Chapter Forty-Eight – Recreational Respiratory Deterioration

Chapter Forty-Eight – Recreational Respiratory Deterioration

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***

The next day was a vacation day.

I wasn’t heading out to snoop around the sewers. I wasn’t saving the city. I was going to work on my hobbies until sometime in the afternoon when See-Three and her pals were going to show up.

That was a later problem, and… yeah, it wasn’t much of a problem at all. I’d change into something nicer and less stained for the occasion, then say hello and walk them around. I wasn’t worried about it.

What I was worried about was getting some sensation back into my hands. “Fuck, it’s cold,” I said.

The current temperature is four degrees celsius, which is approaching cold, yes. The humidity is making it far worse, I suspect.

I cupped my hands before my mouth and blew some hot air between them. I was seriously considering a change of venue for my mechanical work. Mostly, doing it just outside was fun. If I needed a snack, I was only a hop away from the kitchen. Needed to shit? The bathroom was right there.

It was nice and convenient. But not when I was freezing so hard that I was having a hard time picking up the pieces on my workbench. Besides, I’d been dealing with wind and rain a lot too. There was a reason people did things indoors.

“Probably not good for my lungs, either,” I muttered.

Are you speaking about being outdoors?

“Yeah,” I said.

The level of VOCs in this region is quite high. I suspect that the time you spend out here every day is leading to increased deterioration of your lungs.

I coughed, but it was mostly because we were talking about it. Imagining cancer-causing stuff going down my throat made it feel scratchy. “That’s… not ideal,” I said.

It’s a slow deterioration. You’d need to spend a dozen hours exposed to outside air every week in order for the damage to start being noticeable in a shorter time frame.

“And you didn’t feel like telling me?” I asked.

I’d be very impressed if you still have your organic lungs three months from now. The current damage is, therefore, meaningless. You also frequently use medicine that heals the damage to your lungs as an incidental side-effect.

Ah, right, the nano-repair stuff. I did use a lot of that whenever I got smacked around. It was probably topping up my lung’s health. “Maybe I should get super lungs,” I said.

Are you going to mention how they’ll improve your sexual prowess?

I pouted. I was going to, but not anymore. “I’m not that predictable,” I said.

If that’s what you choose to believe.

Sighing, I shook my head, then gestured to the workbench. “Hey, repair boy, can you store all of this for me?” I asked the repair drone. It wasn’t an organisation drone, but it could handle this much. “I think I’m going to head downstairs early. Maybe Gomorrah wouldn’t mind letting me have a corner of the parking garage.”

A few walls, some outlets, better lighting, and I’d have a much warmer, less toxic place to do my hobby stuff in.

With the bot packing my stuff away, I gave myself a minute to stretch, then walked back in. It was so much warmer in our house. I hadn’t actually looked at what kind of temperature control shit we had. If I ignored it for long enough, then I wouldn’t have to be anxious about changing filters or whatever.