Holy floating enigma, Bingman!

  @FortuneMagazine February 27, 2014: 6:50 AM ET
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I was just hanging around the Bingcave, my secret hideout located in the tunnels that wind below Bing Manor. Alfred, my trusty butler, who has been with me since my parents were taken from me in that tragic robbery in a Frisco alleyway so long ago, was upstairs, doing his last buttling of the day. I was about to go over 65 million points in Fruit Ninja when the Bing Signal went off. I answered.

"Bingman, thank God I reached you," said Commissioner Borden. The voice at the other end of the Bingphone was highly agitated. I wasn't surprised. Jim doesn't call during Downton Abbey unless something in this crazy burg has gone very wrong indeed. He told me what he wanted me to do, and my heart filled with fear. Holy Schmidt, Bingman! I thought. This time I was truly headed off into the unknown.

"The Google Mystery Barges have been sitting in the Bay for several years now," the Commissioner went on. "We don't know what they're doing there. They're under construction, off and on. And they're massive. The company says they're going to be some kind of museum dedicated to technology. We're not so sure. Right now, nobody can get in or out. Rumors are that they've seeded the waters around these hulking, multistory container ships with robot squids designed to seek out all heat-bearing life forms, terminate them, and harvest their stem cells for an ongoing experiment that Sergey Brin is conducting on whether a meatless hamburger constructed out of genetic material can be made as tasty as a quarter pounder with cheese."

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