The Aliens Want Our Laundry

How it begins

The aliens offered Cora Lin eternal youth for one load of dirty washing. She asked whether they had separated the colors.

There were three of them, arranged beneath a raincoat in a way that made the sleeves look unnecessarily ambitious. Their translator sat on the folding table between the lost-property basket and a notice about unattended machines.

YOUR AGING MAY BE REVERSED, it said.

'Machine six takes coins,' Cora said.

At fifty-seven, she had heard offers of free energy, miraculous detergent and a cryptocurrency that would supposedly transform the laundry business. She had learned to begin with the practical requirements.

The raincoat opened. Inside floated a small silver device and a knitted mitten. The device turned a wilted orchid on her counter into a glossy young plant. The mitten remained a mitten.

Cora sat down.

Malik Sen, who had been drying laboratory coats in machine four, approached without taking his eyes off the orchid. He introduced himself as a textile chemist. The aliens brightened visibly.

'What do you need from the clothes?' he asked.

HUMAN RESIDUE.

'Skin cells?'

TOO COARSE A DESCRIPTION.

The translator displayed an image: threads surrounded by faint luminous patterns, moving like weather around a tiny planet. Cora recognized a yellow scarf in the picture. It belonged to a customer who came every Thursday and never collected it until closing time.

The scarf was in the lost-property basket now. She moved the basket behind her chair.

Outside, a black government car stopped beside the curb. Another followed. Malik looked at the silver device, then at Cora's hands.

'Before anybody buys anything,' she said, 'we need a very clear explanation of what comes out in the wash.'

The three aliens conferred beneath their raincoat. At last the translator produced a word none of them seemed entirely comfortable with.

ATTACHMENT.