The Fifth Element

19

KORBEN HATED SPACE TRAVEL.

The military ships were bad enough, with all the cannon fodder lined up in hard aluminum seats, each man lost in his own nervous thoughts as he was warped across the galaxy toward the latest suicide mission.

Commercial coach class was even worse. Standing room only, and a tiny bag of dry roasted peanuts unless the trip was over a hundred light years, in which case you got half a cold sandwich and a peanut-butter cookie.

But this trip was different. No cattle car, no peanuts. First class only.

“Leeloo,” Korben whispered as he made his way toward the back of the spaceship.

The corridor was lined with small private cabinettes.

“Leeloo…”

As if in answer to his deepest wish and fondest

dream, a cabinette door slid open silently, and there she was—stretched out on a velvet cushion, studying a computer screen.

First class!

She flashed Korben a galactic-quality smile as he sat down beside her.

“Apipoulai!” said Leeloo.

The cabinette door slid shut, and she turned back to the characters scrolling past on the screen. The search engines were humming.

“Yeah, I know,” said Korben nervously. “Leeloo, listen to me. Those tickets you borrowed—they’re not mine. I mean, they are, but not for a vacation like everyone thinks.”

Leeloo shrugged. Did she understand? Korben wondered. Sometimes she seemed to understand everything—and at other times nothing. All he knew for sure was that he was on a very dangerous mission, and he wanted to keep her out of the line of fire.

“I’m working for some very serious people,” he said. “And if I didn’t come here with you, you’d be in a shitload of trouble. I’d love to be on vacation with you—”

It felt so good to tell the truth!

“But not now! Now I’ve got to work. And Leeloo—I would love to work in peace. Understand?” Seemingly in answer, Leeloo typed a four-letter word into the keyboard:

L-O-V-E.

“Yes!” said Korben. “But ‘love’ isn’t the operative word here. ‘Peace’ is.”

Leeloo typed in P-E-A-C-E.

“Peace,” she parroted, repeating after Korben. “And love…”

The computer’s search engines whined and brought up a picture of a 1960’s style hippie in love beads, flashing a peace sign.

Korben sighed. He had read about the hippies. Anti-war. He was anti-war, too, but from the inside out, not the outside in.

“Bad example,” he said, switching off the computer. “You know, you can’t learn everything from a screen. Sometimes it’s better to ask someone who has experience.”

“Okay!” said Leeloo, nodding happily. “What is… make love?”

“Uh…”

Korben stared at Leeloo. Such a combination of innocence and experience. He had never hesitated in front of a woman before, but this woman was… different.

This woman was truly what he wanted, and therefore he was truly afraid for the first time.

“Know what?” Korben said, blushing beet red. “Maybe on that subject maybe you’d be better off asking the screen.”

And he switched the computer back on.

Meanwhile, in the corridor, a disembodied robotic voice announced in soothing tones: “To.make. your.flight.as.short.and.agreeable.as.possible.our.

flight.attendants.are.switching.on.the.snooze. regulators.which.will.encourage.sleep.during.the. trip…”

A stewardess made her way along the corridor, pushing a red button on top of each first class flight cabinette.

And in the cockpit, the captain and the copilot were completing their preparations for departure. “826 passengers aboard and accounted for…” “Roger, checking list for preflight…”

“Okay! Finished!” Leeloo said.

She was speaking English? Korben looked at her in amazement.

“Finished what?”

“Learning languages.” She switched off the computer.

“You mean… English?”

She nodded. “All nine hundred!”

Korben was amazed. “You learned all nine hundred Earth languages in just five minutes?”

“Yes! Now it’s your turn. I learned your languages; you have to learn mine.”

“I know how to say ‘hello,’” Korben said. “Apipoulai.”

Leeloo nodded happily.

“Teach me how to say ‘good-bye,’” Korben said. “That’s all I need to know.”

“Apipoussan!”

“Apipoussan?” Korben repeated tentatively.

Leeloo nodded. “Good! Do you know how we say ‘make love?’”

“Uh…” Korben fumbled.

“Hoppi-hoppa,” said Leeloo.

Korben’s heart and his resolve were melting rapidly as he looked into the eyes of the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld.

“Help,” he mumbled in a small voice to himself.

At that moment, the stewardess pressed the snooze regulator button on the top of Korben’s cabinette, and checked another name off her list.

