The Fifth Element

11

A FEW BLOCKS AWAY, UNIT 47 OF THE 2345 PRECINCT WAS IN line for the McDonald’s take-out window when the radio crackled into life.

“All units in Sector 12 full alert converge on vector 21.”

“Vector, sector,” said the young cop riding shotgun. “I never can get it straight.”

His older partner at the wheel spoke into the

mike. “Unit 47, we’re on our way…”

He hung up the mike, and finished, “…as soon as we eat some lunch. Get the burgers, kid.” The younger cop spoke into another mike, this one hovering patiently in the air outside the cruiser, waiting for an order. “One Big Mac with regular fries, with Diet Coke. One Quarter Pounder with large fries and a caffeine-free Diet Cherry Coke. Copy?”

“That’s One Big Mac with regular fries, with Diet Coke. One Quarter Pounder with large fries and a caffeine-free Diet Cherry Coke.”

“Roger. Over and out.”

The line of hovering aerial vehicles inched forward. The young cop turned to his partner. “Shouldn’t we be responding to that call?”

The older cop shook his head. “I’m too tired, too old and too hungry to go chasing some hotrod call.”

The cruiser pulled up to the take-out window.

“And I’m definitely too thirsty,” said the older cop, reaching across for his tray of cokes.

A tray of burgers followed. He was reaching for it, when—

WHAM!

—it disappeared as a speeding yellow cab slipped between the window and the cruiser, taking off the side of both.

The cops looked at one another, and then at the battered yellow cab disappearing between the skyscrapers.

“Why don’t you sit up here?” said Korben, patting the seat beside him. “Long as we’re illegal anyway.”

The girl climbed into the front seat. Her colorful outfit was intriguingly revealing.

She combed her red hair with her fingers.

WOO WEEE WOOO WEEE!

Behind the speeding cab, the sirens were getting louder. Korben slashed across and over six lanes of traffic, then doubled back two blocks, spun up six stories, then slowed to an idling pace.

“If they don’t chase you after a mile,” he said, “they don’t chase you. Believe me.”

He turned a corner, and suddenly six sky blue police cruisers burst out of an alleyway in hot pursuit.

“Maybe it’s two miles,” he muttered, flooring the turbines and twisting the gyros to full evasion mode.

“Klaatu barata nikto,” said the girl.

“Lady, I’m sorry,” said Korben. “I only speak two languages: English, and bad English.”

The six police cruisers separated into two groups of three, one to the left and one to the right.

Korben threw the cab into a spin, straight down through the canyons toward a roof garden far below.

The cruisers followed.

Korben pulled up at the last moment.

Four of the cruisers pulled up—

WHUMP! WHUMP! Two of the cruisers spun out and buried themselves in the soft synthetic rooftop dirt.

Korben headed straight downtown, with four police cruisers hot on his tail.

“Maica lota muni,” said the girl.

“Listen, lady,” he said. “I’m all for conversation, hut can you shut up a minute? This is a little tricky…”

The four cruisers were closing in, their high-powered police turbos whining.

The cab’s screen was beeping.

Korben turned it on.

ATTACK MODE! ATTACK MODE! ATTACK MODE!

Korben turned to his passenger. “I don’t know what you did to piss them off…”

ENGAGED! ENGAGED! ENGAGED!

“But they are really pissed off. Hold on.”

Korben doubled the gyros while cutting in the braking blasters: an old air combat trick.

The cab groaned in protest but made the turn.

“I think we’re safe for a while,” Korben said. Then he looked in the rearview mirror.

Two police cruisers were still closing in.

“I tried to play it soft, boys,” Korben whispered. “Too bad you don’t appreciate it.”

He cut his hoverjets and pushed the stick forward,

“We’ll be safe in the smog. If we reach it.”

Korben’s cruiser turned turtle and dove— straight down, through the startled scurrying cabs and flivvers and maglev limos.

He powered up at the last minute, just above the garbage that covered the street.

A right, a left, through the noxious methane mist.

Then a dead end .

“Daya deo bono dato!” said the girl. She seemed pleased with the excitement. “Dalutan!”

“If there’s one thing I don’t need,” said Korben, “It’s advice on how to drive.”

Turning a sudden loop, Korben whipped the cab sideways. Then he pressed the stick to one side with his knee and turned off his maglev arrester— another old fighter pilot trick—so that the cab turned sideways.

Steering with uncanny precision, Korben threaded the cab through an alley so tight that the ancient bricks scraped the light off the top.

The first police cruiser was a foot wider. It sped in and then scraped to a screeching halt.

The second cruiser braked just in time.

“Shit! Attention all patrol cars!”

Then backed up and made a U-tum.

The deepening haze and smog that clung to the ground level of the city mercifully obscured the generations of litter and debris—the urban midden that covered the streets to a depth of between twenty and forty feet.

No one lived down here.

That was what the young cop thought.

Then he saw the figures, almost human, clothed in rags and skins, climbing up and around, slipping and sliding over and between the enormous piles of rotting garbage.

He shuddered.

“Look at this!” he said to his partner. “The garbage collectors go out, or what?”

“Yeah,” said the older cop, sarcastically. “They been out a week already.”

It was of course a joke. The garbage collectors had been out for a generation, ever since the city had discovered it was cheaper to let the trash build up than haul it to a landfill.

Since the city soared upward faster than the trash, it created no problem for those living in the upper levers.

And the trash was handy as a dwelling and scavenging place for the drop-outs—literally— those who couldn’t afford to soar upward with the city.

It was retropostneodarwinism in action, and though it made perfect economic sense, the young cop found it, well—

Disgusting.

The piles seemed to sigh, emitting clouds of steaming stink. But where was the fugitive cabbie?

He was supposed to be trapped in this dead-end alcove. But there was nothing here but a vertical billboard, advertising a long-forgotten company called “IBM.”

The young cop scanned the billboard, which was fifty feet high but only ten wide, not nearly wide enough to hide a cab.

“Where’d he go?” he asked his partner.

The older cop motioned down, toward the midden.

“Down, I guess,” he said. “Must have lost his gyros. Not our job to sift through that crap for bodies. Let’s go get another burger.”

Korben was looking up, even as the cops were looking down.

His cab was behind the sign, hovering on its tail—another old fighter pilot trick. It was expensive in electrics, but effective.

Uncomfortable, too. The girl and Korben were jammed together in the front seat.

Well, not exactly uncomfortable. The girl had a nice warm smell that overcame the garbage.

“We’ll wait here till things calm down a bit,” Korben whispered. “You mind?”

The girl grabbed his shirt collar and whispered in his ear. “Priest…”

Korben studied her. She seemed weak. Her green eyes were almost closed.

“Priest…” she said again.

“You’re not that bad!” Korben said. “Come on, we’ll get you to a doctor.”

“Vee-toe,” said the girl. “Cor-knee-lee-us.”

It sounded almost like a name. “Vito Cornelius?”

The girl nodded.

Then fainted.