\u201cWhat about this job?\u201d Dixie said, holding her phone up for Cleo to see across the table. \u201cCodename Braum. Doing an art gallery in Topeka.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would we subject ourselves to driving through Kansas?\u201d Cleo asked, not looking up from her smash burger combo. She was not helping to search because a hamburger required two hands to eat and she didn\u2019t want to get grease on her phone\u2019s screen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait, Topeka is in Kansas?\u201d Dixie asked. frowning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the capital of Kansas, honey,\u201d Cleo confirmed patiently. Then, curious, she asked, \u201cWhere did you think it was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d Dixie\u2019s face scrunched up, wondering that too. \u201cNot Kansas. How valuable could the art from Kansas<\/i> be?\u201d
\n
\n\u201cWell, hold on,\u201d Cleo said. She tilted her head to the side, considering. \u201cWith a name like Brahm, he might have more insight on the Kansas art scene than we\u2019re giving him credit for. If he\u2019s named for the composer, maybe he\u2019s not a complete philistine. Perhaps there\u2019s something special moving through there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, well, it\u2019s spelled like the ice cream store,\u201d Dixie said around a mouthful of Frito pie. Cleo shot a disgusted glance her way. Dixie swallowed her food before continuing. \u201cMaybe he\u2019s just a goth kid and Dracula and Alucard were already taken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a remote possibility that it\u2019s a Legend of Sleepy Hollow<\/i> reference,\u201d Cleo mused as she swirled a french fry around in the puddle of ketchup on her plate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWasn\u2019t Brom the bad guy in the movie?\u201d Dixie asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than Ichabod himself?\u201d Cleo asked. \u201cThe man was trying to marry the girl for her money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t name yourself after the dickhead in the movie though, would you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might if you thought he was in the right,\u201d Cleo pointed out. Then she shrugged. \u201cOr if Ichabod had too many syllables to be used as a codename.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, hold up,\u201d Dixie said, chuckling at this turn in the conversation and waving her hands in front of her to halt this line of thinking. \u201cWe\u2019re forgettin\u2019 the important thing here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t tell anything about what this guy knows about the art scene in Kansas by his name alone, \u2019cause he ain\u2019t the one who woulda picked it. His controller did and that don\u2019t do us shit. The only real thing we know about Braum is that he\u2019s going to Kansas<\/i> for art.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep looking then,\u201d Cleo said. She took another bite of her burger.<\/p>\n
This story was part of my 2019 TRL event.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay Cairo, Sable and the rest come across another member of this Syndicate known as Bram. You think \u201creference to Bram Stoker\u201d, right?<\/p>\n
Well, after a bit of conversating, they find out he was trying to call himself \u201cBrom\u201d, like Brom Bones from \u201cThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow\u201d, and now he\u2019s all butthurt by the fact he can\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n
Nothing major, just thought it\u2019d be a tad funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Paupers Run<\/em><\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
\u201cOk, just realized you don\u2019t pick your code names with Syndicate. Ok, here\u2019s my revamp:<\/p>\n
Brom wanted to go by, well Brom, and said so to whoever you talk to while becoming a part of The Syndicate. He got told that\u2019s not how it works, and he\u2019s thinking \u201cUgh, fine, whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once his registration is done, The Syndicate picks Bram as his codename. He swears they did that on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Paupers Run<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhat about this job?\u201d Dixie said, holding her phone up for Cleo to see across the table. \u201cCodename Braum. Doing an art gallery in Topeka.\u201d \u201cWhy would we subject ourselves to driving through Kansas?\u201d Cleo asked, not looking up from her smash burger combo. She was not helping to search because a hamburger required two hands to eat and she didn\u2019t want to get grease on her phone\u2019s screen. \u201cWait, Topeka is in Kansas?\u201d Dixie asked. frowning. \u201cIt\u2019s the capital of Kansas, honey,\u201d Cleo confirmed patiently. Then, curious, she asked, \u201cWhere did you think it was?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d Dixie\u2019s face scrunched up, wondering that too. \u201cNot Kansas. How valuable could the art from Kansas be?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[209],"class_list":["post-4398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-the-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4398"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4412,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4398\/revisions\/4412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djangodurango.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}