The Fifth Element

24

“Hands on your head!”

Korben looked around and saw that the Mangalores now controlled the aisles, the stage the entrances and the exits to the Concert Hall. They were in total control.

“Everyone!” said a Mangalore.

“My man!!” Loc Rhod hissed. He was hidden a few feet away from Korben, under a row of seats. “I think we should, like, listen to them!! ”

“Give me a minute,” said Korben. He was studying the still form of the Diva, repeating her last words: “The stones are with me. With me?”

“Hey! You!”

Korben’s reverie was broken by the rude knobby hand of a Mangalore, who grabbed him by the collar and pulled—

—only to be yanked off his feet by a lightning judo move and flipped over Korben’s shoulder to land flat on his lizard-skin ass with a—

WHUMP!

When the Mangalore opened his eyes he saw Korben crouched over him, Korben’s gun was in the alien warrior’s mouth.

“I said give me a minute!”

Korben motioned to Loc Rhod, who crept out of hiding.

“Hold this,” said Korben. He put the handle of his gun in Loc Rhod’s hand, leaving the barrel stuck in the open mouth of the petrified Mangalore.

“Oh, man, Korben…” complained Loc Rhod. But Korben wasn’t listening.

He was kneeling over the body of the Diva Plavalaguna, repeating her dying words to himself as if they were a mantra:

“The stones are with me—the stones are with me.”

Korben pressed down on the Diva’s stomach. It was soft.

Then hard.

“The stones are in me?”

Hesitating for only an instant, he plunged his hand into the gaping wound in the Diva’s side. And pulled out a Sacred Stone.

“Yes!”

Startled by Korben’s shout, Loc Rhod flinched. BLAM!

The top flew off of the Mangalore’s head brains spattered the apron of the stage.

“Oh, man!!” said Loc Rhod. “I’m sorry!”

Korben pulled out another stone, then another, then another.

All four were covered with bright blue blood.

He tore off his shirt and wrapped the stones in it, then handed the bundle to Loc Rhod.

“Lose these stones and I promise, you’ll look like him.”

Korben pointed to the dead Mangalore. “Got it?”

“Green!” said Loc Rhod. “Super green!”

“Good. Follow me!”

“Green. Super Green!”

Loc Rhod’s words came loud and clear through the twin speakers on the desk of the President of the United Federation.

The President wiped his face with a towel. “How many people do you think are listening to this?” he asked one of his scientists.

“Around fifty-two billion, sir.”

The President turned to General Munro. “Is that your idea of a discreet operation?”

“Don’t worry, sir,” Munro said nervously (though he looked worried himself). “I know my man Dallas. He’ll calm things down.”

“He damn well better!”

CRASH!

The glass doors of the Concert Hall burst into a thousand pieces as two Mangalore warriors were thrown through them, into the hall.

Behind them came Korben, a ZF1 in each hand “Everybody down!” he yelled, as he swept the lobby with laser fire, mowing down the retreating Mangalores.

BratbratbratBratbratbrat!

BratbratbratBratbratbrat!

Answering fire echoed from the right, and Korben hit the deck, rolling behind a massive fluted column.

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.