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Dallas,” she said.

Korben, who was about to take Leeloo in his arms, fell into hers instead.

Instantly asleep.

At the other end of the corridor, another stewardess was having a problem.

The problem was the celebrity.

The stewardess was used to galactic celebrities. This was the first-class shuttle, after all.

But this was the most famous galactic supercelebrity she had ever met.

And the most insistent.

“Mr. Loc Rhod,” she said, “you’ll have to assume your individual position.”

He pulled her into his cabinette and down onto his lap. “I don’t want an individual position,” he said. “I want all positions.”

The stewardess pulled back.

But not too hard.

“We’re going to take off soon, Mr. Rhod!”

Loc Rhod buried his nose in her hair. “I’m gonna take off right now!”

In the cockpit, the captain was flipping switches on a long row of identical switches.

clikclikclikclikclikclikclikclikclikclik

They fell before his finger like bowling pins at a tournament.

“…axis authorization confirmed…” droned the copilot.

The head stewardess entered the cockpit.

“Zone 1. Snooze regulators operative,” she said.

The captain checked out her cute little see-thru suit.

“Roger that,” he said.

She left with a smile.

Suddenly a green light flashed on the control panel.

“Alert the ground,” said the copilot.

“There’s a problem?” asked the captain impatiently. He was busy watching the stewardess’s elegant departure.

“We’ve got parasites in the landing gear.”

Moments later, on the ground, a truck pulled up under the massive underbelly of the galactic shuttle.

Two men in hi-tech, lo-risk hermetically sealed disinfectant suits got out.

They uncoiled a hose and sent a bright beam of deansing fire up into the shuttle’s wheel well.

Screams were heard. High piched screams, low pitched groans, curses, cries, exclamations and imprecations. A rain of hideous creatures dropped from the well, falling onto the stained tarmac.

While the disinfectant crew was vacuuming the still twitching parasites into the morguetank on the truck, another truck pulled up.

Two men climbed out and opened a trapdoor under the shuttle.

A phosphorescent tube as big as a log fell out.

“Yeah, it’s me,” said Right Arm. “Put Zorgon.” Right Arm was standing in the airport lobby, using one of the mobile phone booths that wandered around looking for customers.

“I’m listening,” said Zorg coldly.

“The real Korben Dallas is on the plane!” said Right Arm. “He took my place!”

Zorg’s voice was as cold as midwinter midnight. “This is a joke, right?”

Loc Rhod’s arms and legs were wrapped around the stewardess as his hands explored her erogenous zones.

“No!” he whispered in her ear. “I swear to God. I’ve never been this sincere…”

The stewardess wavered. He was, after all, more than famous. He was superfamous.

“Power pressure,” said the copilot.

The captain knocked down another row of

switches.

clikclikclikclikclikclikclikclikclikclik

“Primed.”

The stewardess had six buttons on her blouse. Loc Rhod made up a poem for each one.: Her brassiere had two hooks.

Each was a sonnet.

“Protection?” asked the captain.

A shield dropped into place around the shuttle’s

engines.

“Confirmed,” said the copilot.

The stewardess’s legs rose slowly into the air. They spread wider and wider and…

Zorg punched in the phone number his right arm, Right Arm, had given him.

“278…”

Just as the captain pulled back on the throttle. “Ten seconds!”

“Power increase…”

Just as Right Arm fended off an angry phone customer. “Come on, come on…” he muttered,

Just as the stewardess dropped her shoes, one by one, and crooned, “I’m on my way…”

Just as Zorg punched in more numbers: “645…”

Just as the engines peaked: RRRRRROOOOOAAAARRRRRRRRRR!

And Loc Rhod began his climactic Byronic stanza.

And the shuttle lifted off.

And the stewardess likewise: “Yeeeessss!”

And Zorg, smiling demonically, punched in the final numbers:

“321…”

BARRROOOOOM!

The mobile pay phone exploded.

Right Arm was no more.

Along with everyone and everything else that had been within sixty feet of the pay phone.

Zorg hung up and lit a cigar.

The stewardess’s scream softened to a satisfied whisper.

In the cockpit, the copilot said, “Landing gear secure.”

The captain locked in the autopilot and disabled the cockpit smoke detector.

‘Let’s light one up.”

Her face showed a mixture of relief, anticipation… and terror.