Terry Bisson - The Fifth Element

Please! You made my first marriage hell. Don’t screw this one up before it starts. In here…”

He punched a wall button. A conveyer hummed as his shower was replaced by a walk-in freezer.

Taking Munro with one hand and Iceborg with the other, Korben herded them toward the freezer.

“Major,” said Munro, “we have no time for this!”

“A minute!” said Korben, opening the freezer door. “It’ll take a minute. I’ll set up another meeting with her.”

He shoved them both into the vaultlike freezer.

“Be right with you!” he called out to Leeloo.

He jammed the half-eaten jellyfish cake into Munro’s hands. “Don’t eat it!” he warned, and before the general could protest, he slammed the door.

“Coming!”

A mess! The prettiest girl in the galaxy was at the door, and the place was a mess! Korben’s long dormant hormones raged through his body, and he saw his apartment through Leeloo’s perfect green eyes.

Disgusting!

He swept the dirty dishes off the table and into the trash (which groaned with faux-biological satisfaction). He rolled his dirty clothes up into a ball, and shut them up in the folding bed.

Whipping a comb out of his vest pocket, he ran it through his thinning hair.

Then with a smile of anticipation, he opened the apartment door—

And looked straight down the barrel of a gun held by Father Cornelius.

Korben hardly noticed. He only had eyes for Leeloo, who Was standing behind the priest. “Apipoulai!” she said.

“I suppose that means Hi,” said Korben. Cornelius pulled Leeloo into the apartment, and Korben shut the door behind them.

“I’m sorry we have to resort to such methods,” said Cornelius, waving the gun menacingly. “But we heard about your good luck on the radio, and we need the tickets to Fhloston Paradise.”

“Is this the usual way priests go on vacation?” asked Korben, in what he hoped was a voice dripping with scorn and irony.

“We’re not going on vacation,” said Cornelius. “We’re on a mission.”

“What kind of mission?”

“We have to save the world,” said Cornelius. Korben sat down at the table and laughed. “Is there an echo in here?”

Cornelius looked at him, uncomprehending. “Oh, no,” said Korben sarcastically. “I get it. It’s Tuesday, right? Tuesday must be save-the-world day. So tell me, Father, are you going to save the world all by yourself?”

“Well, of Course,” said Father Cornelius with unaffected sincerity. “But if you want to help, we would be thrilled.”

Leeloo smiled her agreement.

Korben didn’t notice. He was too busy shaking his head no no no, and pointing his thumbs down down down!

“Father,” he said, “I was in the army for a while, and every time they told us we were on a mission to save the world, the only thing that changed was that I lost a lot of friends. So thanks for the offer—but no thanks.”

Cornelius looked disappointed. Leeloo, standing right next to him, looked absolutely devastated. Her radiant smile was gone.

Korben saw the disappointment in her wide green eyes, and was just about to reconsider when the silence was broken by an amplified robotic voice from outside the window.

“THIS.IS.A.POLICE.CONTROL,ACTION.” Father Cornelius backed up against the wall, panicked, the gun in his hand forgotten.

Korben took the gun from his hand and went to the door. He looked through the peephole.

The hallway was swarming with cops.

A squad was standing on the landing, armed with lights, crowd control bungees, shields, helmets, and laser rays that could see through every door into every apartment.

“Oh my god,” said Cornelius. “Do you think they’re after us?”

“Let’s not find out,” said Korben. He pushed the wall button again, sending the walk-in freezer to the next floor, and returning the shower in its place.

“Leeloo,” he said, “hide in there, and don’t move!”

Without hesitation, she jumped into the shower. The door closed behind her.

Korben opened the folding bed.

“What are you doing?” Cornelius demanded.

“Trying to save your ass,” said Korben, shoving the priest onto the bed, into the pile of dirty laundry. “So you can save the world!”

He pressed the button that sent the bed back into the wall. He grabbed the two tickets off the table and slid them into his belt—

SPLAT!

Just as a transparent circle suddenly appeared on the apartment door, where the cops had slapped on a see-thru sticker.

“SPREAD.YOUR.LEGS.AND.PLACE.YOUR.HANDS.IN.THE.YELLOW.CIRCLES,” said a robotic cop voice.

Splat! Splat!

Two smaller circles appeared on the door. These were laser holding devices.

PLACE.YOUR.HANDS.IN.THE.YELLOW. CIRCLES.PLEASE!

A cop was peering through the see-thru. He was bolding a Wanted sheet with Korben’s picture on it. it was an old military picture, showing Korben with long hair and a beard.

HANDS.IN.THE.YELLOW.CIRCLES.NOW!

Korben moved slowly toward the door, keeping his face turned away as much as possible.

“Are you human?” asked the cop, straining to get a better view.

“No,” said Korben. “I’m a meat popsicle.”

The cop was just about to examine Korben’s face up close when a voice came from down the hall.

“I found him!”

The nameplate on the door said Korben Dallas.

Bingo!

The cop stuck a see-thru sticker on the door.

Korben’s nasty neighbor was shaving. His face was covered with shaving cream. Almost like a-beard.

The cop turned off his robotic bullhorn. Why make a big fuss and annoy everybody?

“This is a control,” he said politely. “Please put your hands in the yellow circles.”

Korben’s nasty neighbor peered through the transparent circle on his door.

He saw two young cops, nervously holding stun guns and a picture of a guy with a beard.

They saw a guy shaving.

“Open the door!” they said

Never at a loss for a response, the nasty neighbor said what he always said when faced with a new irritant in an always irritating world:

“Fuck you!”

Korben heard it all from his own apartment.

He heard the police request and the nasty neighbor’s answer.

Then he heard the blasting of the door, the stun gun shots, the struggle.

He smiled. “Wrong answer.”

There were more footsteps, and more cops came running.

Korben watched through the see-thru, which was already fading back to opacity.

He saw the cops dragging the squirming arrest bag down the hall, manhandling it down the stairwell.

“Okay, okay!“ one of them was hollering down to the street. “We got the guy under wraps!”

Right Arm also heard it all.

He was on the phone in Zorg’s office, patched into the police lines via cell phone.

“It wasn’t easy, but we bagged him,” a police lieutenant said over the phone. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Glad to help,” said Right Arm. He smiled as he hung up the phone.

“They just arrested this Dallas character for uranium smuggling,” he said proudly to Zorg.

“Everything’s going as I planned.”

“Uranium smuggling?” Zorg was skeptical. “I thought he was wanted on traffic violations and evading arrest?”

“A clerical error,” Right Arm said. “I patched it into the allpoints code just to make sure.”

He showed Zorg a forged plane ticket and passport—both in the name of Korben Dallas.

“All I have to do now is go to the spaceport and take his place. I should be on Fhloston in less than four hours.”

Zorg was unimpressed. “Don’t come back without the stones.”