A new police robot called Brillo enters the precinct during August, the most high-crime time of the year. Most of the cops in the room are wary of the machine that will likely take their jobs. This makes Reardon, the scientist who created Brillo, consider how he was forced out of his own job at the robot manufacturing company UE not too long ago. A young bureaucrat from the Mayor's office is very excited by the prospect of replacing cops with robots. A rough and tumble cop named Mike is assigned to spend the night walking the streets with Brillo as a test.

That night on the beat, Brillo fixes alarm systems and other electrical problems with a building without being prompted. Mike is very unhappy. They pass by a bar where a some time informant for Mike works, who offers him a bottle of liquor as a gift. Brillo is upset by this as it is technically taking a bribe, and Mike tries to talk him out of reporting it. Instead, Brillo hears a woman screaming two blocks away that Mike misses, and they go to investigate. They find a man beating his wife, and when he attacks the two, they arrest him. Though he tries to deny any wrongdoing, Brillo recorded everything to prove him wrong. Mike refuses to take him in, however, and lets him off with a warning. Later when Mike goes to arrest a known carjacker in the area, Brillo stops him because he wasn't technically carjacking at that very moment.

After stopping for a moment in a 24-hour diner, Mike spots a car full of long-haired hippy kids weaving slightly on the road. He immediately assumes drugs and has them pull over, making them get out of the car and empty their pockets. Brillo says that even a stop-and-frisk is illegal without probable cause, and Mike's presumption isn't enough. A small bottle falls out of one of their purses and Brillo, after running a test on it, determines it is allergy medication. Mike is mad he couldn't rip their car apart to try and find some drugs locked in a compartment, but Brillo has already let them go.

Back at the precinct, Mike writes his report. He finds out that the car he had stopped later crashed, killing a pedestrian and three of the passengers. The captain is unwilling to listen to how Brillo stopped him from searching the car for drugs. He doesn't want to believe it, and is mad that Mike was being given bottles of liquor on the job. Mike has one more chance, but any more mistakes will get him off the force. Out in the office, the captain says he won't accept any robots like Brillo because the complicated nature of being a cop can't be understood yet by an AI. An FBI agent who was sitting in the precinct watching this whole time leaves with Mike on the way out and heavily implies that he (the FBI agent) is a robot before driving away.