“I’ll drop by in a few hours with the return package, Sal. Thanks for the coffee and the chat.”
The Dolesham Heritage Society was downtown, a trip that took her past home and closer to the city, but that was fine by her. On a paying job, she didn’t have to hesitate to use a cab, especially if she could multitask; she hailed a cab for two stops with her phone, plugging in her origin point and two destination points, one at home and one downtown to the Society’s offices. She had some luck; there was nobody else using the cab when it showed up. They were roomy enough inside that they often did service multiple people at the same time, like small busses.
A quick trip into the house let her grab her athletic gear; she could use some gym time as long as she was headed downtown anyway. The cab waited on her as she grabbed her workout outfit and some basic climbing gear. The sky was still clouded over; her instinct told her rain was on the way again. She grabbed the new umbrella on her way out the door.
The drive to the Society was longer than the trip home had been; she spent a good part of it watching the roads go by as they passed near-silently over them. They were less than halfway there when the rain began again, beating slowly against the windows and roof, growing faster and harder as they drove. She grimaced. “What kind of rain is it? Is it acidic?”
“The average pH value of the rain is 2.4.”
It was getting worse. 2.4 pH shouldn’t hurt your skin, though you wouldn’t want it in your eyes; it was almost as bad as lemon juice, if she recalled correctly. She glared off to the right as they drove downtown, to where the clouds above were met by clouds below; plumes of gasses and waste rising to mingle with the clouds were making life hell, but the degradation of environmental law seemed unending, and so nothing was done about it.