"Damn it! Damn it all!" TOM stomped the ground in a fit of frustration. The endless job was really picking at his sanity. He was a nice guy on and off the live feed, but he's been in a horrible mood for a while. "I can't take this much longer... Jeez, why'd you have to bring me back, Sara?"
"Because, TOM," Sara replied with her usual half-cheery, half-irritated tone, "I need you."
"Haha... oh?" TOM's mood seemed to shift. He crossed his arms over his core and turned his back to Sara's hologram, tilting his helmeted head so his left lens was still on her translucent form.
"... Not like that." She heard the jokingly disappointed grumble from her companion and hoped that his mood was going to change for the better.
"Hah... I guess I just needed to vent off a little steam. Thanks, Sara." He chuckled to himself. Feeling better after five seconds of ranting. What a joke. "Well, now that I'm feeling a little better, how 'bout that stream, ah? It doesn't play itself. Let's get to work.--" At that moment, TOM's core sparked and shut him off for a few seconds.
"...OM? TOM? TOM!" Sara's hologram, incapable of physically touching the disabled robot, slapped through his helmet. If she had solid hands, she'd probably knock his helmeted head from its joint. "Get up, you!' she grunted her frustration and was about to look into another pod to transfuse TOM's memory matrix into. He had quite a few spare bodies; a precaution he took when he learned of his own mortality. Twice. Most of them were copies of his second body, that being his favorite, and much less expensive to mass produce, compared to his 3.0 body. She was about halfway through when TOM stirred. She cancelled the feed and was about to hover over him, before he smoked, sputtered, and burned out. She panicked and shrieked. "TOM!!" There was no response. Hoping it wasn't too late, she reactivated the feed. One of the Clydes removed the old metallic corpse and a pod opened up. TOM's new body fell out, had a spasm, then got up, coughing despite not having lungs or organs.
"Ugh... somebody get the license plate of the garbage disposal unit that ran me over?" He gripped his helmet and shook his head. Upon being pseudo-tackled by Sara, who passed straight through him, he winced invisibly. "Jeez, gone two seconds and you break down."
"You... you...! Oh, you're so boorish..." Sara floated up and folded her arms over her chest. "I was worried sick. You shorted out. I had to replace your body. You really should look into further defects in your mass produced copies."
"Man. Ain't that a kick in the head." TOM turned around and walked past the pods, checking each of the cores and other easily damaged parts. There were minor deviations in the energy stabilizer. "Clydes aren't allowed to work on assembly lines anymore. Make a memo of that, will ya? Oh, and good job bringing me back. I guess we're even for Hyperspace then. ... Hey. Hey! You! Clyde! Turn off that camera! I said--"
