Dying to be Cured – III

Dying to be Cured is set in a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. Dai and Julia take on a fight against institutional corruption whilst dealing with the demands of family, friendship and domestic crises.

Dai launched into an explanation of their morning. By the end, Julia was feeling truly grim, and it must have shown in her face as Dai was frowning with concern. 

“What is it love?”

“You aren’t going to like this, but…”

“What am I not going to like now?” He sounded weary, but also wary and angry.

Bryn put a hand on his forearm. 

“Remember, Bard. Didn’t we agree that whatever we have to deal with, it being Roman doesn’t make it Domina Julia’s fault?”

For a long moment nobody spoke, then Dai shook his head.

“We did. Sorry. I was just about to get bang out of line. Again.”

Julia, being too used to the pain of Dai’s anti-Roman outbursts, was surprised to find how much Bryn’s championship affected her. She smiled at him and stiffened her spine.

“You still might… We are going to have to tread very softly indeed. This is a temple sacred to the cult of the Divine Diocletian. That is one of the key foundations of the current Emperor’s right to rule. It has real power. And if we are not careful we could wind up getting told to turn a blind eye. It’s happened before.”

The men looked at her in glum silence. It was Bryn who found his voice first.

“What would happen,” he asked, “if we were ordered to keep our noses out?”

Julia favoured him with a sudden street urchin grin. “We’d have to investigate quietly.”

Dai just looked at her for a moment before leaning over the table to kiss her on both cheeks.

“Then maybe we shouldn’t be investigating too noisily now.”

“Stealth might be better. We need to hack into the computers at that temple. And we need to do so pretty bloody quickly.”

“That sounds like something you could do.”

“Probably. Very probably. Unless, of course, some irrumator has already erased the relevant files.”

Bryn wrinkled his brow. “I didn’t think you could ever really erase stuff from computers.”

“You can’t. Not if an investigator is in the same room with the computer. But you can certainly bury it deep enough to stop it being found remotely.” Julia sighed. “All of which means I should get right on it. You two go and look into some sheep stealing or something and keep out of my hair.”

Three hours later, and Julia was about to admit defeat. Oh, it had been laughably easy to get into the computer systems of the temple, and she had found out some pretty interesting stuff, like just exactly how much money the ‘cures’ had raked in over the previous two years. She could even see the places where somebody had simply chopped out clumps of information. But she couldn’t scrape off the top layer to find out what had been scrubbed without alerting even the most simple minded of computer operators to the hack.

Just as she was contemplating throwing her laptop at the wall, she got her much needed break. Somebody in the complex decided to send a belated birthday message to his mother, allowing Julia a nanosecond of access. That nanosecond was enough as she had already set up the data-capture to grab all the outgoing mails held on the computer. The information went back almost five years, presumably the amount of time that computer had been in use. 

And there it was – an unarguable connection. Somebody had been in the habit of sending regular emails to  Zirri Yedder. A man called Fabian Thrace, who his other emails revealed to be head of security in the place.

Interestingly there had been no emails sent out by Thrace to anyone since the same day as Yedder had his appointment at the temple, although prior to that he had sent out a number every day. Julia hummed a satisfied little hum before delving into the life and times of Fabian Thrace, who turned out to be the third son of a Citizen cloth merchant from Eboracum. He had served with the army then retired to take on various security roles. He was still listed as being head of security at the Temple of the Divine Diocletian in Canovium. 

“So,” Julia mused aloud, “what is the head of temple security doing in correspondence with a dirt-digging journalist?”

“It’s got me beat,” the voice from behind her was both lazily amused and unfeasibly basso profundo. 

Julia rounded on the man mountain that was Edbert her personal bodyguard.

“Spado. Will you stop creeping up on me like that…”

He grunted. Then brightened perceptibly. 

“We could always have a nosey round and see what we can find out.”

“The old paid assassin’s ploy?”

“Well. From what you have on screen about him nobody would be surprised to find assassins on his tail.” 

Julia thought for a moment then shook her head.

“Can’t do it, though, can we? Our faces may not be known, but I’m darned sure the Submagistratus’ miniature wife and her huge bodyguard are already a matter of local folklore. Together we’d stand out a mile.”

Edbert grimaced. “Well, you ain’t going in without me.”

“No. So you have to go. But not alone. Take Gallus. He’s almost as unprincipled as you.”

Gallus was the decanus of a small detachment of Praetorians who had been sent with Dai from Londinium to help him establish his authority.

“I resent that. That Praetorian cunnus is nowhere near as unprincipled as I am.”

As an attempt to lighten Julia’s mood it succeeded as well as anything could, and she grinned a wry grin. 

“You scoop up Gallus and head out to Canovium. Take a wrist unit so I can contact you. I will find Dai and bring him up to speed.”

Edbert was gone almost before she had finished speaking. She looked at the mountainous hole in the air where he had been and sighed before whistling for her wolfhounds Canis and Lupo.

Dying to be Cured by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook first appeared in Gods of Clay: A Sci Fi Roundtable Anthology.