Panel 1 today aligns with a headcanon that I've had for a while - That a lot of the better chassis have the ability to data-transfer by physical contact. That's why I suspect that the AI-to-AI equivalent of a kiss (and remember that robot sex is basically swapping data packets) is an intimate gesture like putting their forheads together and 'pinging' each other. That might explain why, when they're hugging, Bubbles touches her forehead to Faye's - She's kissing her girlfriend in her own way!
I'm afraid that Jeph is right, by the way: There's just something about wibby-wobbly things that make odd noises. I think that Sam will find it incredibly hard to put down that old demonstration sample and do anything more productive today!
Finally, if Jones can't find his own way home without Chimevera, her being absent-minded and forgetting him is the least of the problems. It might also explain why the emu's cloak was installed and active: Chimevera forgot that they'd agreed it was a bad idea. Who knows what else she may have forgotten to scrub from the plan or, even worse, how many safety precautions she forgot to implement?