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Section 8: The Spark of Life

Epilogue: Endings

"All passengers for Flight B-nine-six-two to Bellerephon, this is your final boarding call. Please report to gate eight for check-in."

"That's me," the woman says, glancing at her chrono. She gets up. "Nice meeting you."

It takes me a moment to comprehend a few facts. We've been sitting here for forty minutes, not thirty. I've been so wrapped up in the story that I didn't hear any of the previous boarding calls. The story itself isn't finished yet. And if this woman goes through gate eight, I'll never hear the end of it.

"Wait!" I exclaim, walking after her. "What happened? What did the girl do?"

"Oh, don't worry," the woman murmurs, reaching a hand into her pocket and pulling out a data chip that I assume has her passport and boarding ticket stored on it. "She made her choice."

"Yeah, but what choice?! What did she do?"

She ignores me, and keeps walking. I walk after her, even though this isn't my flight. Throughout this story, not a single name was uttered by the storyteller. Is she trying to protect those involved? If so…what then?

"The planet!" I exclaim, grabbing her by the shoulder. "What happened? Was it terraformed?"

"Look it up," she says, taking my hand off her shoulder. "OBL-eleven. All planets retain their alpha-numeric designation even if they are officially named."

Christ!

It'll take me ages to look it up. It's not impossible, but when I could just have the answer…

"Why don't you just tell me?" I ask, seeing the check-in attendants make another final boarding call announcement (apparently the last "final" one wasn't final at all). "Why don't you-"

"Excuse me sir, are you on this flight?"

One of the attendants, male, has walked up to me.

"I, um…"

I glanced helplessly at the woman. She's handed her data chip to the other female attendant who's currently in the midst of scanning the data.

"Sir, if you don't have a boarding pass-"

"Don't worry, he's just seeing me off."

The woman turns back at me. The attendant looks at her for a moment before shrugging and heading back to his own desk.

"Look," I say desperately. "I believe you. I really do. I…you're right, you know. All the planets we transformed. Maybe we take them for granted. If you want to pass on elder wisdom and all that, then you've done the job. If you want me to try and get an inquiry into these practices, I will. Just tell me! What happened?!"

"You're asking the wrong question."

I stare at her. The attendants ignore us. And the woman begins chuckling.

"A choice was made," she whispers, looking down at the ground and rubbing her hands together. "But that isn't what you should concern yourself with."

"I-"

"What was the right choice to make?" she asks, her eyes meeting mine, their depth and age shining out into the world. "What choice would you have made?"

I remain silent. I…never considered that. I was expecting an answer, an end to the story. Not this kind of 'to be continued maybe' thing.

"Asking what's the right thing to do," the woman says, laying a hand on my shoulder gently. "That's a question we must never stop asking."

A beeping sound comes from the desk behind my acquaintance. Sighing, as if tired, as if weighed down by history, she turns around to take her chip.

"It all checks out," the attendant says. "Welcome aboard Miss Anne."

I stand there. I watch as she walks towards the boarding tube. As she glances round and waves idly. I wave back.

And then she's gone. And she's taken her answers with her. And all I'm left with is the question.

I glance at my chrono. Twenty minutes until boarding time for my own flight. I find myself walking through the boarding lounge. Back to the plasteel wall. Back to the view of Atlas below. Back to where it all began.

I reflect on everything I heard. All the mistakes that were made. All the morals compromised. A question that I don't even know has a moral answer.

I look down at the planet below.

Atlas is still a marvel of the natural world. Of a planet spawning its own life without human intervention.

Atlas is still beautiful.

But I don't think I ever appreciated how much until now.

The End

A/N

So, that's that.

My initial conception for this story was for it to encompass chapters 1 to 7 (as in, not including the epilogue and prologue), and to leave the ending ambiguous. Getting into writing this however, I realized that ch. 7 ended...iffily, as in, feeling more like a cop-out rather than conveying my intent on leaving the choice open to the reader. Hence, the prologue/epilogue additions. Yeah, it's still the ambiguous ending that can potentially send people into homicidal rages in published fiction, but hey, fanfic.

So, that being said, I don't have any other Section 8 stories on my 'to write' list at this time of writing. Currently working on a Halo story titled Primordial for what it's worth. I suppose that since Timegate Studios has gone the way of the dodo, fan works are all we're going to have left. :(