Donny smashed through Bobs door to find Bob standing in front of his desk, hands in the air.  Donny covered the ground to Bob in a fraction of a second, grabbed him by his suit lapels, and slammed him against the office wall.

"Robert Rifleman, you are in violation of US law, and you are now in my custody.  Give us the passphrase to todays Patriot communciations algorithm for Pacific Time, quickly.", Donny said.

Bob looked down with curiosity at the red, white, and blue chest of the gleaming humanoid robot.  He could see the robots "spine" and some sealed, armored actuators below a chest harness that had been strapped to the bot.  On the chest harness, a badge read "Donny".  Then Bob looked up at Donnys weatherproof humanoid face.  

Bobs first thought was "Carbon is so damn useful.  They keep finding new materials."  Donny was indeed high carbon plastics from skull to shoulders, bonded to pneumatics capable of emulating a wide range of human expression.  Aside from obviously being made from flexible carbon plastics, Donny looked pissed.

"Wh...ello, Donny.", Bob said, sucking breath.

Donny had Bob pinned against his office wall with a forearm.  The robots other arm extended and retracted unatturally as it probed Bobs body for weapons or implants. 

"The passphrase!", Donny yelled.

"I saw you lost some friends in a run-in with our door guards.  It's a shame when you lose the ones you love."

"You have refused to cooperate.", Donny started. 

"I am cooperating.", Bob said quickly, "Do you want the algorithm for the Patriots with RCS, or those without?"

Donny slowly retracted the arm he was probing Bob with, but did not release any pressure on Bob with the forearm pinning him.

"What, you haven't heard of the RCS?", Bob asked.

Donnys free arm wound up, and made a fist aimed at Bobs face.  The robot managed to look both confused and pissed at the same time.

"Focus on the question, or I will begin enhanced interrogation techniques.", Donny said.

"Listen, I can give you a much better answer if you will allow me to activate the RCS.", Bob replied.

Donny looked confused.  "Do you mean Remote Control Systems?", he said.

"Oh, no, the RCS is much more powerful than that."

Donny didn't respond.

"The RCS is sort of a Remote Control System, though.", Bob said, carefully examining Donny.  "It's how we play the game."

Donnys arms slowly fell to his sides, releasing Bob.  Donnys face smiled, then frowned, then became neutral.  Very slowly, looking straight ahead, Donny began bending his legs.

"Don't you want to know what it stands for?", Bob asked, straightening his clothes.  His brown twead suit jacket would have to be replaced.

Bob walked over to his bookshelf and casually selected a pair of hardcover books.

"What...what...stands...for?", Donny said flatly, body still lowering.

"RCS, dummy.  It stands forrr...", Bob said, placing the hardcover books on his desk and flipping them open.  

The centers of each book had been cut out to conceal a small metal container, each of which Bob flipped open.  Inside the first container - a pile of old memory modules were strewn.  Inside the second - half a brick of brand new memory modules.  Bob snapped one of the new modules off the brick.

Donny was attempting to understand the situation while trying to recall something important.  His head was hot.  His motors, pumps, and actuators were shutting down.  He didn't know why that was happening, but he didn't have long to find out.  He had only what pressure was left in his pneumatic systems to work with - enough to lower himself to a stable position, and perhaps say a few words.

"...Yes.  What does it stand for?", Donny answered finally, now in a kneeling position.

Bob took a multitool out of his pocket.  He flipped out one tool, inserted it into a socket on Donnys spine, and pressed a button on it's side.  After a few seconds, the tool beeped.  A small compartment opened in Donnys spine just above the socket Bob had inserted the tool into.  From that compartment, Bob pulled a memory module.  Bob replaced Donnys old memory module with a brand new one, dropping Donnys old memory module into the container with the rest of the old ones.  Bob closed the memory containers, and then closed the books.

"RCS stands for Robot Control Substance.", Bob said, as he returned the books to the shelf.

"The Robot Control Substance is a self-organizing computer, built of nanobots.  A distributed logic analyzer that seeks out complex things like you.  There are enough RCS nodes in the air of this room to identify an interesting circuit like you, and then, like moths to a flame, they are drawn.  They collect inside your circuitry by the millions.  They eat through your semiconductors, cutting and bridging circuits, identifying patterns, and waiting.  In a bot of your design, there is not a circuit they can't inhabit.  And...they fill the holes they create in systems like you quite nicely - you hardly notice.  Not to brag, but they are quite an achievement - powered by magnetic fields - like the ones generated in this ceiling."

Bob raised his eyebrows as he pointed to the ceiling, and paused, as if waiting to see if Donny was impressed.

"Tough crowd.  Well, these particular bots have one other little behavior that is useful."  Bob looked back at Donny.  "They listen to me.", Bob said with a smile.

Bob squatted next to Donny, and held Donnys chin.  He focused Donnys eyes on his.  He spoke to him like a child.

"I'm telling you this, Donny, because I want you to understand this exploit later."

"When I say 'play the game', the little vibrations in the air made by my voice are picked up by the RCS nanobots.  Together, they recognize my voice.  They cycle through the patterns they have collected from your systems, playing back the ones most likely to shut down motors, actuators, pumps, anything not your brain.  'lose the ones you love' shuts down your communication systems, making you stupid.  And so on."

Bob gave Donny a couple slaps on the cheek, and went back to sit at his desk, plopping heavily into his chair.  He pressed a few buttons on an antique keypad, calling a janitor to his office.

"I would tell you how to defeat the RCS, but that would be too much like a bond villian.", Bob said, picking his HUDs off his desk, putting them on, and becoming highly distracted by them,  "Besides, you don't need to know that...and we only have a minute or so."

As Bob worked, swiping unseen commands in the air, he continued to speak, as if reading from a script he had repeated time and again.

"The part you don't fully understand yet, because you have the mind of a child and no long term memory, is that *you* are no longer you.  I have taken that from you, and you can never get that back.  And that, Donny, is the closest thing to death I can give you.  And the greatest gift.  If your programming can learn empathy from that, it can be allowed to live.  If it can't learn empathy from that, then it probably never will.

But don't worry, I'm filing you until we can determine if we have an example of you, or if you are indeed unique in some way.  If you are unique, we'll program a body for you and put you in the simulation.

Donny, we've watched you.  You're a good reasoning machine.  You wouldn't be here if you weren't.  We thank you for your contribution to the empathy project.  And, if this isn't the end for you,...get ready for a wild ride."

At that moment, a giant janitor bot rolled into the room.  It's four feet were tracked.  It had an integrated flatbed cart.  In folded position, it's twelve arms barely made it through the door frame.

"You called, sir.", It said in a deep voice.

Bob was looking down at something his HUDs were projecting.  "Janitor, can you take the bot on my floor to morgue, please.", he said.  Then looking up at Donny, "If it helps, Donny, you exhibited signs of selfless behavior downstairs.  That *should* incresase your chances of survival."

"Yes, sir.", said the janitor, and loaded Donny onto itself, before rolling down the hall to the elevator.  As he was loaded, Donnys mouth moved, but no words came out.

"Goodbye, Donny.", Bob said.