watched you grow from the first beat of your heart. I was with Beata before I was with you. So I feel like I loved you as a mother before I loved you as myself."

"You know that's a little weird, right?" She laughed, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was Beata's laugh. This creature, whatever it was, likely wasn't capable of human emotions. But she'd lived as me long enough to pick up on those traits. To laugh at the things I would have found funny. Her sense of humor was probably nothing more than a reflection of my own.

"Maybe. For someone only capable of viewing the universe through the lens of a human. Regardless—I don't want you to suffer."

"But you're killing me."

"That's an unfortunate side-effect of being my Vessel, I'm afraid. You aren't the first and probably won't be the last. The only difference between you and them is that I've been with you since your conception. And I've grown fond of you."

"Why are you killing me?" She sighed deeply, leaning back on her elbows as if we were just two people enjoying a warm spring day in a field in Ohio.

“I expand,” she explained. "I've been expanding since the universe burst into life. I will continue to expand until the stars stretch so far apart that the planets can no longer reach each other. Until every planet is nothing but a dead rock, and every star has burst and died. I'll still be here, watching, waiting for it to start all over again.

"So even if this piece of me inside you managed to die here, the other part of me out there in the universe will expand anyway. I'll always be alive. In some form or another. Hydra didn't create me. They didn't even discover me. Other races on other planets figured out how to slow the expansion. Like a stasis. Not enough to stop me. But enough to imprison me. So they could carry me from one place to another. And when they arrived here—I just ended up in the wrong hands."

"Hydra found you."

"Yes, and like every other world who managed to steal a piece of me, they decided to weaponize me. They saw what I do when exposed to living flesh. So they thought they could use me. They didn't realize I'm a living thing, capable of my own thoughts. But they did realize that whenever they exposed me to the atmosphere, I disintegrated. Not dead. Not the way earth things die. But like a drop of ink in the ocean. The ink is still there. Just small and separated."

"So those pieces of you are still technically alive? All the pieces you extracted to kill others?" She shrugged.

"I always find my way back to you. Why do you think it affects you so much? I come back bigger."

"You feed on them."

"In a manner of speaking."

"So that other part of you will still find its way here eventually?"

"Perhaps billions of years from now. But yes. Eventually, I'll find my way back together. I always do."

"Do you destroy planets?"

"Not on purpose. I don't need to consume to expand out there."

"I see. But here—in an atmosphere—you do?"

"Not necessarily. I expand anyway. But consuming helps me grow stronger."

"And Hydra realized they needed a Vessel to make you useful. Otherwise, you'd just disintegrate."

i][“Yes. Stick me in a human body; you can send it off wherever you want. Then wait until I inevitably wipe out your targets. Only every Vessel they put me in never lasted more than ten minutes before I consumed them. They needed something different. Something made from Chaos itself."

"So they tasked Beata with creating it?"

"Creating it? Sure. She figured out that she had what I needed in her own blood. Or at least the start of it. Something Dark. So she altered her genetic code, allowing her body to become accustomed to a small piece of me. She made herself invaluable and allowed me to tap into that Dark part of her. That's how that small part of me became Beata. Eventually became you."

"And you lived with her the way you lived with me?"

"For a time. Though I was too small to manipulate her dreams the way I do yours. I think she knew I was sentient anyway. She talked to me sometimes. She told me all her hopes and dreams for you. She knew what Hydra would do if they found out about you. Genetic testing sometimes takes several generations before you get the results you want. Beata knew that she was imperfect. She knew that the combination of me and her own Darkness would make you a better Vessel than she was. She knew that Hydra would raise you into their perfect little monster.

"You wonder why she didn't just get rid of you. She did consider it. And she realized that it didn't matter. The damage was already done. And there was no way to do it without Hydra finding out she was—well—breedable. They would have bred something more powerful than you."

"That's horrific."

