They hauled the body into the back of a hovering van, where Aknot, still alive but seriously injured from the warehouse blast, was waiting impatiently.
“Korben Dallas,” the Mangalore hit team leader said, indicating the squirming bag. “We got him!”
“Perfect,” groaned Aknot. “Take command, Akanit. Go to Fhloston and get the stones. If Zorg really wants them, he’ll have to negotiate.”
He closed his narrow eyes.
“Revenge is at hand!”
Korben struggled to his feet.
He looked around the apartment, which had only just recently been graced with the beautiful image and presence of Leeloo.
And that grim priest.
Both gone.
“Jesus!” said Korben. He put a hand to the back of his head. It was sticky with blood.
The plot thickened.
BRRRRIIIINNNNG!
Korben picked up the phone with one hand, while he kept the other on the back of his head.
“Yeah?”
“Have you pulled yourself together yet!?!”
“Not yet, Ma.”
He hung up.
Korben’s head was killing him. He needed ice.
He pressed the wall button and the conveyer groaned, replacing the shower with the walk-in freezer.
He opened the door and faced the frozen stares of General Munro and Major Iceborg.
Whoops! Forgot.
“I’ll accept the mission,” Korben said, grabbing a few cubes and closing the door.
18
Manhattan Intergalactic Airport was almost full.
Of trash, not travelers.
A strike was in progress, and the sanitation workers had let the garbage pile up almost to the ceiling of the lobby.
Narrow paths bulldozed through the debris led to the check-in counters and terminal gates.
Striking workers marched and chanted. Some were human, some were ‘bots or ‘droids; others were alien or altered. They all carried picket signs.
The police, meanwhile, were massing to move in. The air was thick with tension, like the electricity before a summer storm.
The novice, David, was watching when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Yaahhh!” he cried, jumping back.
He turned and saw Father Cornelius and the lovely Leeloo, still dripping wet—but fully dressed.
“Did you get them?” asked Cornelius, never a man to beat around the bush.
David nodded. He handed the priest two passports.
“Excellent,” said Cornelius, opening them and studying the forgery work.
He handed one to Leeloo. “Leeloo Dallas.”
She smiled delightedly and took it.
“And Korben David Dallas. Perfect!” Father Cornelius handed the second passport back to David.
Leeloo’s smile faded. “Akta dedero ansila deno poerfect?”
Father Cornelius shook his head. “Leeloo, I can’t pretend to be your husband. I’m old. David’s in great shape. He’s young, he’s strong. He’ll protect you.”
David seemed to swell up with each syllable of praise. He held out a hand toward Leeloo, who took it somewhat reluctantly.
Bam!
Bam!
Father Cornelius looked around nervously toward the strikers as the cops moved in and shots were fired. He pointed toward the line at the check-in counter.
“Go on! See the Diva, get the Sacred Stones. I will wait for you at the Temple. God be with you!”
Bam!
Whang!
Korben ducked as a wild shot shattered the glass behind his head. He dodged and weaved as he ran across the trash-filled airport lobby.
He scanned the crowd, looking for Leeloo.
All he could see were strikers, diving head first into the garbage piles to avoid the charging police.
The gate sign was flashing: “Fhloston Non-Stop, First Boarding Call.”
Casually brushing off two policemen who had mistaken him for a striker, Korben picked his way through the garbage toward the check-in counter.
“Congratulations,” said the check-in attendant.
David looked confused.
“On winning the Gemini Croquette contest— the trip to Fhloston Paradise!” the attendant said, as she stapled the boarding pass to David’s ticket and handed him back his passport.
“Oh, yeah,” he said.
“I made it!” Korben said. He jammed his knuckles into David’s back like a gun, and snatched the passport out of his hand.
“I really thought I was going to miss my flight,” he added to the confused attendant.
Leeloo’s face broke into a wide smile.
“Thanks, kid,” Korben said, hustling David to one side. “You put the luggage on the conveyer belt?”
He poked him convincingly with the “gun.”
“Uh, yeah,” David said haltingly.
“Great!” said Korben, giving David a playful but effective shove into the garbage pile. “Now beat it!”
Korben turned his most charming smile on the confused check-in attendant. “I was so afraid I would miss my flight that I sent the kid here to pick up my boarding pass.”
Leeloo smiled, and held out her hand for her own ticket.
The attendant held back Leeloo’s boarding pass and passport. She looked at them suspiciously.
“Your wife?” she asked Korben.
Korben grabbed the passport and read it. “Uh, yes,” he said. “Newlyweds. Love at first sight. You meet, something goes ‘tilt,’ you get married, you hardly know each other. Right, darling?”
Leeloo reached across the counter and grabbed her boarding pass from the attendant.
“Dinoine chagatakat!”
“Took the words right out of my mouth, sweetie. Go on, I’ll be right with you.”
Korben turned back to the attendant.
“It’s our honeymoon,” he said with a broad wink. “She’s nervous.”
A familiar nasty face was entering the front door of-the airport, clambering over and through the festering garbage.
It was the face of Korben’s nasty neighbor, accompanied by a young woman with a curiously blank expression.
As the two picked their way through the garbage, they were almost knocked over by a huge pink beast—
A police pig, on a steel chain leash.
“Come on Snyffer, go root!” said a pork-patrol handler, running along behind the pig.
The nasty neighbor stepped aside, then pushed on toward the check-in counter.
The blank-faced girl followed.
A few feet away, Father Cornelius watched from a stool at the Take-off Bar, nursing his second martini.
“I feel so guilty,” he said to the robot bartender. “Sending Leeloo to do the dirty work—like these poor police pigs. I know she was made to be strong, but she seems so fragile. So human. Know what I mean?”
The bartender had a monitor for a face. It glowed with compassion and nodded gravely.
Robots are good listeners.
The nasty neighbor handed his ticket to the check-in attendant.
She looked at him, surprised.
“Dallas? Korben Dallas?”
“Yes,” said the nasty neighbor. “That’s me.”
The attendant smiled politely. Meanwhile, her foot tripped a switch that turned on an overhead ultralight passenger scanner.
The ultralight revealed that the nasty neighbor and his blank-faced girlfriend were both Mangalores.
The attendant never blew her cool, however.
“Just a moment, please,” she said in her sweetest the-customer-is-always-right voice.
With her other foot she tripped a silent alarm.
Sensing trouble, the Mangalores both backed away.
“We’ll be right back!” said the nasty neighbor suspiciously. He grabbed his ‘girlfriend’ by the hand and dragged her away, into the crowd.
“The same?” asked the robot bartender.
Father Cornelius’s eyes were glazed over. “Yeah.”