A Mass Effect Adventure: The Story of Captain Jay C.

Like a Fish in a Tree

"So, this is the legendary Atlantis?" Hayden says, standing in the middle of his lab, in the middle of the ocean...underwater.

Hayden's an entrepreneur, inventor, and self-made billionaire. That would have been the case for the rest of his life, had it not been for the ancient, yet technologically advance lab that he now found himself in. For most of his life, Hayden had believed that luck was something that only the poor minded people of his upbringing and their kin would tell each other. Whenever was a time that something didn't happen that they wanted, they'd blame it on the bad luck of the situation. Hayden never for a second thought that it was anyone nor anything else's fault but the one complaining about it. So, when he was asked about how lucky he felt to be successful.

There had been an air of pride for him to say for the innumerable time that or any other given day. He would always tell them that he didn't believe in luck and that it just something that you have to make happen and ask yourself why or why not at the end results.

However! There was this enormous compound that he had happened upon during his research a couple months prior. If there had ever been a time where he'd swallow his pride to admit that even to him, this was a hell of a lucky break. Hayden knew this in his bones and that made him chuckle at the fact that he was called out by this compound that now was his to claim.

Hayden and his best friend since childhood, James, had been looking for Atlantis and they felt beneath the surface that they'd never find it. According to the translated files at that point, this place was made by an alien species that was long gone now. One of the names of the species that later found it called them, The Inusannon. The species that used this place after them, were what the files called, The Protheans.

Hayden and James were ecstatic when they found out the major of the files gave a way of easily deciphering the language of the Protheans. Since most of the files were using what can be thought off as a common version of the language, as well as the standard version too. Between those and the math being universal in essence, it was relatively easy in all. Due to this fact, it was only a matter of putting forth enough time to read the translated files, having created an algorithm to exponentially translate more and more of the language.

Not knowing who they could trust, they resorted to transporting any help for a year or so to the lab and back to the surface in sealed depravation tanks. To this, they rotated the help so that they couldn't either mistakenly figure it out or otherwise deduced that they are where they are on Earth. Signing multiple NDA's and other things of the like, these helpers were allowed limited access to the compound.

In the hangar, there were a few starships that confirmed it that these "Protheans" were not from this planet. Adjacent to the hangar, there was the armory. Inside, there were these weapons that the files said were miniature mass accelerators, which used a previously unknown element that could take in electricity and shift the mass of an object. To gain mass, a positive current. To lessen mass, a negative current. There was a certain beauty to it all that always had the duo intrigued from the start.

Once the first starship was repaired, they were able to further gain knowledge about the solar system. In a mere moment, they were at Mars, where the onboard VI told them about the Prothean Archives. Unfortunately, the crew for the underwater compound weren't cleared to enter the base, but that didn't stop the Human duo from retrofitting the oxygen breathers for them to be able to walk on the surface of Mars.

After everything said and done, James was glad that he once let Hayden talk him into taking up engineering and specializing in it for their company. James shuttered at the idea that was the one major event that led down to him being on the surface of a planet that no one has been on for the almost 50,000 years since the last file in the compound had before they went back to their homeworld, at least they had believed.