The Fifth Element

9

“AFTER HER!” CRIED THE CHIEF OF SECURITY. IT WAS HIS JOB AT stake, after all.

He sent his men in teams of two through the hole in the wall, directing them up to search every comer of the floor.

It was only a matter of time, he knew. The girl—or whatever she was—was trapped. He had shut down the elevators and the Central Lab was on the 450th floor.

the end of the corridor, neither guard hesitated before opening fire.

Bratabratabratabrat!

Bratabratabratabrat!

Dodging the bullets, the girl looked up. A grille covered a ventilation duct in the ceiling. Bratabratabratabrat!

She jumped up, grabbed the grille and flung it at the guards.

They ducked, firing wildly.

Bratabratabratabrat!

When they opened their eyes, she was gone.

“Got her!”

“No you didn’t. I got her!”

“Neither of us did. She’s gone!”

The guards peered up into the ventilation duct. They saw a scurry of movement at the far end of the shaft.

“After you,” said one.

“No, after you,” said the other.

Just then the Chief of Security arrived on the scene. Looking up, he saw immediately what was happening.

“You two! Come with me,” he said, pulling himself up into the open shaft.

“After you.”

“No, after you.”

“Come on, dammit—move!”

As swiftly and surely as a cat, the red-haired girl (if indeed she was a girl) scurried through the vent shaft, looking for a way out.

Even though she moved at lightning speed, her face showed no sign of panic.

Her green eyes were clear. Her ruby lips were parted in a slight smile.

Behind her could be heard the clumsy scraping and kicking of the security guards, getting closer and closer.

The narrow shaft turned right, then left.

Turned up, then down.

With each turn the duct got smaller, until the girl was on all fours, and then crawling on her belly.

She was as fast on her belly as she had been on her feet!

Then she reached the end.

Punto. Finito. Period. A barred steel grille.

Through it she could see blue sky.

She smiled and kicked out the grille.

It spun off into empty space.

She slipped through the hole, and stepped out onto a narrow ledge.

The ledge was eleven inches wide. It went around the 454th floor of the Central Technologies Building, which took up an entire block on 55th Street in Manhattan.

The girl looked down.

Below, she could see hovering swarms of air cars and taxis, scooting between the towers.

And far below them, the detritus and litter that was the “midden” of modern post-industrial society, the uncollected trash of five hundred years that was easier to build on than to move or collect.

There was a rattle and scraping in the duct; footsteps and out-of-breath voices.

The girl moved a few steps farther out on the ledge.

She walked easily, as if she had no fear of heights. Her green eyes flashed as she took in the spectacular view of mid-millennial Manhattan.

The subways now ran vertically as well as horizontally, trains of cars supplementing and connecting the antiquated elevators.

The office buildings were interspersed with the skeletons of the “racktowers,” where space was rented for the modular apartments that could be unplugged and moved at the owner’s wish. The higher you lived, the more you paid.

The street was just a smudge, far, far below. No one lived there except the homeless and the outlaws who crept through the garbage, feeding on the trash and debris that fell from above.

The trickle-down theory at work.

If the scene was new to the girl, she didn’t show it. She hardly seemed to notice. She reached into one of the pockets on her skimpy outfit and pulled out the broken handle. She looked at it and shook her head, then put it back.

Bratabratabratabrat!

Shots ricocheted off the wall and the ledge, and the girl crept around the comer of the building, out of the line of fire.

A head stuck out of the shaft.

It was the Chief of Security. He looked out, then down—then turned pale and pulled his head back in.

He turned to the two men right behind him.

“Follow her!”

A security guard stuck his head out. A hand and foot followed. He took one step out onto the narrow ledge, then turned and clambered back into the ventilation shaft.

“No way,” he said flatly.

The second guard took one look and pulled back.

“No way.”

The Chief of Security had been preparing a series of threats in his mind. He reconsidered and filed them away.

He popped open his cell phone. “We need a flying unit here!” he said.

WOO WEEE WOOOWEEE!

Siren wailing, lights flashing, a police cruiser zoomed up between the buildings. Swarms of cabs moved out of the way.

The chief leaned out far enough to point, and the police cruiser shut off its siren. Hovering silently, it crept slowly toward the corner of the building.

“This.is.the.police,” said a robotic amplified voice.

“We.are.processing.your.identification.”

Actually it wasn’t a robot, but one of the two officers in the car, who had learned to imitate a robot through a post-academy mail order course.

He could see the perp standing on the narrow ledge. A pretty girl, in a very bright and very scanty outfit.

“She has no file!” said his partner, tapping the glass on the cruiser’s computer terminal.

“Please.put.up.your.arms.and.follow.our. instructions,” said the driver in his best robotic voice.

The girl seemed only too happy to comply.

She smiled and raised her arms. She stood on her tiptoes, looked down 450 stories, and—

“Christ!” said both cops at once. “She dove off!”