Diagnostic

The camera levels off and the autofocus reveals a man sitting at a desk. "Hey everyone," he says, with a weak wave, "My Robomaid's been having some trouble, and I just wanted to post this video to see if anyone could help me figure out what's wrong. I'll post the full specs, too, but I thought this would give a better idea of the issues I'm having."

He pushes away from the desk, and his chair rolls back. The the camera refocuses on a robot girl with silvery skin, planted firmly on a battered old couch. Her body spreads out across the entirety of the couch, whatever form she used to have covered in an ocean of fat. Her belly totally covers her lap and most of her legs with its rolls, what little is visible of her legs bloated beyond all recognition. Her arms hang limply at her sides, too thick to be of any use. Her breathing comes in quick, shallow panting, clearly being limited by her size. She has artificial black hair, tied into two French braids that frame her bloated, three-chinned face. Her fat face is clamped around a thick tube, which flows quickly with a beige liquid. Small wires snake from under her plating, and connect to a computer monitor on a nearby table.

The man rolls his chair over to the massive machine. "I got her second hand. I don't know what she did before she was repurposed into a maid, but she came with semi-organic processors. She runs off of a solid fuel compound," he said, tapping the tube running into her mouth, "Her system produces an inert gel byproduct as it runs, which is supposed to offload into her reservoirs. So that's..." He reaches over to the robot girl and grips one of her thick rolls of silvery fat, "That's what's going on here. You're supposed to let her drain overnight, so she's designed to carry at least some of it. But nowhere near this much. If her sensors were actually working right now, she'd definitely be giving me a reservoir overload warning, because there's no way she can stand with all this. I tried draining her last night, but she drains pretty slow, she's building up this stuff so quickly she was bigger than before when I woke up."

"Let's see, there are a couple other fuel issues. For one, she's burning up way, way too much. And even if I did manage to top off her tank, she still gives me a low fuel warning anyway."

He reaches across the robot's body, grabbing the tube she's sucking on, and ripping it from her mouth. The huge girl starts to stir as much as she can.  With a great effort she lifts her pillowy arm and desperately, helplessly paws at the tube just out of her reach. In a high, clear voice she breathlessly gasps "Low... Fuel warning! Low fuel... Warning..."

He places the tube back in between her bloated cheeks, and the robot girl settles down again. "So now I have to keep her attached to an external supply," the man says, "I know her tank's full, but she can't tell. Her sensors must be off. She's been shutting off a lot of different unnecessary systems because of these hardware problems. She use to have a personality, I was running tsunOS 5 on her. But apparently that's not working anymore either, since she hasn't said anything that isn't "low fuel warning."

He walks his rolling chair back over to his desk, and picks up a sheet of notebook paper. "Let's see, there were some other things..." He reads silently before continuing, "Ah, yeah. I'm sure this is related to the gel buildup issue, but she's developed a real overheating problem. As you could tell, she starts to overheat pretty badly without doing anything. Her fans spin like crazy, you know," he draws a long deep breath in "like that, she "breathes" really hard. But it barely does anything to cool her down. I thought of adding an external cooling system but-"

He cuts himself off. From behind him, there is a sound like someone pouring oatmeal on the floor. He turns to see the fuel tube has fallen from the robot girls mouth, and is starting to pump the sludge onto her body and the floor. "Oh, come on," he says to himself, rolling back over to the metal blob. Her breathing starts to become more ragged and urgent. She starts to lift her fat-laden arm. "I got it, I got it," he says, taking the tube and guiding it back toward her mouth. She turns away as much as her bloated neck will let her.

The man lets the tube go, confused. The robot girl continues grabs his arm with her chubby hand and tugs on it, urgently trying to tell him something. Her breathing gets faster, and more uneven. She tries to whisper something, but she can't catch her breath enough. She clutches her chest uselessly with her other arm. Eventually, she manages to quietly wheeze, "F... fatal... error..."

The video goes black.

When the video picks up again, the man is sitting at the desk, looking haggard. "Apparently she does THAT, now," he says.

He rolls to the side to reveal the robot girl. "She's fine, by the way," he says. The robot girl is once again peacefully slurping down her sludge. The plating across her chest and belly is still stained beige with dried fuel compound. In the time between shots, she's grown visibly larger. Her girth has started to spill over the sides of the couch, which has also collapsed under her weight, leaving the immobile bot planted firmly on the ground.

"No data loss or anything," the man says, "No signs of corruption. But as I was saying, if anyone knows what's wrong with her, or how to fix her, just let me know. I could eject her core and get her a new body, I guess. But I'd really like to just get her up and running again. Let me know."

He turns to look at the robot girl and sighs.

The video ends.