Primary Objective

“You should go.” Google doesn’t even turn to Mad as he speaks.

Mad doesn’t hesitate, quickly grabbing his jacket from the floor and  throwing it around his shoulders as he heads for the door. Bing takes a few steps forward to let the guy leave but otherwise just stands, staring at Google.

Google hasn’t forgotten what happened. He remembers with crystal clear clarity every one of Mad’s sins against them. He knows what Mad did to them, to Bing, and he has by no means forgiven him. He also knows exactly how this probably looks to the cyborg.

“I wanted to tell you,” Google starts, “I wasn’t sure e-mail was the right way to-”

“It’s fine.” Bing’s words are clipped, his voice tense as he glances away avoiding eye contact. Indication of deception. It’s not fine.

Silence falls between them. It’s been a while since they were in the same room and the air is heavy with awkward tension. With his old processor it would have been easy for Google to ignore it, mostly because he wouldn’t have noticed it, but now he understands the nuance of the discomfort between them; the unspoken anger and feelings of betrayal about Google lying by omission about Mad. It’s not pleasant, and Google doesn’t plan to let it go on any longer than he has to.

The droid stands, heading to Oliver’s workstation and pulling something from a drawer before he strides back towards Bing. The cyborg merely watches in confusion, even as Google stops and holds out a very familiar pair of orange sunglasses.

“What…?”

Google says nothing, patiently waiting as Bing carefully reaches out and takes them.

“You fixed them.” There’s surprise in his voice.

“We improved them.”

They’d found the glasses a few hours after Bing ‘woke up’ again. Snapped in half and abandoned on the floor. Bing had made some off-handed comment about having to get a new pair, but ultimately tried to throw them out. Naturally the Googles weren’t going to stand for that. 

Fixing them was obvious and relatively easy, reinforcing the repaired frames with flexible titanium would stop them being snapped again. The rest of the upgrade was Oliver’s idea and took significantly longer.

Bing turns them over in his hand. “They look the same.”

“Try them on.”

Bing opens them and puts them on, wincing as a bright orange light flashes in his eyes from the lenses.

“Ow!”

Each Google receives a message instantly, and if they’ve done it correctly, the message should be on Bing’s glasses lenses too.

[NEW USER IDENTIFIED]

[WELCOME BING]

[OLIVER] He’s back!

[RED] You finally gave him the glasses then?

[OLIVER] Does he like them? He’s not mad is he?

Bing tears the glasses from his face triggering a [BING IS OFFLINE] message to the Googles. The cyborg stares at the glasses in his hand before looking up at Google in astonishment. “What was-?”

“It’s connected to our network.” Google nods. “Partially anyway. There’s only so much we could manage in a pair of sunglasses. You can see status updates and send and receive messages.”

Bing looks baffled, “Why are you adding me to your network?”

“Well you are our brother.”

Google says it as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world because to him it is. There has been so much madness in the last year but through it all he’s realised that even when he lacked the processing power to truly comprehend it, Bing means no less to the Googles than any one of their brothers. Bing may not be a droid, but he is as much a Google as the rest of them and including him seemed so obvious once the idea had been pitched.

That’s to say nothing of the cyborg’s tendency to wind up in some sort of trouble or other. At the very least, Bing being able to connect to the network would make it easier to figure out when he needed help. No more waiting three days for Google to check the CCTV.

Bing stares at the glasses in his hands, speechless. This isn’t something he ever even thought of, never mind hoped or dreamed of. It almost doesn’t seem real. As he looks up at Google, a warm smile on the droid’s face, Bing’s shoulders relax and he surges forward, tightly wrapping his arms around his older brother in a hug.

“Thanks Goog.”

Google smiles, gently patting Bing on the head. After a moment he chuckles.

“Can you put the glasses on again? Oliver’s worried you fainted.”

Bing laughs.

It’s good to be home.