Glitch cop

The cop glitched in and out as he wrote out the ticket.

“Please remove yourself remove re- yourself move from the car-car.”

“But I haven’t done anything, officer. I’m just going to pick up my son.”

The cop’s face flicked between an indulgent smile and the cold stare you might find on the other side of a gun. This kind of AI-powered police force was new, a rapid response to the holo-cop implementation that everyone had ended up ignoring because they had no physical presence. This cop, well, he bent towards me and his breath tickled my beard. The smell was old doughnuts and burnt coffee.

“If-if you fail to fail comply fail, I will-ill be forced to use alternate different exotic means.”

The cop patted a lump at his waist that did not look like a gun or a taser. Whatever it was seemed to bubble and quake, nervously.

I got out of my car. Without moving his legs, the cop backed away, his ticket book at the ready.

“Licence and regi-regi-regi-regi —”

I cut him off. “They’re in the car.” The cop stared at me blankly. His pupils were different sizes, then were gone altogether. “Do you want me to go back into the car?”

The cop’s head twisted this way and that, movement erratic and quick as a spider. “The sus-suspect is being diff- being difficult-cult. No licence or or or registration. Vehicle determined abandoned.”

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The cop’s last words came out quick and clipped, as if the silence between each had been artificially removed.

“Wait what?” I said, but by that time I could already hear the street opening up. I turned just in time to see my car descend into the road, a new asphalt layer sliding into place above it, the edges briefly heated so they melted seamlessly with the rest of the street. For a moment, I could hear the machinery beneath the ground working as it took my car farther and farther away from me, down to some storage garage deep beneath the surface.

The cop turned to a fresh ticket sheet and began to write. “What was your mo-mo-motivation for jaywalk birdwalk crow-perambulation?”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch the cop right on his glitchy, pixel-stubbled chin. A car passed by, the man at the wheel carefully turning his head to look in the other direction. A small group of kids stood at the nearest corner with skateboards in their hands, not even bothering to hide their staring. Of course, kids were pretty safe — nothing to be gained by writing them up because they couldn’t pay any fines.

“I wasn’t jaywalking, officer. I was driving and you pulled me over because … well, you never actually told me why you stopped me.”

The cop glitched, for a second having four arms instead of two; two heads instead of one, neither of which were looking at me. He spoke clearly, but in two different voices. “Where is your car?”

Fighting to stay calm, I said: “You declared it abandoned.”

The cop cohered together, his edges blurring. I resisted the temptation to reach out and run my fingers along those sawtooth borders. The holo-cops were completely insubstantial, but the AI versions could produce resistance when needed, and physical objects, too. The cop’s pen scratched in his ticket book. He spoke in a new, broken way.

“Iffff you don’t haaaave a car, you cooooouldn’t beeeee driving.”

“But I wasn’t jaywalking, either.”

This wasn’t the first AI cop I’d seen. But like the growing crowd of kids on the corner, I’d always only seen them from a distance. Houston was on the cutting edge here, our mayor proudly declaring us the proving ground for the latest public-safety technologies. My neighbour Marta looked to me when she was detained for littering and I looked away. What could I do? It’s not like AI cops would listen to me any more than they would her.

“If you-you-you aren’t jashehnnnaging, then why-why are you on the street on the street on the?”

“I’m standing on the street because you asked me to get out of my car.”

“Car? Your car? Where is your car?” Each word was like a recording playing itself back, scratchy with too much repetition. “Your car is where?”

“You claimed it was abandoned.”