Inspired entirely by a comment on Tumblr.
Warning: Slightly dark comedy.
XR ran his metallic tongue over two points in his mouth. One, two. Pointy, sharp drill-things he filed off every morning before work, only for them to grow back during his recharge cycle. He didn't want anyone to see the file marks on days when he was less of a perfectionist, or not quite so good at hiding them.
His friends had noticed that he wasn't as talkative as usual.
Was that really so surprising? He had trouble talking to his robot companions, too. While the organics suspected there was something wrong with XR, the other machines knew there was something wrong with XR. A small, but important difference. They could sense it, they avoided him, and couldn't explain why someone half their size suddenly made their circuits crawl. He knew why.
Another small, but important difference was that the drills had started to grow back while he was awake, and with this new growth came some new impulses. He'd see a robot alone, and start wondering how charged up they were. He'd see an electrical socket, and wonder how he could get a little boost from it without anyone noticing.
"That'll be sixteen unibucks, sir." The cashier bagged up his packages of D batteries. XR found that when he found little hiding places, he could stick one or two in his mouth and let the energy seep inside. Usually, this satisfied the cravings. It wasn't much of a boost, and lately doing it once or twice a day wasn't enough. He was going through a pack or two of batteries per day. XR was seriously starting to consider getting something with a little more power, like a shuttle battery. Anything to keep him from going after someone else! He couldn't recharge the batteries he was buying because his drills made holes and sticking damaged batteries in a recharger would start a fire or cause an explosion (as he'd learned the hard way. Fortunately he was able to put out the fire before the smoke alarms went off). That could lead to questions. He wondered how Mira was holding up.
Speaking of which, unlike Mira he wasn't going to burn out like a light bulb if he kept doing this. So, he wasn't a hypocrite for giving her that lecture.
After sneaking off to his preferred alley- behind a slightly shady nightclub- he unwrapped two batteries and set them in his mouth as usual. XR sighed quietly. This pack was old; that had to be the reason they weren't taking the edge off his craving. He went through almost the entire pack before it was beaten back to manageable levels, and set to work on the next one. The little robot was halfway through the third before he noticed that yes, in fact, he was slurping down three packages of batteries now. Oh well. He had it under control.
One of these days, he'd like to have this little problem eliminated.
It had been two weeks since the whole 'energy ghosting' incident, and she was lucky to still have her job. Her life, too.
Mira was glad Star Command handled things like this the way a police department would: she got away with a verbal reprimand, and was put on leave. Then came her least favorite part... mandatory counseling.
With an approved counselor.
That meant Dr. Animus.
Well, it would help, she convinced herself. I just ghosted the remote and now I can't change the channel. It was a hard lesson, that she didn't have this addiction under control. Her first appointment was in a week.
It would be nice if she didn't have to go alone.
In his cell, NOS-4A2 flitted back and forth. PC-7 was dull and boring, grating, infuriating. It chafed his ego. He really wanted robotic guards. He got vile organic ones. He wanted lights, an electrical socket, anything that could satisfy his preprogrammed need for energy. What he got was a special charging unit that shut off once it gave him a specific amount of voltage- the bare minimum needed to keep prison inspectors and robot rights activists happy.
Some fool rebuilt him. He didn't know who, how, or why, but that hadn't mattered. He'd fled the cramped laboratory the second he'd come online. Of course, the energy vampire managed to get himself caught and imprisoned only a few short months later, before he'd even found a decent lair, let alone stored enough power to do anything useful for himself.
If only there were some way out...
Dr. Animus shuffled his papers, putting an old case back into a file and taking out another folder, full of upcoming cases. Mira Nova caught his eye. Tangean psychology was notoriously difficult to study, in part because their medical community didn't share much with the rest of the galaxy and in part because they kept their troubled or unstable individuals home (minimizing any chance of outside study).
And he had no information whatsoever on energy ghosting. The Tangeans were content to keep such data to themselves.
Hmmm... was she the only person around with this particular problem?