day 005; SH442K; voice

[sharktrash]

Heeey scumbags!

[ As usual, the scratchy voice coming out of the comms is just too loud for comfort, and will probably prompt anyone listening to turn their volume down. As usual, he sounds a little too cheerful for their dire circumstances. ]

Anyone else getting shot at? Kidnapped? C'mon, I'm about to die from boredom here.

If this was really some kinda simulated Battle Royale you'd think the death matches would have started by now, right? 

But noooooo, it's just some fuckers sneakin' around and dronebombing the place.

Terrible vacation, really. Good fuckin' thing I didn't pay for it or I'd want my money back, yeah?

[ ... ]

Hey.

If you're still listening, congratulations, you might not be a fun-hating twat, so you get to hear my actual message.

Found another airplane, or part of airplane, in the mountain range. This really huge-ass fuselage, got "PacAir" printed on the side.

There might be some luggage in the compartments or salvageable electronics behind the boards, but the whole thing hanging in this really fucked up way and nothing on the inside looks sturdy enough to climb. Maybe if anyone's got some rope, someone could descend from above and check it out that way. Maybe enough people would be able to flip it, but I dunno if it's worth that kinda effort.

And there's also -- check this out -- a volcano. Doesn't look like it's been active for a while, there's a mineral water lake in the middle now, but it's weirdly warm. Don't know shit about that so I can't tell you if it could be heated from the sun or if it's coming from below, but hey, that's something to consider. 'Nd animals have been making their way here, so it's not poisonous. Probably. Smells kinda like sulfur though.

Volcanoes are usually in the middle of islands, right? Might not be the case here, but I'd say it's... in the southern part of the mountains? Can't be sure without a map, but there's more further north.

Guess that's it for now. Ya eggheads might be able to make something from this, right?

Oh but I wasn't fucking kiddin' about this place being boring, so if you've got any fun stories ya wanna share, I'm all ears. Only so much jungle noises one can take instead of a normal conversation, yeah? I'm a people person, you know. Honest.

Anyway! Headed toward some sus shit next, wish me luck.

Comments

[hyakuoku]

Yeah, that's right. It has to do with magma escaping the earth's crust. Eventually it cools and forms land masses, though not all of them turn into something habitable. It happens when one of the plates wayyyy down deep in the earth subducts — basically gets underneath — another. Water gets in, then the plate moves upwards and the mantle melts into magma.

That's how the islands I'm from — Japan — formed. They usually form over the subduction plates. Not all islands do that precisely; the Hawaiian islands formed a little differently, away from plates, in volcanic hot spots instead.

But yeah, either way, that's how we get volcanic islands. With the mountains here it was always likely this was a volcanic island. But there's not usually just one, so I wonder how close we are to any others in this island chain.

[salamanca]

Ayyyy, so I do remember something from high school! Look at me! [ Lalo is so, so, so proud of himself. ] Do I get any points for that?

So what does this mean? [ You're the scientist! Tell him! ]

[hyakuoku]

For remembering things from high school? I don't know, ojiisan, how long ago was that?

[ He knows about the auto translation thing but if he just speaks English on purpose he can throw that "old man" in Japanese in there to be a pain in the ass. ]

It doesn't really mean a whole lot. So the island is volcanic by nature, but whether it's on a plate line or not kind of depends on the other islands in the group, which...I'm not yet sure if we can get to them from here, or how far they are. If they formed in a line or an arc, that would tell us a little more. We could narrow down the geographic location by knowing something like that, maybe.

[salamanca]

[ What the!!! Hey, wait a second! Did you just call him old! ]

Hey! You little shit! When we finally do meet in prison, I'm gonna kick your ass, chiquito.

[ He's laughing, though, so the threat is probably idle. Probably. Lalo doesn't speak Japanese, but he can guess from context what the word Senku used means; he returns fire with a Mexican diminutive that means 'little kid'. ]

So high school geography tells us nothing, huh? I'm telling my step-kids not to pay attention in class, since it sounds like it's useless. [ Another laugh. He seems entertained by his own wit. ]

[hyakuoku]

[ He laughs, a real laugh and not his little habitual one. He's not at all bothered by whatever Lalo just called him. He doesn't speak Spanish, but again from context, he assumes it's something like being called a little kid. ]

Well, I've heard American high school education leaves something to be desired anyway, but who knows. You remembered how the islands were formed, so that's still something. Ultimately we just don't have enough info yet to geolocate.

There's also the thing you're not considering. If this isn't our world, our earth, we may not be able to geolocate at all. Something is clearly messed up here, right, with the weird animals. They could be something engineered or created, but if they evolved on their own like that...then maybe the land masses aren't what we'd expect to find either.