"Receive?"

"I guess we never explained that phones can send and receive information?"

"We got too caught up on the main application of storing and displaying porn."

"You never did, no."

"Well, ironically that is their actual original purpose. Then a bunch of extra functions got easy to tack onto them."

Henry raises a hand to catch everyone's attention before there are more porn jokes. "They are one of the many kinds of devices that make contact with networks to receive and distribute information. With the right sort of infrastructure they allow you to talk to people anywhere on the same planet, practically instantaneously. Said kind of network is often called the internet. This particular model of phone," he waves at his own which Thomas took, "is made so as be useful without the extensive infrastructure, so it has a much shorter range, but still works. They use each other to transmit things, and if you distribute them over a given area, that area will have its own mini-network. I was thinking of doing that so your other home and this one would still have contact."

"Oh, that would be extremely useful."

    "Are you sure that's not magic?" asks Sendhei.

"It is extremely useful, yes. And it's not magic, but it is very complicated technology."

"Well, go on, then, show it to us. I will feed us in the meantime."

"Huh, sure, but it's night. Early night, so we might get lucky and see some shots with the sun in the horizon."

The three divide the tasks. Henry creates the core electronics. Gabe creates the balloon. And Thomas creates a tower/antenna to receive the signals. 

And Taharqi has food!

And they have a balloon. "We should do this tomorrow morning as well for a better view." He prepares the balloon and releases it.

Taharqi watches it while he eats.

Henry sets a screen to display the pictures they regularly receive. He starts eating, paying attention to see when things get interesting.

That sure is a horizon! As the balloon goes farther and farther up, it does seem like Thomas's prediction that they are in Africa is correct, except... this Africa looks maybe a bit different?

How so?

It's getting darker and harder to see, but Europe should not be this... close... and neither should Asia?

True. "I don't understand. It's like someone made an off-brand version of Earth. "

"A what?"

"In this case, it's like someone tried to make an Earth but didn't get it right."

"What did they miss?"

Thomas pulls up the world map and shows the difference. "Continents shift and change, but I don't think they do that much and still have..." he waves at the panther's pen, "recognizable animals."

"Huh. That is pretty different."

"It is... it could still technically count as an Earth, they are not that invariable, is my understanding. I think we should wait until tomorrow once we have clearer view. Enough that we can extrapolate distances and figure out how many miles the shores are off between maps. Maybe it only looks too different to be Earth."

"Makes sense."

    "Okay but orgy?" asks Sendhei. "I have been waiting all fucking day for this and I am going to go crazy if I don't get to even suck someone's cock."