Terry Bisson: The Fifth Element

Loc Rhod slid in beside him, still rapping in his hovering skeeter-mike.

“This is amazing!! Korben, Korben Dallas, winner of the Gemini Croquettes contest, just killed three warriors like he was swatting flies!!” Bratbratbrat!

Two more Mangalores were firing at the column, shredding it into shards of sharp shrapnel. Barang! Kahwang!

“Come on!” said Korben, and he half dove, half rolled across the lobby to the intemission band.

“No way!!” said Loc Rhod.

Mangalores were concentrating on agile DJ scurried up a curtain to the balcony he continued commenting on the action BARRAP BARRAP BARRAP!

Another Mangalore was using his ZR1 missile launcher, destroying the intermission band by piece. The missiles were getting closer and closer to Korben.

Clikityclik!

Korben’s ZF1 was empty. Looking desperately around the lobby, he saw an abandoned laser rifle on a nearby pool table.

The galactic film star Baby Ray was hiding under the pool table.

“Toss me the gun!” Korben shouted.

“What?” Baby Ray poked his head out, just as another missile chewed up another section of the bar.

“The gun, for Christ’s sake!” Korben shouted. He pointed at the ZF1, which lay amid a cluster of pool balls.

“Oh,” said Baby Ray.

He rolled the pool balls across the floor toward Korben.

“Thanks,” said Korben sarcastically. “That’ll sure help!”

“Hands up!”

Korben looked up.

A Mangalore was looking over the bar, a ZF1 in hand.

“Stand up. Slow!”

Korben stood up.

Slow.

Still moving slowly and deliberately, he climbed atop the bar. The Mangalore was standing on a fallen ceiling panel balanced on a bullet-riddled Mangalore corpse.

“Down!” said the Mangalore.

“Okay,” said Korben obligingly. He stepped off the bar, onto the panel.

It seesawed, sending the Mangalore on the other end flying straight up.

The Mangalore’s hideous head rammed through the balcony and stopped—an inch from Loc Rhod’s terrified face.

“Yeeeeaaaahhh!!”

“Yech!” responded the Mangalore, face to face” with the DJ.

The alien’s battle-honed reflex depressed the trigger finger on his gun, which sprayed the lobby with laser bullets—

Bratbratbrat!

—three of which took out three other Mangalores running toward Korben. WHAK!

Loc Rhod stopped the firing by hitting the Mangalore on the head with the shirtful stones. “Sorry, man!!”

Bratbratbrat!

Three more Mangalores burst into ballroom guns blazing.

“Korben, man!!” cried Loc Rhod. “Help!”

“Don’t move!” said Korben.

Rolling over until he was under the fired his entire clip straight up, chewing a circle of the balcony—which dropped Loc Rhod to the floor at Korben’s feet.

“Oooof!!” said the DJ, at a once.

Loc Rhod watched curiously as Korben broke his empty gun in half, removing an inner magazine which he threw overhand at the underside of the balcony.

It stuck, and a light started flashing.

“What’re you doing?” the DJ asked.

“You’ll know in a ten seconds! Nine, eight. Come on!”

Korben grabbed Loc Rhod and pulled him toward the pool table. Seeing that the table was on casters, the DJ knew just what to do. Together, the two men pushed the pool table into the long sloping aisle of the Concert Hall, and climbed under it as soon as it started rolling.

Bratbratbrat!

The Mangalores on the balcony fired down. The green felt tabletop exploded into fragments, but no bullets penetrated to the bottom, where Korben and Loc Rhod were hiding.

The table rolled faster and faster… BAAARRRROOM!

The balcony disappeared in a wall of flame. The Concert Hall was suddenly very quiet.

Very quiet.

Korben and Loc Rhod emerged from underneath the pool table. Korben picked up a ZF1 that had fallen to the floor.

Suddenly a service door opened at the side of the hall.

Korben spun, gun at the ready.

A middle-aged cop stepped out. He was festooned with badges and devices, and he held his gun at the ready.

“Nobody move!”

“Huh??” Loc Rhod looked from the funny little cop to Korben.

“I am Captain Fog, in charge of concert security.”

“Good,” said Korben. “You’re just the man I was looking for.”

He tossed the little man the big ZF1.

“You’re in charge.”

Then he grabbed Loc Rhod by the arm and marched him out of the hall.

“Leeloo?”

Korben’s cry was half hope, half desperation, as he burst into the stateroom of the dear departed Diva.

The room was a shambles, tossed by the Mangalores, then shot up by Zorg.

But Korben hardly noticed the blood, the bodies, the belongings scattered around the floor. He saw only the luminous bar of laser chain shattered and scattered on the floor, flickering dimly as it gradually faded out of existence. He saw only the hole in the ceiling through which Leeloo had made her escape.

“Leeloo!!??”

He was so desperate to find her, that he ran back out of the stateroom as soon as he saw she was gone.

He didn’t hear the faint answer to his cry that came from the crawl space above the ceiling. Leeloo was weak. She was bleeding and battered, but she had heard him.

“Kor… ben…”

He didn’t see the mini-nuke stuck to the wall, or the liquid crystal display still counting down:

10:00

Meanwhile, in nearby outer space, a ZFX 200 had just made a U-turn and was heading back toward Fhloston Paradise.

Zorg was at the controls, as blind to the beauties of intragalactic interstellar space as he was to the virtues of kindness and compassion.

An empty box lay torn to pieces on the cockpit floor.

Zorg was muttering darkly:

“I am not happy. At all.”

Meanwhile, at Fhloston Paradise Central Security Headquarters, the last remnants of the Mangalore aiding party had barricaded themselves in the back of the station.

They were under siege by the cops, but they still plenty of ammunition, and they were shooting anything that moved, much less tried to enter. Korben arrived, still searching for Leeloo. He stopped Fog among the cops in the corridor. “You still in charge?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Fog.

“How many in there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s count,” suggested Korben.

He went to the door and stuck his head around. Cautiously, so as not to excite the warriors inside. “Seven to the left,” he said. “Five to the right.” Fog nodded obediently but uncomprehendingly. So what?

Korben stuck his head around again—this time accompanied by his ZF1.

Bratbratbrat! Bratbratbrat! Bratbratbrat!

“Six to the left, one to the right,” muttered Korben, reloading. “We got to find the leader.” “Leader?” Fog echoed.

“Mangalores don’t fight without a leader.”

As if in answer to Korben’s observation, a stir came from inside the station.

Akanit stood up.

He dragged Father Cornelius out into the open, where he could be seen.

He held a gun to the back of the old priest’s head.

“One more shot and we start killing hostages,” Akanit said. “Got that?”

“Found the leader,” muttered Korben. “Send someone in to negotiate,” shouted Akanit.

“Mind if I go?” Korben asked Fog. “I’m an excellent negotiator.”

Fog nodded. His medals clinked.

He stood up and shouted back: “We’re sending someone in who’s authorized to negotiate!”

Korben stood and walked quickly through the door. He walked straight up to Akanit and put a bullet through his head.