"Washing machines live longer with Calgon"
-Calgon
Gregg Launderson did not wake up the Thursday expecting to save the world. He did not expect to face down the fetid breath of reanimated Martian corpses. And he certainly did not expect to lose his best pair of pants to an alien skirmish over a semi-sentient load of laundry. He had, in fact, only planned to do one thing: wash his clothes.
The flat above the newsagent's always smelled faintly of boiled cabbage and crushed hope, but Gregg had grown used to it. His job at Quick-Fix Insurance Brokers required exactly three things: punctuality, a clean shirt, and an ability to lie convincingly about damage exclusions. Two out of three was not good enough—not when his manager, Carol, had taken to inspecting collars like some deranged Victorian governess.
Gregg stared down at the washing machine. It was ancient. A hulking white box with chipped enamel and a door that needed a well-placed kick to open. But it worked. Usually.
He twisted the dial. Nothing.
He gave it the ceremonial thump. Still nothing.
With a sigh, he crouched, reached for the socket, and then—
Everything went green.
Not "grass in spring" green. Not "luminous marker pen" green. This was a phosphorescent, radioactive, blinding sort of green that no human eyes were ever meant to witness at 7:48 in the morning.
The air split with a horrible grinding noise—a sort of metallic wheeze, like God himself clearing his throat through a voice modulator. Gregg stumbled backwards as the floorboards beneath the machine shuddered. The appliance emitted a deep, echoing bwoooorp, then began to levitate.
Yes. Levitate.
Hovering three inches off the linoleum, it rotated slowly in the air like a confused Dalek looking for its bearings. Gregg rubbed his eyes.
"Right. Either I've finally lost it or I've fallen into a gas leak."
At that moment, the wall to his left exploded. Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. The bricks simply ceased to be, sucked outward into the alley by a beam of sizzling yellow light that hummed like an electric toothbrush of the damned.
And then they arrived.
Three of them. Green, gaunt, and grinning like tax auditors who'd just discovered your undeclared offshore account. Their skin looked as if it had been marinated in swamp water and then left to dry on a radiator. Glowing red eyes. Skeletal fingers. Matching utility belts that suggested, rather ominously, a unionised workforce.
"HOOMAN," one of them said. Its voice was like someone trying to speak through a clogged sink.
Gregg blinked. "Sorry—what?"
"WE CLAIM THIS DEVICE IN THE NAME OF THE ZORGON-13 WASHING ALLIANCE[1]"
They grabbed the washing machine—his washing machine—and hoisted it toward the hovering craft outside.
"Hey!" Gregg shouted, momentarily abandoning logic. "That's my bloody spin cycle!"
The aliens didn't stop. The machine floated upward, now trailing a thick green mist that smelled aggressively of artificial lemons. One of Gregg's socks spiralled down like a wounded bird.
And then, as abruptly as they'd arrived, they were gone.
Silence.
A pigeon flew past, cooing indifferently.
Gregg looked around at the smouldering hole where his wall had been, then down at the trail of fluorescent slime and severed cable where his appliance had once stood.
"Well," he muttered. "That's going to be a bugger to explain to the landlord."
[1] The Washing Alliance was formed in 3972 AD following the Treaty of Stain Removal, an uneasy accord between eleven major laundry-capable species. Initially intended to regulate spin speeds, DE'TRRRG'ENT taxation, and acceptable levels of post-wash shrinkage, the Alliance quickly descended into bureaucracy, corruption, and eventually open conflict. Its motto, “Purity Through Power”, has been widely criticised for being both ominous and grammatically dubious.