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If you were looking for me, you reached me. If you don't know who 'me' is then you didn't reach who you were looking for.

If this is Red calling about jobs, just leave the information and I'll be there.

If this is Sis, then promise I'll get back to you ASAP. If you're got a recipe idea just tell me what it is and I'll look into it.

Otherwise leave your name and message and I'll contact you soon dears.

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The first one, please.

[Dramatic sigh] I suppose you're more likely to run into that, with the plague clouds and all.

A pneumothorax and a collapsed lung aren't really the same thing. A pneumothorax is a bubble of air between your chest wall and your lung that collapses part of your lung. They are caused by air leaking out of your lung into your chest, either because of trauma or disease causing it to pop a hole.

Very small ones are left alone. Medium sized ones, they use a syringe or a vacuum to suck the air out. Only if it's very large do they slice you open to glue shut the hole in the lung itself.

Then you just take it easy for a while. And hope it doesn't happen again. Especially if it was caused by disease.

Pneumothorax is the leading cause of death by plague cloud exposure in people who never make it inside, and the fourth in people who have bad helmets or who don't make it to a hospital. Once you're in the hospital, you'll live long enough for something else to kill you.

Oh. I didn't know how clouds killed you, just that they did.

Clouds kill you in plenty of ways. If it's the kind that punches holes in your lungs, and the holes are big enough, that's just the one that gets to you first.

And good filters keep that from happening?

Good filters will, unless it's a bad storm, and even then give you enough time to get inside. The ones that let you walk around in a storm? Those are rationed, only for emergency services.

And mercs?

If you had enough money, maybe. Depends on the storm and what it's rated for. My old helmet? There's been maybe four storms in five years I couldn't go out in, because my filter doubled for hazmat cleanup.

But if you're a paramedic, and someone has an emergency in that storm?

Wow your helmet sounds way better than mine.

My new helmet is just about the greatest thing anyone has ever put on their head. My old helmet? A piece of junk with a good filter shoved in.

What do you mean, your new one?

My one with the purple stripes. My brother built it for me. It calculates blast radii and lets me see veins. So cool.

Haven't seen it. Your brother knows how to build stuff?

He makes helmets. Super-cool helmets. He knows other stuff, too, but that's how he sells his labor.

Sells his labor? Really weird thing to say.

It's, you know. Capitalism. Delta goes to work and builds a helmet, or fixes one, but the money goes to his boss, who takes his cut and then pays him for his labor.