The Fifth Element

10

“LET ME OFF OVER THERE, PLEASE! THAT ENTRANCE ON THE LEFT, at the corner.”

Korben yanked at the wheel of the cab, turning so fast that his gyros moaned, and cut under two lanes of traffic, expertly avoiding a fender-bender, a side swipe and a rear-ender, while ignoring the curses of a fellow cabbie.

He bobbled to a hovering stop at an entrance ledge high above the 44th Street Corridor, where what had once been 44th Street lay beneath twenty feet of midden trash.

“Wow,” said the fare, a turquoise-suited businessman. “Where’d you learn to drive like that?” “The last war,” Korben said drily. “And the one before that.”

“Awesome.” The fare swiped his card through the slot, and the decal speakers in Korben’s cab all started up at once, a chorus of tiny robot voices:

“Please.make.sure.your.belongmgs.are…”

“While.in.New.York.visit.the…” “Direct.any.complaints.or…”

The fare opened the door.

“Hey,” said Korben. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

The fare checked the seat behind him. “What?” “The tip.”

“I don’t tip,” said the fare, stepping out onto the entrance ledge. “It’s against my principles.” “Great,” said Korben, roaring off. “How often do you get to meet a true man of principle!”

Leaving the 44th, Korben cruised north, looking for a new fare. Cabs were hailed by balloons released by doormen, or by flashing lights at the entrance locks of the big corporations.

He was cruising at a little over 400 floors, watching the ledges out of the corners of his eyes, when—

CRASH!

Something hit the roof of the cab.

The impact tripped all the sensors, and the cab automatically droned: “You.have.just.had.an.accident.”

“No shit!” Korben muttered, struggling to regain control of his careening cab. He glanced over his shoulder and saw to his amazement that someone had fallen into the cab, through the roof!

He stabilized his gyros and pulled over to the side, out of the traffic. He hovered in the shadow of a parapet as the cab’s voice droned on: “Four.points.have.been.temporarily removed… You.have.one.point.left.on.your.license.”

Great! He sighed and looked into the back seat to assess the damage. Korben figured he had been hit by a “faller,” one of midtown Manhattan’s hundred or so suicides every day.

But if this was a suicide, it was an unsuccessful one.

The whatever-or-whoever-it-was had smashed through the crummy Plexiflex roof of the cab, and was lying on the back seat in a heap of legs and arms. Awfully pretty legs and arms, as a matter of fact!

“Any survivors?” Korben asked—and caught his breath.

A girl sat up in the pile of debris on the back seat of his cab. She was, for lack of a better word, beautiful. More than beautiful, in fact.

Heavenly.

There was a little blood on her face from a cut lip, but other than that she seemed miraculously unharmed.

Korben leaned over and wiped the blood off her mouth with his sleeve.

Her eyes were so green…

Korben’s heart stopped and he felt like the cab was spinning.

Her hair was bright red…

She smiled.

He felt he ought to say something. But what does one say to a spectacularly pretty girl who just fell out of the sky?

“Hi,” he said. “Nice hair.”

“Akina delutan,” the girl replied, with a broad smile, as if Korben had just said the cleverest thing she had ever heard. “Nou shan. Djela— Boom!”

“Boom?” queried Korben.

“Bada boom! ” the girl said, clapping her hands.

Korben looked up through the demolished roof of his cab. He could see a blue police cruiser approaching, its lights flashing.

“Yeah,” he said. “Big Bada Boom,”

“YOU.HAVE.AN.UNAUTHORIZED.PASSENGER,” growled the police cruiser in a demented robotic screech as it hovered in front of Korben’s cab. “WE.ARE.GOING.TO.ARREST. HER.PLEASE.LEAVE.YOUR.HANDS.ON.THE.WHEEL.THANK.YOU.FOR.YOUR.COOPERATION.”

Korben had had enough experience with New York’s “finest” to know their reputation for trigger-happy un-professionalism.

He left his hands on the wheel in plain sight.

“Sorry, hon,” he said over his shoulder. “But I think this is your ride. We’d better do what they say.”

The police cruiser moved in clumsily, mag-locking onto the cab.

Huge guns pointed through every window of the police cruiser, and behind every gun barrel were two black, beady eyes.

Cops.

The cruiser’s doors slid open, and a hydraulic Felon-net emerged, complete with a set of automatic handcuffs, opened and beckoning.

Korben felt lousy.

He felt twice as lousy when he looked into the back seat and saw the tears in the girl’s eyes.

Big beautiful green eyes.

“Sorry,” he said.

Instead of answering, she pointed at one of the many stickers plastered on the doors and windows of Korben’s cab.

It was a dial 1-800-ORPHAN sticker. It showed a kid’s pleading eyes and below them, two words: PLEASE HELP.

Was she trying to communicate?

“Don’t!” Korben said. “Don’t put me in this position. I can’t!”

The girl nodded and pointed again to the sticker.

PLEASE HELP.

“I got only one point left on my license, and I need it to get to the garage,” Korben pleaded. “It’s my six-month overhaul. Understand?”

The girl seemed to understand the extraordinary power she had over Korben’s emotions. She smiled wistfully, wiped a tear from an eye, and pointed to the sticker again.

PLEASE HELP.

“Finger’s going to kill me,” Korben muttered. He shut off the meter on the cab.

“THANK.YOU.FOR.YOUR.COOPERATION,” the police said, as Korben hit the null switch under his dash, momentarily overriding the maglock.

“You’re welcome,” said Korben—

And he floored the gyros, spinning the cab free, and sending the police cruiser into an asymmetric tailspin, knocking it against the side of the building two stories below.

“WE’VE.BEEN.HIT!” squawked the cruiser, its automatics kicking in. “REQUEST.BACK.UP! IN. PURSUIT!”

“One.point.has.been.removed.from.your.license,” said the cab in Korben’s ear.

“I wondered when you were going to chime in,” muttered Korben.

He spun the wheel, rocketing around a corner and down six stories, away from the flashing lights of the cruiser.

A flurry of curses, honks and shouts followed him.

“You.have.no.points.left,” the cab continued. “You.are.unauthorized.to.operate.this.vehicle. Would.you.please…”

The voice died suddenly as Korben ripped the speaker from the ceiling and tossed it out the window, into the open back of a passing pickup.

“I hate it when people cry,” he said. In the rearview mirror, he saw the red-haired girl, watching the commotion with a slightly bemused smile.

She was so beautiful that he could barely tear his eyes away, back to the darting aerial traffic.

“I got no defense, you know!”