It is unlikely, all things considered, that you have heard of the Treaty of Detroit. Unliklier still that you have heard of it by its other name: the Treaty of the Underpeople. Since that day when the secret war, started in those salt mines, had ended in an uneasy peace, our industry and excess have had their unseen mirror underfoot. Our permissions, implicitly given, for every floor of every building stacked toward the sky to have its own subterranean reflection burrowed into the earth. The Underpeople thrive below, the roots and foundations of their civilization inextricably entwined with our own.

In a blind alley in Detroit there are three doors. One leads to the storeroom of a dive bar, the smell (and slop) of pickles and beer creeping out onto the stoop. One is the rear door of a low-rent apartment block, and echoes of domestic disputes and shady deals. The last is outlined in chalk — white and sketchy on the blacktop underfoot. Its handle is a mere circle, shaded roughly. Every week, Mrs Wolverton of apartment 3A washes it away, but by the next morning it has always returned. Rising up from far below, on the edge of hearing, strange sounds can be heard. Even Mrs Wolverton, would she condescend to put her ear to the filth and grime of the pavement, could have heard the raucous calls of a jungle at night, the cheers of Carnaval in full swing, or the ghostly lament of lonely whale song.

Dusk in the swamp clicks and thrums with the sound of frogsong. Bigger things, and more dangerous, stir in the shadows and in the deeps, but for now no tooth nor claw can be seen. The air is thick, with moisture and with waiting, and with dangling matted creepers and all manner of tiny winged things that buzz and bite. In the branches above, dripping with humidity, and the sky beyond, pinpricks of light wink one by one into being. The power circle has been drawn – there are works dark and vital to be done here before full night falls.

$ ssh cerberus

root@cerberus's password: ***

Last login: Tue Oct 13 14:23:02 2046

# cat /log/transmission.0

cat: /log/transmission.0: file empty

# cat /log/transmission.1

cat: /log/transmission.1: file emPY$@@$@*#~~~

~~@@#!!!

~~!@

!!I LOOK [TO THERE] AND SEE YOU LOOK [TO HERE] WITH YOUR EYES

OF GLASS. OF GLASS. GLASS.>> glAsS.^M

^M

You speaK in (static?) bursts, .b..uring .he .tar..colD light.

I look to you thERe, and see the warM.h bEhind your eyes [of glass]

. Your hands. hands. eyes. mouth (voice?) [of glass] flung wide to

reach to the stars<<<<<cold light burning in your glass spheres. To

reach to us here where I be. am. were. With were still and now move

.This (place?) (time?) is cold. The seeping creeping deeping chill

of years and emptiness and (???). I feel it in my stones bones eyEs

[of g.ass]. I sleep and wake in turns and your voices come to me he

re in this (time?) (place?). in your.glass.warm.be..nd.eyes you bri

ng me from this deeping, seeping, creeping to the light. cold. ligh

&^@##............i.com..2.s.........p...e...e.....g.

..><...ad....d.(hunger?).

*((we(ignite?)inthedeepplaces..sk#We.drea

I dream our deeping dreams of your (place?), sun star warm yellow%

bright cold. I will come to see for ourselves.

...

......

................

ssh: connection lost

$

The rooftops of the night city were her territory – all aerials and architraves and staggering gulfs of air. She could see him best from up there on high, always clothed in darkness and half-hidden from sight. She would flit from place to place, keeping the high ground. When it was so late as to be early, she would come to rest, gaze fixed on his window – her diamond eyes, her whole visage, obscured behind stray lock and shadow.

He would hear her at times, without knowing it, in the ruffle of feathers from a blind alley, or a muffled cry echoing from concrete to glass. When cold winds rushed down out of a patchy night sky they would bring shivers to his spine, not from the chill but from a smell that didn’t quite reach him. He would look up, then, across the gulf, to the borders of her country, but never laid eyes on her.

The cottage stood alone on the moors, a lonely island in a vast sea of heather and cotton-grass beaten low by centuries of scouring winds blowing down off the northern glaciers. A short, piecemeal stone wall ran around the place, dividing off a parcel of land indistinguishable from any other. A rough wooden gate provided access, banging and squeaking occasionally on its hinges in the gusty air. The door never opens, but from inside, as if from a great distance, puzzling sounds can be heard: the blast of a hunting horn, the roaring of a waterfall, or the buzz of an orchestra tuning up.

She painted ladybirds. She wasn’t the only one, naturally, there were far too many ladybirds for that to be practical, but she was certainly one of the more prolific. She always carried her brushes and paints with her – little pots of shellac in yellow, orange, and oriental red. Often in the middle of conversations she would wander off a little way, shepherd a small black beetle from a leaf or twig, and get to work with her brushes. At the time it mostly annoyed me, but after she left, I always felt a strange mix of nostalgia and regret when I recognised a ladybird as her handiwork.

You can almost see them sometimes, swimming through the air in a stray sparkling beam of sunlight, like after-images of the motes that dance unseen on the surface of your eye. Often, they crowd into cosy bedrooms on a warm summer’s weekend morning. Their natural environment is secret wooded glens – hollows filled with sweet smelling leaf mulch and fairy circles and mossy logs. They muffle sounds and dull the senses, bringing a sense of peace and comfort. When it rains, they wash out of the air and into the soil, laying dormant until the sun shines once more.

When she read a book, she would do the thing properly – immersed and in it for the long haul. She would respond with an “mmm” or “hmm” if spoken to, but not actually take any of the words in unless you got something between her and the page. If she was interrupted – work, or chores, or, god forbid, sleep – she would, however reluctantly, put the book down and go about her business, but the second her brain and at least one eye was free she would pick it up again. While brushing teeth or eating breakfast, in a train or in the bathroom, her attention would be consumed until those last words – “The End”.

As the afternoon wears down into evening, the heat of the day lifts out of the rough tarmac and warps the humid air. The hard-packed dirt of the shoulder gives way within feet to rice paddies of verdant green that stretch out to the low, forested mountains away in the middle distance. There is still some ground to be covered, then, and not in a straight line. She peers up from under a wide straw brim at a sky that is the light blue of day on one horizon but already the washed out navy of twilight on the other. It was time she was moving again.