During this handshake, it occurs to Hugh what Cassius reminds him so closely of. That memory, that sour association that's been dogging him for this entire encounter.
When he had been younger, doing the drudgery for Argyros Cryonics, his mother had spitefully assigned him to what the workers often called dog duty. Handling dead pets, prepping them for cryonic preservation. It wasn't always dogs, no - there were plenty of cats too, as well as a smattering of other creatures both spectacularly exotic (numerous macaws gone dull and ashen with age or death, and a sloth, once) and entirely mundane (children's guinea pigs, cockatoos, frogs and lizards and all manner of critters) - but more often than not, it was dogs. People seemed to get the most attached to their dogs. Man's best friend type shit. Most often, they would come in little more than an hour or so after death, sometimes even still a bit warm. Dead weight in his hands, but peaceful enough that he could pretend they were only sleeping while he loaded them into their tubes. Sometimes they were a bit further along, legs cocked at unnatural, stiff angles that he had to work around. Curl their dead legs around himself in a nightmarish hug to keep from breaking bits off.
But one time. There had been the one time.
The summer had been unusually hot. Global warming and all, of course, but this one had been sweltering. A miserable sweatfest as soon as you stepped outdoors in Greece, nevermind hotter climes. Some princess from the Hamptons had had a maid let their dog out by accident one morning when the owner and her family had been away on vacation, and it had sat out in the blazing sun.
For a week.
What had been carried into the lobby had hardly been a dog at all at that point. A mess of fur and slime packed into a Louis Vuitton duffel, dumped into Hugh's arms because the was the only one around to handle it. Had had no choice. He remembers to this day how the bag had sloshed when he'd jostled it, how the smell had leaked through the teeth of the zipper like a living, malevolent thing as he'd laid it out next to the tube, his stomach roiling at the thought of opening it. How he nearly hadn't.
But he had. He'd seen nothing but motion, some poor little thing warped beyond recognition by bloated purple and soppy green and pale, soft bodies wriggling over each other in the hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. That wet, sour smell. That sweet-hot stink of putrefaction. And all
those
maggots.
Hugh grips Cassius' hand and realizes that he is full of something like what that dog had been full of, all those years ago. That the roiling wet motion of him is - is many small, soft bodies wriggling over each other. In the thousands. The millions.
The shape of Cassius, this body of his? He realizes that it isn't leading the motion. Not with the roiling, jerky movements of his, no. Whatever is inside him, filling him up - that.
1/2 hhhhhhhhhhh
When he had been younger, doing the drudgery for Argyros Cryonics, his mother had spitefully assigned him to what the workers often called dog duty. Handling dead pets, prepping them for cryonic preservation. It wasn't always dogs, no - there were plenty of cats too, as well as a smattering of other creatures both spectacularly exotic (numerous macaws gone dull and ashen with age or death, and a sloth, once) and entirely mundane (children's guinea pigs, cockatoos, frogs and lizards and all manner of critters) - but more often than not, it was dogs. People seemed to get the most attached to their dogs. Man's best friend type shit. Most often, they would come in little more than an hour or so after death, sometimes even still a bit warm. Dead weight in his hands, but peaceful enough that he could pretend they were only sleeping while he loaded them into their tubes. Sometimes they were a bit further along, legs cocked at unnatural, stiff angles that he had to work around. Curl their dead legs around himself in a nightmarish hug to keep from breaking bits off.
But one time. There had been the one time.
The summer had been unusually hot. Global warming and all, of course, but this one had been sweltering. A miserable sweatfest as soon as you stepped outdoors in Greece, nevermind hotter climes. Some princess from the Hamptons had had a maid let their dog out by accident one morning when the owner and her family had been away on vacation, and it had sat out in the blazing sun.
For a week.
What had been carried into the lobby had hardly been a dog at all at that point. A mess of fur and slime packed into a Louis Vuitton duffel, dumped into Hugh's arms because the was the only one around to handle it. Had had no choice. He remembers to this day how the bag had sloshed when he'd jostled it, how the smell had leaked through the teeth of the zipper like a living, malevolent thing as he'd laid it out next to the tube, his stomach roiling at the thought of opening it. How he nearly hadn't.
But he had. He'd seen nothing but motion, some poor little thing warped beyond recognition by bloated purple and soppy green and pale, soft bodies wriggling over each other in the hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds. That wet, sour smell. That sweet-hot stink of putrefaction. And all
those
maggots.
Hugh grips Cassius' hand and realizes that he is full of something like what that dog had been full of, all those years ago. That the roiling wet motion of him is - is many small, soft bodies wriggling over each other. In the thousands. The millions.
The shape of Cassius, this body of his? He realizes that it isn't leading the motion. Not with the roiling, jerky movements of his, no. Whatever is inside him, filling him up - that.
That's Cassius.