Suzie sat in the Laundromat and twiddled her thumbs.  She had finished her book and forgotten her embroidery and there was still twenty minutes to go on her dryers.  Around the corner the scary little man who worked there gave her the evil eye (she was, after all, keeping him from closing an hour and a half early!) and went back to fussily dusting the tops of washing machines.  Sorely in need of a distraction, she looked around at the banks of washers, the coin changers, the soda machine.  Suddenly her ears caught a faint tapping coming from the dryers and, with it, the sound of a lightly-accented voice.

"Miss?  Hello?  Excuse me?  Miss?"

Going over to the last dryer in line, she opened it and found herself facing a handsome blond man.  His good black suit was wrinkled and his tie was askew, but she supposed that was understandable since he was doubled up and wedged uncomfortably into the cramped space.  He was holding a silver ink pen up, but he lowered it to look at her out of incredibly blue eyes.

"Pardon me," he said, "but I seem to be in a bit of difficulty.  Kuryakin," he introduced himself.  "Illya Kuryakin.  I'm with the U.N.C.L.E."

"What are you doing in a clothes dryer?" Suzie asked, not unreasonably.

"Ah, yes, well, you see I climbed in here to hide from some gentlemen who wanted to, ah, take me to the cleaners, you might say.  I need to warn my friends about them, but the metal walls of the dryer are blocking my reception and, um, it seems I can't get out."

"You're stuck."

"That would seem to be the case, yes."  For a man stuffed into a dryer he was remarkably pleasant.

"Don't worry!" Suzie said, pulling out her cell phone.  "I know just what to do!"

She dialed KMG-365 and seconds later the lot was filled with emergency vehicles with flashing lights and sirens.  Another blond man, this one tall and broad-shouldered, ran in, followed by a lanky young Native American.  They were carrying drug boxes and rescue gear.  Three firefighters dressed in turnout gear followed them.

The little Laundromat man hurried over, horrified.  "I just mopped over there!  You're going to leave tracks!"  He looked out the window and read the writing on the side of the trucks.  "L.A. County Fire Rescue?  L.A.?  L.A.?!?  This is Missouri for Gods' sake!  What are you doing here?"

The Native American -- his nametag read J. Gage -- indicated Suzie with a crooked grin.  "She called us."

His partner, R. DeSoto, nodded.  "Yeah, we got a report of a spy stuck in a dryer?"

"He's over here," Suzie told them.

"He can get out the same way he got in!" the laundry man protested.  Everyone ignored him.

"Whadda we got, Roy?" a tall fireman asked.

"Well, he doesn't seem to be hurt, but he's stuck in here pretty good, Cap!"

"Okay, I'll get Mike in here with the K12."

"K12?" laundry man asked.  "What K12?  What's a K12?"

"It's a saw," Gage told him.  "A really BIG saw!"

"NO!" laundry man shouted in horror.  "No saw!  No K12!  Bad idea!  No!  Stop!  Go away now!"

The air filled with sparkling pink and gold motes.  The first thing to materialize in the middle of the now crowded Laundromat was a light, feminine voice.  ". . . . and I distinctly heard someone say 'for Gods' sake'.  That's plural, you know!  So I figured he must mean me and 'Phaestie, 'cause everyone knows that a Laundromat is a great place to go looking for love, and besides, one of the machines might be broken and that'd be right up 'Phaestie's alley.  Only he's busy on Mt. Olympus right now so I figured I'd bring you and Curly along in case I needed help with something."

By the time the explanation was finished three figures had materialized.  A giant of a man with light brown hair and blue eyes and a much smaller blond man with even deeper blue eyes flanked a scantily clad blonde bombshell.

"Aphrodite," the big man said reasonably, "I think you misunderstood.  I think he just misplaced his apostrophe."

John Gage glanced over at them, then shot Suzie a look.  "Man!  Somebody must have a thing for guys with blue eyes!"

Another fireman edged through the crowd carrying the K12. 

The smaller of the two men who were with the goddess looked around.  "Hey, Hercules, there's something wrong with this picture!  There's, like, fourteen men here and only two women!"

Laundry man danced around in an agony of ignored rage.  "Stop!  You can't do this!  You're messing up my Laundromat and I just got it cleaned already!"

With a mighty whine the K12 sliced through the hinges on the dryer and the door fell away, rolled across the room and knocked the smaller blond man off his feet.  On his way down he smacked his head on the edge of a washing machine.  His friend caught him and lowered him, dazed, the rest of the way to the floor.  "Iolaus!  Speak to me!"

"Blood!" laundry man moaned.  "I HATE when there's blood!"

John Gage hurried over.  "Sorry about that!"  He knelt next to Iolaus and gave him a sympathetic grin.  "You knew it hadda be one of us!"

"Ain't that the truth?" Iolaus agreed groggily.

"He's still not coming loose," Roy called.  "We're gonna need the porta-power!"

Leaving his partner in John Gage's capable hands, Hercules stepped over.  "Here, let me."  With one mighty shove he pushed the edges of the dryer door opening back and Illya was able to clamber out.

"Thank you very much," he said.  "I really hate to be rescued and run, but I'm afraid I'm late for saving the world."

"Hey, don't worry about it!" Hercules told him.  "We know just what you mean!"

"It must be nice to be able to say you've saved the world," Roy said, a little wistfully.

"You should know," Aphrodite told him.  "You guys do it every day.  Only you do it one person or one family at a time."

The two paramedics grinned and blushed.  Roy went to help Johnny examine Iolaus.

"Looks like he's gonna be fine," Johnny said.  "He just got his bell rang."

Hercules shook his head.  "His bell's been rung so many times, it's a wonder he's got a clapper left!"

"Ha ha!" Iolaus mumbled.

"Why don't you let us go ahead and run him into Rampart?  The docs can look him over and make sure he's okay."

"Sounds good to me," Hercules said.

"I don't wanna go to Rampart," Iolaus protested.

Johnny grinned down at him.  "Man, they got some hot nurses at Rampart!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, what are we waiting for?  Let's go to Rampart!"

They lifted Iolaus onto a stretcher and carried him out the door to the waiting ambulance.  The buzzer on Suzie's dryer went off and she tumbled her clothes out into her laundry basket and followed after them.

Left alone, laundry man looked around sadly at the mangled dryer, the bloodied washing machine, the muddied floor and the fingerprinted surfaces of what had previously been neatly polished appliances.  He gulped once, on the brink of tears, and said, "I HATE when fanfiction writers come in to do laundry!"

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