"You have no idea what horrors they could do. And she decided she'd rather risk her life for a child conceived from love than allow Hydra to use her to genetically modify their perfect weapons. Giving you to Ivan's sister was her way of ensuring you had a good life. So that if Hydra ever did manage to track you down, you'd be harder to control. I would be harder to control."

I turned to look at the familiar field. I couldn't pinpoint an exact memory. It was probably one of many.

"Does that mean…?" I was too afraid to voice the question. But she understood without me having to. Her gray eyes peered into mine.

"That Hydra considered breeding you? Yes."

"Jesus."

"The worst part is that you almost gave them exactly what they wanted."

"What do you mean?"

"Who's genetically perfect DNA do you think they would have used to breed the perfect weapon? Who's DNA did they have readily available?" I didn't want to voice that either. But I had to.

"Bucky."

"You cut corners for them," she said. "Fell in love with him. Any child you would have had together would have been an outstanding Vessel. A better weapon than you or Beata or even Bucky combined. And they wouldn't even have had to force you. You wanted to do it for free. Considered it an act of love."

"That agent who found us in Romania. He said he wanted me to love Bucky."

"Yes. So you'd breed him."

"They had to know I was on birth control, though. That I had an implant. They removed it. I had to go get on birth control the second I got the chance."

"They hoped you wouldn't have suspected it. They were expecting you to let it slip. But you've always been careful about things like that." I rubbed my face as if I could get a headache in a dream.

"The point is that I was small when you were small. I grew bigger over time and began to fill more space. I started to push your dreams, but you were still stronger than me. Wouldn't see what I wanted you to see. Your own guilt warped what I was trying to show you. It wasn't until Hydra took you and reunited me with the large piece they kept in stasis that I grew strong enough. Unfortunately, both of us had been expanding. And now your body is growing too weak to hold me. That's why I'm killing you. Not because I want to."

"So you'll supernova. Take me out."

"Something like that."

"Then how do we make it stop?"

"We can't."

"You said you don't like hurting me."

"I said hurting you is an unfortunate side-effect. One day I'll outgrow you. Then your planet. Regardless, I'll find my way home. And that's all I really want. Just to be whole again. I was just a small piece stolen from a much larger hole. I want to return to me. That's all."

"And you'll destroy whoever and whatever is your path. Regardless of how much you care for them."

"You can't blame a fox for killing a chicken. They just do what's in their nature. I don't know of any other way. All I was made to do is expand. I don't know how to reach that other part of me. Let alone how to separate us in a way that doesn't kill you. I've been you as long as you've been you. Which means I only understand and know what you understand and know. And—no offense—but humans are stupid." I wanted to glare at her, but I was hung up on a word she'd used.

"Separate," I said. "That's it then, isn't it? Bucky wants to destroy you to save me. Which we can't do. But it's not about killing one to save the other. We just need to be pulled apart." She looked at me, no longer the warm, loving expression of a mother. She looked angry. And I wondered if she'd chosen Beata's face simply because talking to myself would be too jarring.

"What do you think will happen when we're separated, Jo?" she asked.

"Well, I'm just a stupid human, so how could I know?"

"It would still be about killing one to save the other. But you'd be the one to die. Not me."

"I'm fine making that sacrifice."

"But I'm not. You are my most precious creation." I nodded as I let that settle.

"Precious," I said. "Why?"

"One thing I've always admired about lesser beings like you is that you have so much hope." She ignored my question. "You're so tiny, yet feel so much. It's hard to hold onto sometimes. Your kind wishes for things even when all hope is lost. You fight until the very end. I gave you an answer. What you do with that information is up to you. But remember, once Bucky gets a taste of that hope, he'll stop at nothing to save you. Even if it costs us both our lives."

"He's been here before. In these memories he was never part of. He said Wanda created a bridge."

"I detected her and broke us free to protect you."

"So that side is real? Bucky's alive?"

"They all are."

"So, how do I get back to them?"

"It's time to wake up now, Johanna. I won't tell you anything else."