Terry Bisson - The Fifth Element

Zorg smiled. “So you are a merchant after all.” He turned to his men. “Leave them one crate. For the cause. ”

Without another word, he lifted the empty case and walked out.

Right Arm followed.

Still under the guns of the Mangalores, the warehousemen lifted the three crates of laser rifles and scurried toward the elevator.

“I don’t like warriors,” said Zorg as he walked out of the warehouse, onto the street.

He handed the empty case to his right arm, Right Arm, who put it under his right arm.

“They’re too narrow-minded!”

Right Arm nodded. He knew better than to respond. This was not a conversation; it was a lecture.

“No subtlety! Worse—they fight for hopeless causes. For honor! Honor has killed millions of creatures but hasn’t saved a single one.”

Right Arm nodded.

Even as Zorg spoke, a few hundred yards behind him, the Mangalores were opening the crate of rifles.

“You know what I do like, though?” Zorg continued, as he and Right Arm got into a waiting limo.

Right Arm nodded. He knew that all he had to do was listen.

“I like a killer! A dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded. Clean. Methodical. Thorough.”

Right Arm nodded.

In the warehouse, the warriors gazed at the gleaming weapons. One of the warriors picked up a laser rifle and handed it to Aknot.

“A real killer,” Zorg went on, “when he picked up the ZF1, would have immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.”

He knocked on the partition. “Drive on.”

At the end of the block, in the top of the warehouse, Aknot turned over the gun.

He noticed the little red button.

It was flashing insistently.

He pressed it with a stubby lizardlike finger. BAAAARRRROOOOOM!

Zorg smiled as the warehouse went up in flames two blocks behind him. Smoke billowed out through the streets, and there was silence.

Then the distant wail of sirens.

“Bring me the old priest,” said Zorg.

Right Arm nodded.

Thai Fly By was nothing if not fast.

Ten minutes after Korben’s call, the little hovering mini-restaurant was secured to the window of his apartment.

It looked like a cross between a Chinese junk, a Viking raider and a giant red-enameled pooper scooper. But the smells that wafted up from its tiny kitchen were delicious.

Korben, seated at his table, and his cat, seated on the table, were sharing a single disposable plate of rice noodles, spring rolls and assorted Thai appetizers.

“So you forgive me?” Korben asked.

“Meow,” said the cat, scarfing down another expensive sliver of sesame oil roasted fish.

The Thai cook knocked on the windowsill.

“You got a message,” he said, pointing to the glass message tube that served all the modular apartments in this mega-racktower.

“I know,” said Korben. He ignored the blinking light.

“Not going to open?”

“Later,” said Korben.

“But could be important…” said the hovering restaurateur.

Korben shrugged. “Sure. Like the last two messages I got. The first one was from my wife, telling me she was leaving. The second was from my lawyer, telling me he was leaving too. With my wife.”

“Oh!” said the Thai cook, “that is bad luck. But mathematically, luck must change! Grandfather say: ‘It never rain every day!’ This is good news guarantee! I bet you lunch!”

“Okay,” said Korben. “It’s a bet.”

He pulled the message out of the tube and handed it to the Thai cook.

The cook opened the paper and read it with a smile that quickly faded to a frown.

“I lose bet,” he said. “You’re fired!”

Korben smiled. “At least I won lunch.”

“Good philosophy,” said the flyby cook, sharpening his chopping knife on the side of his hovering mini-kitchen. “See good in bad! I prepare number one dessert, especially for you and pussy.” “Meow,” said the cat.

Dessert was also being served at Father Cornelius’s spartan apartment across town.

Leeloo was finishing off her angel food cake, daintily sucking her elegant little fingertips, one by one.

Meanwhile, the novice, David, was seated at the computer. The search engines clanked and groaned, and the screen was filled with darting digits of data.

“I got it!” David cried triumphantly. “Everything we need to know about Fhloston Paradise— and a detailed blueprint of the entire hovering hotel.”

“Good work, my son,” said Father Cornelius. “Now all we need is a way to get there.”

David scrolled on down, through reservations.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he said. “There’s a big charity ball on Fhloston tomorrow. The flights have been full for months. And with all the celebrities, the hotel will be guarded like a fortress.”

“There must be a way… “Cornelius was saying, when the doorbell rang.

He got to his feet. “I’ll get it.”

It was Right Arm with an armed guard. An ugly, intimidating armed guard.

Not that Father Cornelius was intimidated. A man who has been preparing all his life to battle the Ultimate Evil is rarely shaken by the lesser varieties.

“Father Cornelius?” asked Right Arm.

“My son?”

It was the first time anyone had ever called Right Arm “son.” Even his own mother had called him “Hey You.”

It took him a moment to recover his composure. “Mr. Zorg would like a word with you.”

“Mr. Who?”

A few minutes and a few thousand vertical feet later, Father Cornelius was ushered into a corner office high above Manhattan.

“Zorg,” said Zorg, rising cordially to greet his guest. “Jean Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg. Nice to see you again, Father.”

He motioned to a leather chair.

“Again?” Cornelius studied the scarred and delicately hideous face. “I remember you now. The so-called art dealer.”

“I’m glad you got your memory back,” said Zorg. “Because you are going to need it. Where are the Sacred Stones?”

“Why on Earth do the stones interest you?”

asked Cornelius.

“On Earth!?!” Zorg chuckled. “Personally, the stones are of no interest to me. I’d rather sell weapons. But I have a customer for them. So tell me…”

“Even if I knew where the Sacred Stones were,” said Cornelius, “I would never tell somebody like you.”

Zorg looked offended. Or perhaps flattered. Or perhaps a little of both.

“Why? What’s wrong with me?”

“I’m a priest,” said Cornelius. “I’m here to serve life. All you want to do is destroy it.”

Zorg shook his head pityingly.

“Ah, Father,” he said in the tone one might use to a dense child, “you are so wrong. Let me explain.”

He picked up a pitcher of ice water off a side table.

He poured a glass half full.

“Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Look at this glass.”

With one finger he pushed the glass toward the side of the counter.

“Here it is, peaceful. Serene. Boring. But if it is destroyed…”

He pushed the glass off the edge.

It smashed on the floor.

Immediately, the floor was swarming with tiny nanobots, cleaning up the splinters of broken glass and mopping up the water.

“Look at all these little things. So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. What a lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. So full of… life!”

“Life?” Cornelius watched scornfully. “They are robots.”

Zorg poured water into another glass.

He pulled the stem off a cherry and dropped the cherry into the glass.

It sank.

“Yes, they are robots, but who designs them?” he asked Cornelius. “Builds them? Engineers, technicians,