Chapter Warnings: None (...why is it the Googles' chapters never have warnings? XD )
My Tumblr: blitzindite | Series Ask Blog: asktheoutside
Note: The cycle (Chase's group, Jackie's, Googles, Anti, etc before repeating) will be breaking soon. It'll be pretty obvious when it does, and for go̷o̷d̴ r̴eas̴o͞n.
Also! If you go to the AO3 cross-post of this chapter (same username), there's a link to an image on my Tumblr that shows what Ollie's hair looks like for the fic! (as well as Schneep's eyes)
February 25, 2031, 4:30 PM
Los Angeles, California
Oliver let out a pleased little trill as he held a pair of glasses up to the light. They had silver frames, almost oval in shape, though not quite rounded enough to be considered as such. The other pairs on the desk were two identical pairs with rectangular frames—one black, one silver—for Blue and Red, a black circular pair for Oliver, and wide black framed ones for Bing.
"Green," he said, voice crackling as he shifted to English after hours of musing to himself in the androids' language, "can I test these on you?"
As the youngest of the Upgrade trio saved the file he'd been working on before getting up, Oliver tucked his unruly hair behind his ears. Red had already threatened to cut it off if he couldn't get it under control, but Oliver honestly liked it. It was a lot frizzier than he would have liked, which made it hard to keep controlled, but even Green had said it suited him. And as long as it didn't distract him, Blue didn't care how long it was, at least.
Green seated himself on the foot of one of the beds, directly across from Oliver in his desk chair, as the yellow Google leaned in to connect a cord to the back of the others neck; the other end in his own wrist. "I need to get into your optical systems," he said.
A nod and affirmative chirp answered, and Oliver's eyes shifted to white noise—blinding him to the room around him and replacing his sight with lines upon lines of code. He watched as that code shifted when Green lowered the firewalls to his CPU to allow access. Oliver brought one hand up to rest on the other's neck to keep the cord from pulling, and then the two remained completely still. For the longest time the only change came from how the static in Oliver's eyes shifted, or how Green's kept flickering as their settings were adjusted.
Oliver let out a trill and accompanying chirp, which the other answered in kind with a very slight tilt of the head. Red and Blue would glance toward them on occasion when one of them spoke in the androids' natural language, the various sounds coming from the back of their throats or high in their chests.
When Oliver finally pulled away, carefully disconnecting the cord from Green's neck and then his own wrist, the other blinked a few times before tipping his head to one side per the yellow Upgrade's request. He arched a brow, offering Oliver a side-glance when he made a small incision in the skin just above Green's ear the moment his vision was fully returned.
Voice crackling as he shifted back to English, Oliver mumbled something to himself as he peeled the synthetic skin back before saying, "I'm setting up a trigger. This way our eyes will only appear human as long as we have the glasses on."
"I thought you were crafting them specially and 'it was difficult,'" Red asked. His mouth had twisted skeptically as he tapped the side of his laptop expectantly.
"Well, yeah. Uh…here." Oliver reached for the pair he'd made for Red and passed them to oldest Upgrade before picking up the ones he'd set nearby for Green. "You see here," he traced the curve at the temple, "if you put them on, this will press behind your ear kind of tightly. That's where I'm putting the trigger. But if you do this," he slid his fingers along the frames (thicker than their old pairs, but not quite as thick as the pair for Bing) until finding the not-quite-buttons along the top on both sides and sliding them toward the temples with his thumbs, "the temples loosen and our eyes will return to their regular settings." He shrugged as if it were the most obvious answer. "It was just kind of hard because I didn't really have the best tools to work with." Oliver's fingertips were far more sensitive than the other Googles'; to the point that the extremely thin but durable wires he'd used for allowing the temples to adjust would have very easily been out of the others' sensory range.
The toe of Green's shoe nudged Oliver's shin, and he offered a pointed look. "If you could finish?" Through the little demonstration of the glasses, he'd sat quietly, head tilted and "skin" cut away just above his ear.
While Oliver was careful about setting the trigger point so he could eventually move to the other side to copy it above the other ear, he could still practically feel Red's eyes boring into his back. "Will these settings have any effect on our vision?"
A hum answered, followed by a nod. "We'll still see perfectly fine, but our color vision will probably be more limited like a human's. I've got Green's CPU coded a little differently now, so once I get the triggers placed they'll turn off certain settings for his eyes." He pressed the skin he'd peeled away back in place, then patted Green's cheek so he would turn his head the opposite way. Oliver got to work copying the trigger to the other side without once glancing toward Red.
"Colors may seem less saturated, and far more limited. We should still see more colors than humans, just not nearly as many as we're used to, and I don't know how well we'll see in the dark while the triggers are active."
Oliver set his tool aside and resealed the skin, hiding the metal and new trigger beneath that was an exact copy as the one on the other side. "Look me in the eyes," he ordered as he cupped his hands around Green's face. He pressed his index fingers against the trigger points; watched as the other Upgrade flinched and his eyes flickered.
The white in the center of Green's eyes fell dark first, black just like a pupil, their glow dying out soon after. A very soft whirring from them as the metal within adjusted, drew deeper into the eye so the silver could be pulled out of a human's visibility. All of that was eventually followed by Green's iris adjusting its color, falling a much darker shade of itself and honestly, it looked very much like a natural human color, if Oliver did say so himself. It all happened within seconds.
The yellow Google pulled his hands away so he could replace them with the glasses. The temples pressed right where they were supposed to, with Green's now too-human eyes flicking about the room.
He…didn't look impressed.
"It's all extremely desaturated," Green mumbled. He shook his head, rubbed at his eyes under the glasses as if it would help return his full field of vision.
All Oliver could offer was a shrug and raised eyebrow. "I…uh, did say that would probably happen?"
The look Green gave him was almost funny knowing his eyes would have flared with irritation, but that they couldn't at that moment. "Lose the sarcasm. I know you did, but I still don't like it."
Blue stood, then; his steps soft over the carpeted floor as he approached and grasped Green's chin to tip his head up. Oliver scooted his chair back, head tilting and hair falling free from where it was tucked behind one ear, as their leader inspected Green's eyes. He offered a small nod.
"Very good, Oliver."
The Upgrade beamed at the praise, yellow eyes literally brightening. That smile only widened when he caught the tiny smirk curling the edge of Blue's lip as he turned away to return to his laptop.
"I'll send you to Bingiplier's residence tomorrow so you may add his trigger-points. For now, work on Red's, and run me through the process while doing mine."
There was a pause as Oliver's smile fell away slightly. "Wait—why?" His smile returned, reassuring now, "I can do it just fine!"
When Red snorted, it was the only indication Oliver needed to rethink exactly what he'd just said.
"…Right. I uh…can't really add my own, can I?"
