DITCH

Her name's Ashley.

She walks her bare, small feets down through the dirty sidewalk of the underground part of Washington. For as long as she could remember, this place is always dark, rotten and smells like shit. For as long as she could remember – again – this place is never get a chance for the slightest shine of the sun.

She walks past a group of people with broken shirts and hairs becoming a nest for the flies. It’s impossible to find a clean, proper water here in the underground Washington that they've to struggling real bad just for a bath or just to fulfill their thirst. The underground Washington itself basically would never be exist if by the 2029 humans could defend theirselves from the doomday caused by the robots which was literally created by humans themselves. There was a great civil war, and the rest of the un-beaten poor civilians have to move and stay inside of the ditch that was built underneath the Washington, when the surface is fully dominated by the robots and another group of humans with lots of money; both in their wallets and their bank accounts.

Ashley – Ashley Harrison, precisely – is one of the victim of that civil war. She believes that both of her parents was dead as the result of it. Actually she was lucky enough for being able to manage to escape down to the underground Washington and so on there, she’s been living on her own.

She bumps against another stranger, again. This time she bumps into an old, bald man with one eye. He gives Ashley a deathly stares, but that little girl has had experienced lots of things that it’ll cost more than just a deathly stare to make her frightened.

“…Im sorry,” but she mumbles that, anyway, “Apparently you’re blocking my way. Will you please move?”

“Well, why should I?” that man replies, with a scary, deep baritone voice, “Why should I get the hell outta my place just because a weakling, fragile girl couldn’t pass her way to her home?”

Ashley looks up, she glares straight into the eye of that oldman.

“Because I know that you are not a human.”

On the corner of the most non-interesting part of the underground Washington, Ashley stretched a few sheets of rotten fabrics and papers, and that will be her permanent spot to do all of her stuffs: even though that Ashley herself got nothing much to do but to sit there and waiting for her death, and sometimes she will make herself busy by storing a bunch of the sewer rats’ carcasses as her foodstock and steals anything from the fellow civilians lives on the underground Washington and makes a good use of them. About sleep, well – since it’s always so dark down there, Ashley no longer got concept of either it’s day or night anymore.

Sometimes, that… will drive her crazy.

But then she finds herself letting this scrary old man she just bumped into to visit her spot. That old man himself is somehow seems like he got no permanent spot, and so for the slightest moment Ashley was afraid if he would stole hers.

“But, meh… I believe you wouldn’t do that,” she says, as she tries to light up a fire, “A robot need no sleep, right?”

“I don’t know what are you talking about.”

“I know you do.”

Once she done with the fire, she sits herself next to the old man. “Why are you here?”

“I no longer have a place to stay on the surface.”

“That’s a lie.”

“No that’s not.”

“What a stubborn creature,” Ashley hisses. She now hugs both of her knees, “Well, they send you to here just so you could eliminate the rest of us, don’t they? You can start from me anyway. Please make it quick and painless.”

“Im not here to kill. Im one of their victims.”

Ashley stares at the old man from the corner of her eye. It appears that the color of his remain eye turned into red. Ashley remembers it pretty well that it was dark blue before.

“You are just the same with the ones who killed my parents.”

“Sir and Lady Harrison?”

“What–“

Both of Ashley’s eyes are widening, she’s surprised and scared, “How could you know…?”

“Who don’t know the Harrisons? Your father was, indeed, the main reason of there are piles of robots wandering around in 2029. They helped humans, be friend with humans… All thanks to your father.”

That old man smiles, it’s somewhat looks bitter in Ashley’s eyes. “So dad… was the creator of – robots?”

“Hasn’t he told you anything?”

Ashley shakes her head. She looks sad and disappointed and all of her happy memories she gained back then when her little, warm family was still existed makes her crumbling down into pieces.

The smell of the underground Washington always similiars to shit, but this is the first time Ashley feels like she wants to puke out so bad. “No, he… he never told me anything.”

“Well, that’s indeed our master’s behavior. He always saved it all just for himself.”

“But, but…” Ashley could tell that her voice is shaking, “doesn’t that mean that my father was killed by something he created?”

That old man doesn’t answer. Instead, he looks away, emptily stares into the edge of the underground Washington labyrinth. Its always so dark, stink and uncomfortable in here.

“If that was never happened… Im pretty much believe that we’d still able to play underneath the shine of the sun and drink a fresh, clean water instead of this dumped… ditch liquid.”

Ashley manages herself to giggle. She erases a single tear on the corner of her left eye, “Shut up. You are just a robot. You don’t even know how it feels like to have some waters sliding down through your throat.”

“Well, maybe I could try?”

“Believe me; not with this kind of water, Dad…”

Ashley and that old man spent a few days together. They are bonding. Sometimes they fight each other, but on the other slight of moment they are back to laugh together again.

Ashley is indeed a smart and creative little girl. The old man stated that back then on the civil war, more than the half of the created, fully functioned robots were corrupted by the government and their ideals of the “world balance” and so the robots got the guts to fight the low-classed, poor humans. The rest of the un-corrupted robots were fight back, on the real human’s side, including professor Harrison himself which was hardly rejected such an ideals and eventually ended up killed by his corrupted creature. The old man said sorry to Ashley. He was once failed to protect his master, now he carries the duty to protect his master’s daughter. During the story, Ashley cries a bit, but then she quickly pulls herself together and gives that old man a nick name aside his real own name: FX4500.

“The name Angel fit you the most!” is what Ashley said, as she hugs him tightly, “since you are my guardian from now on.”

“But I was created as a male robot…”

“Angels could be both male or female.”

Angel softly laughs, “I see that you wouldn’t take any more objection…”

A few months later, Ashley and Angel spreads their will of ‘living on the surface again’ to the rest of the underground Washington civilians.

On the first stage, they reject such an idea. They had enough of traumas that the underground Washington couldn’t be any better as a place where they awaits for their deaths. They eventually got used to live exactly just like the sewer rats. They drink from the dirty dumped ditch water and they couldn’t care less about it.

They… think that, this is the end.

But Ashley and Angel are not.

Both of them keep do their best and hardest in order to make the rest of the people have just the same guts. For the beginning, is just a small group of children with their runny noses. But then comes a pair of adults who couldn’t even stand properly but have just the exact will to fight. Soon enough, all of the underground Washington, both humans and robots silently living among them, finds themselves prepared for the war.

They creates weapons, gathers every single thing that could be use to destroy.

They even manages make a bomb out of the ditch water.

And so, for the first time in forever, Ashley opens the seal of the ditch and climbs herself out of it. She now steps her bare, small feets on the surface of the Washington, where it full of high buildings and grey clouds. Angel comes second, then the rest of the civilians.

“Even the sun still couldn’t reach us,” she whispers to herself.

Her people are ready. She turns to face them.

“FOR HUMANITY’S FREEDOM!”