New Dive Assignment: 0B5

Personnel: Citizen of Gamma G-037-072 Jonathan Kelly

World Designation: Epsilon H-037-072-030-010

Classification: Pre-industrial Exotic World, significant outliers in biosphere including atypical flora and fauna. Quarantine protocol in effect pending more data and acclimation testing. Further anomalies include populations of morphologically distinct humanoids, and aberrations in otherwise normative physics laws. Causal chain appears provisionally stable. For the purposes of delaying onset of collapse as well as above mentioned factors, only one subject is cleared to Dive. Initial mandates shall proceed with scouting and surveillance.

Further details are classified. Warning: All other qualifying personnel are currently dispatched. Refusal will result in deployment delays and possible unsupervised causal decay.

Do you wish to accept this assignment?

Note to Readers:

This is not MC isolated in a new world. This is new world joins the multiverse. What I'm tentatively coining Subverted Isekai (Formerly I used 'reversed' but, as pointed out, that would be fantasy MC goes to the modern world. Hey, there's idea! Not this book though.).

There is plenty of scientific and philosophical stuff; I know that can be a turn off for some. It has a strong bearing on the story, but is mainly covered in the 'Comments & Calculations' section (optional reading of course). If you are looking for an extreme suspension of natural laws with no technical considerations, you will not find it here.

Formatting Notes:

Audio chatter from characters that are not currently in the scene I format in "inverted commas and italics". Given the layered nature of modern communication, I thought this distinction was best denoted visually in my prose. Critique is welcome.

Language Notes

Jon is a South African ex-pat. As such he will use some Afrikaans colloquialisms plus a dash of Japanese.

Most importantly he says “Ja” meaning “Yes”. Pronounced with a J sound like “yo” and an A sound like “bar”. As in:

“Yo, let’s go to the strip bar.”

“Ja.”

And not the Rastafarian /jya/.

Other words:

Nee - /niya/ : no

Juffrou - /yif-row/ : Miss

Lekker - /lacker/ : nice, good, delicious

Nooit - /noit/: never

The rest is mostly swear words. Indisputably the most useful words in any language and simultaneously holding the least innate meaning.

Fok - “fork” without the “r”: fuck

Bliksem - /Bluksim/: darn, damn. Also common noun meaning damn person or thing.

Donner - “Dorner” without the “r”: originally meaning thunder, can also mean darn or damn. It is often used as a verb meaning: ‘to hit hard’

Kak - /kuck/: shit

Voetsek - /foot-sack/: go away