Terry Bisson: The Fifth Element

Then it became a moot point.

The Diva was hit.

Bratabrat!

Once, twice!

She spun around, doubled over—

And fell off the stage, straight into Korben’s arms!

Korben lowered her to the floor, out of the line of fire.

Ignoring the panic all around, he wrapped her in his dinner jacket, trying desperately to stop, or It least slow, the flow of bright blue blood.

The door of the docking garage opened.

A ZFX200 rocketed out, speeding Phloston Paradise, into the high, white fluffy clouds.

Zorg sat at the controls, his scarred to a happy rictus of demonic joy.

He patted the gold and ivory box on the seat beside him.

“If you want something done,” he said to himself smugly, “do it yourself!”

Korben set the Diva’s head on the floor as gently as possible. Her eyes were fluttering…

Loc Rhod was crouched behind his seat nearby, rapping non-stop into his still-hovering skeeter-mike: “They’re hideous!! They’ve got a crest on their heads, the eyes of a toad, and fingers all over their hands. Totally hideous!!”

Half a galaxy away, in the President’s office, the assembled scientists and generals were listening intently to the radio broadcast.

“Totally hideous!!” rapped Loc Rhod. “Mangalores!” said General Munro.

President Lindberg had already figured it out “Send a battalion immediately!”

“I was sent by the government to help you,” Korben said to the Diva Plavalaguna. “I guess I blew it!” “Don’t worry,” the alien beauty whispered. “This is my fate.” Her eyes fluttered. “How was the concert?” Korben was shocked. She was dying and all she cared about was how the had sounded?

But why not? She was, after all, an artist.

“I’ve never heard anything so beautiful!” he said—quite truthfully.

The Diva smiled weakly. Already her voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.

“You’re a good man,” she whispered. “She was right to choose you…”

Korben thought he had misheard. “Who?”

“The Fifth Element. The Supreme Being. Sent to Earth to save the Universe.”

Korben was stunned. “Do you mean…?”

The Diva nodded. “Leeloo. You must give her the Sacred Stones. She’s the only one who knows how to use them!”

Bratbratbrat! Bratbratbrat! Bratbratbrat! BuddhabuddkuBuddhabuddha!

Korben looked up. The battle was still raging. He pulled out his gun.

“But she needs your help,” the Diva went on. “And your love. She’s more fragile than she seems.”

Korben crouched and blasted two attacking Mangalores.

They fell back into the cheap seats, screaming in pain.

“Yeah, so am I!” said Korben.

The Diva took his hand and pulled him back down beside her.

“She was created to protect life, not to live. If you want her to live, she must learn how to love. Her eyes closed.

The door to the Diva’s stateroom swung open noiselessly.

The housekeeping robot looked in, beeped twice, and trundled on.

On the wail, the little cylinder glowed and the liquid crystal counter turned over.

20:00

19:59

“You can’t die!” Korben said.

He slapped the Diva’s cheeks gently.

Her eyes were closed. Her gown was soaked blue with blood.

“We have the world to save here, remember? You hear me? Where are the Sacred Stones?”

Her eyelids fluttered. Just barely.

It could have been from Korben’s breath.

Orbit Achieved said the readout on the instrument panel of the ZFX200.

Zorg floated up from his seat. The little ship was so primitive—no faux grav!

But what did Zorg care? He had what he had come for! He grabbed the gold and ivory box that was floating nearby.

It was deja vu all over again.

Empty!

“Where are the stones!?!”

The Diva’s eyes opened one last time.

On Korben Dallas, cab driver, one-time war hero, now intent on saving the Universe.

She smiled weakly.

One last smile.

“The stones… are with me…”

And the blue blood flowed from her mouth, and she closed her eyes for the last time, and she died in Korben’s arms.

In the crawl space above the Diva’s stateroom, Leeloo clutched herself, in sudden indescribable pain.

“NNNNOOOooooooo!”

“Hands on your head!”

Korben looked around and saw that the Mangalores now controlled the aisles, the stage the entrances and the exits to the Concert Hall. They were in total control.

“Everyone!” said a Mangalore.

“My man!!” Loc Rhod hissed. He was hidden a few feet away from Korben, under a row of seats. “I think we should, like, listen to them!! ”

“Give me a minute,” said Korben. He was studying the still form of the Diva, repeating her last words: “ The stones are with me. With me? ”

“Hey! You!”

Korben’s reverie was broken by the rude knobby hand of a Mangalore, who grabbed him by the collar and pulled—

—only to be yanked off his feet by a lightning judo move and flipped over Korben’s shoulder to land flat on his lizard-skin ass with a—

WHUMP!

When the Mangalore opened his eyes he saw Korben crouched over him, Korben’s gun was in the alien warrior’s mouth.

“I said give me a minute!”

Korben motioned to Loc Rhod, who crept out of hiding.

“Hold this,” said Korben. He put the handle of his gun in Loc Rhod’s hand, leaving the barrel stuck in the open mouth of the petrified Mangalore.

“Oh, man, Korben…” complained Loc Rhod. But Korben wasn’t listening.

He was kneeling over the body of the Diva Plavalaguna, repeating her dying words to himself as if they were a mantra:

“The stones are with me—the stones are with me.”

Korben pressed down on the Diva’s stomach. It was soft.

Then hard.

“The stones are in me?”

Hesitating for only an instant, he plunged his hand into the gaping wound in the Diva’s side. And pulled out a Sacred Stone.

“Yes!”

Startled by Korben’s shout, Loc Rhod flinched. BLAM!

The top flew off of the Mangalore’s head brains spattered the apron of the stage.

“Oh, man!!” said Loc Rhod. “I’m sorry!”

Korben pulled out another stone, then another, then another.

All four were covered with bright blue blood.

He tore off his shirt and wrapped the stones in it, then handed the bundle to Loc Rhod.

“Lose these stones and I promise, you’ll look like him.”

Korben pointed to the dead Mangalore. “Got it?”

“Green!” said Loc Rhod. “Super green!”

“Good. Follow me!”

“Green. Super Green!”

Loc Rhod’s words came loud and clear through the twin speakers on the desk of the President of the United Federation.

The President wiped his face with a towel. “How many people do you think are listening to this?” he asked one of his scientists.

“Around fifty-two billion, sir.”

The President turned to General Munro. “Is that your idea of a discreet operation?”

“Don’t worry, sir,” Munro said nervously (though he looked worried himself). “I know my man Dallas. He’ll calm things down.”

“He damn well better!”

CRASH!

The glass doors of the Concert Hall burst into a thousand pieces as two Mangalore warriors were thrown through them, into the hall.

Behind them came Korben, a ZF1 in each hand “Everybody down!” he yelled, as he swept the lobby with laser fire, mowing down the retreating Mangalores.

BratbratbratBratbratbrat!

BratbratbratBratbratbrat!

Answering fire echoed from the right, and Korben hit the deck, rolling behind a massive fluted column.