Robot Cops

Reporter Bryan Collins is speeding to get to a work meeting on time when he witnesses a police officer shut down in the middle of a busy intersection. It seems like just a glitch. A rare malfunction of a PX9 unit, the robotic law enforcement officers that replaced human police decades ago. The PX9s are efficient and incorruptible, and their deployment was hailed as the beginning of a new age in policing. 

But when Bryan’s colleague Jack starts digging into the failures, what he discovers is far more disturbing than faulty programming. The PX police aren’t just machines. As disappearances mount and the system closes in, Bryan finds himself pulled into a conspiracy that reaches from his newsroom to the highest levels of power. And by the time he understands the truth, it may already be too late. 

The next model, PX10, is coming. 

Robot Cops is a 7,700-word dystopian short story about control, identity, and the terrifying cost of a perfect system.