Terry Bisson: The Fifth Element

“One. That’s for firing me.”

CRUNCH!

“Two. That’s for trying to kill me. And…” CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

“And the rest is for what you did to my wife!” Wife? Zorg wondered, just before his lights went out.

Several hundred light years away, the President and his general reacted very differently to the brutal sounds coming over the sound link from Loc Rhod’s open mike.

President Lindberg closed his eyes, whether in pain or delight it was hard to tell.

General Munro moved his shoulders like a boxer, as if it were he, rather than Korben, pummeling Zorg.

03:00

02:59

“We’re running out of time again!” said Father Cornelius.

“We’re outta here,” said Korben. He picked up Leeloo in his massive arms and headed for the door.

Loc Rhod was still passed out on the floor. Father Cornelius knelt beside him and awakened him with a slap.

Loc Rhod sat up.

“Are you nuts, Father?? That, like, hurt!! I can’t feel my teeth!!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Cornelius, pulling the DJ to his feet. He shoved the bloody shirt containing the Sacred Stones into his arms. “All you need are your legs!”

“Don’t push,” said Fog. “There’s plenty of room!”

Nobody was fooled.

The enormous crowd filled the corridor, pushing toward the tiny lifeboats.

Loc Rhod’s three assistants found themselves near the front.

“Hurry up ladies… er, gentlemen,” said Fog, who had been fooled at first by their unisex outfits.

The three stopped, looking around for their boss, their mentor, their hero, icon, and legendary leader, Loc Rhod.

“We can’t go without our master!” said the first.

“We WON’T go without our master,’’ said the second.

“Absolutely NOT!” said the third.

“This is the last boat,” said Fog.

Three identical faces fell.

“Maybe he already left,” said the first.

“I think I saw him leave,” said the second. “I KNOW I saw him go!” said the third. And all three piled into the boat as it cut loose from the hovering luxury hotel.

“TWO.MINUTES.TO.COMPLETE.EVACUATION!” said the loudspeaker, as Korben, Leeloo, Loc Rhod and Father Cornelius raced to the docking garage.

Korben broke the lock on the first ship he saw that looked spaceworthy—

Zorg’s ZFX200.

In the dead Diva’s savaged suite, Zorg was coming around.

He raised his bruised and battered head and looked for his gun.

The liquid crystal counter read:

01:12

01:11

In the ZFX200, Korben swept the broken box off the copilot’s seat, and set Leeloo down.

He gently strapped her in.

Loc Rhod and Cornelius crowded into the tiny cockpit behind them.

Zorg picked up his ZF1 and studied it.

“I didn’t fire three thousand rounds. Did I?”

“ONE.MINUTE.TO.TOTAL.EVACUATION,” droned the loudspeaker.

“You know how to fly this thing??” Loc Rhod asked.

Korben strapped himself into the pilot’s barca. “It’s like a cab, isn’t it?” he asked drily.

Loc Rhod winced.

“THIRTY.SECONDS.UNTIL…”

“Anyone know how to open the garage door?” Korben asked.

Loc Rhod shook his head.

Cornelius shook his head.

Zorg was still studying his empty gun when the display on the bomb flashed.

Bleep!

Ten second warning!

00:09

00:08

Zorg pushed a hidden button on the side of the ZF1 and held it directly over his head.

A mauve-colored magnetic force field descended from the gun, enveloping him in an indestructible protective sarcophagus.

“EIGHT.SEVEN…”

The robotic loudspeaker had patched into the mini-nuke’s countdown.

Loc Rhod and Korben searched frantically through the switches and dials on the dashboard of the ZFX200.

“Found it?” Korben asked.

Loc Rhod shook his head. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for!”

Father Cornelius pointed to a row of buttons. “Press them all,” he said.

“Good idea,” said Korben, fingertips already flying.

Servos whined.

Magnetic motors howled into service.

Valves opened and solenoids clicked.

A battery of guns emerged from the front of the tiny fighter—all pointed toward the garage door.

An auto gun trigger emerged from the dash.

“Found it,” said Korben.

“BLAMBLAMBLAM!!

A storm of cannonfire erupted from the nose of the ZFX200, blasting the garage door off its hinges.

“Hold on tight!”

Korben pushed the throttle forward.

The little ship rocketed out of the side of the great luxury liner, into the azure sky over the turquoise sea.

00:02

00:01

00:BHAAARRRROOOOOOOOOOOM!

The Diva’s suite disappeared.

The corridor disappeared.

The dirty laundry disappeared.

The Concert Hall and intermission bar disappeared.

All in a hellish, scorching wave of destruction.

The passengers, safe in their tiny lifeboats, watched in horror as the. magnificent luxury liner itself disappeared, consumed in a ball of flame—

From which only a tiny spacefaring jet, the ZFX200, emerged, coasting on up into the clouds, just ahead of the gigantic shock wave.

Cornelius breathed out, realizing as he did that he had been holding his breath for several minutes.

“Just like a cab,” quipped Korben, leaning back in his pilot’s barca.

Loc Rhod checked his watch, then made sure his skeeter-mike was still open—and had picked up the sounds of the blast and the escape.

He rapped:

“Dear listeners, your favorite DJ is alive and kicking!! It’s seven o’clock, Galactic Standard, Time, and time for the news!! Tune in tomorrow for another adventure with yours truly—

“Loc Rhod!!”

He hit a tiny switch.

Bleep!

End of transmission.

Loc Rhod leaned back and let out a huge, satisfied sigh. He looked up to see Father Cornelius and Korben both watching him.

He grinned weakly. “Best show I ever did!”

General Munro entered the President’s office. He was smiling: an unusual configuration temporarily softening the rough military terrain that was his face.

“Major Dallas has the Five Elements on board. Munro said. “The Priest is guiding them directly to the Temple.”

President Lindberg closed his eyes in relief. “Thank God. We’re saved!”

The blast wave from the explosion of the Fhloston Paradise carried out in waves like the ripples from a stone thrown into a pond.

Big stone. Big pond. Big ripples.

Flying at the leading edge of the cloud of dust, debris and detritus was a mauve magnetic digital sarcophagus, which tumbled end over end over end, and…

Fell into a snowbank on an untracked glacier high on the shoulder of an inaccessible range unexplored peaks near the middle of an unmapped polar continent.

THWUNK!

High in the towers of Manhattan, in Zorg’s office, the phone was ringing.

The secretary paused in her task of polishing her nails, long enough to pick it up.

“Yes?”

“ZXXDXDX those damned XXSSZXC!”

“Oh, Mr. Zorg. I was so worried.”

“I was ZXZXZXSW in the ZXZXS!”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you so well.”

High in the polar mountains of the planet Fhloston, a figure clambered out of a sarcophagus-shaped hole in the snow.

Zorg.

Bruised, battered, bloodied… but unbowed.

He was carrying a cellular phone.

“Can you hear me better now?”

“Yes, Mr. Zorg, I can hear you perfectly. How was the concert?”

“Listen up, instead of running off at the mouth! My batteries are almost gone.”

“Sorry, sir!”

“Send me another ZFX200, immediately! ” “Right away, sir. I’ll send it to the hotel.”