16: Nightcrawler

Germany was cold, and although Leipzig was a beautiful city Jack was not here to sight see. Frost had gathered what she could on Circus Zeus. Once it had been the pride of the Eastern Bloc, the show of shows, these one ring circuses had once been the envy of producers in the west. Now the once thriving state circus was a dishevelled crumbling dump, freedom had been a wonderful thing but without the state subsidy they were economically unviable. The final nail in the coffin had been the loss of trade because of the pandemic. The animal acts were long gone and the only performers left were those who were not capable finding work anywhere else.
Noah had little knowledge of Northern history and had to look up what an ‘Eastern Bloc’ was, or as it turned out had been. So, Germany had once been two countries, who knew. But what Jack knew about it was pretty sketchy too so he didn’t feel that out of sorts by his lack of knowledge. It turned out most of the ‘tradecraft’ he had learned had been honed during the ‘Cold War’, admittedly it had come a long way since dead drops and microdots.
“What do you reckon Noah?” Jack asked.
“He is definitely here,” Noah replied looking at his cell. The feed from the portable Cerebro scanner under his long coat was synched to his mobile, no one thought twice about a phone-zombie these days. There was none of the touching the ear or weirdly speaking into your cuffs like they did in bad spy movies any more.
There seemed to be no restrictions on the free movement of people around the public areas of the showground when a performance wasn’t in progress. But the chances were from their initial briefing that the target was here.
Eintritt verboten.
“German is your language not mine Noah, but I am guessing that means no entry.”
Noah nodded and ducked underneath. They walked on for a bit between the carefully placed wagons, trucks and caravans, no one seemed to give them a second glance.
Jack attracted Noah’s attention to a small water stained poster in a cracked and broken case on the side of a caravan. Noah’s eyes went a little wide when he saw the image of a blue demonic figure doing trapeze work.
“What do you think?” Jack asked.
Noah looked close and saw the date on the flier was from last year when the restrictions of public performances had been eased. He thought that they must have been in dire straits for acts to use a mutant act so publicly. “I think we need to find the Incredible Nightcrawler. Isn’t that fishing bait?”
Jack shrugged, he was not into fishing.
“Who are you?” a burly man in workwear and a grubby hi-vis jacket asked. “The public are not allowed back here.”
“We are looking for,” Noah began in flawless German, glancing at his phone screen to make as if he was looking something up, “Nightclawler.”
“Kurt? Kurt Wagner?” the man asked.
“That would be him, unless you have more than one act by that name.” It was rare, almost unheard of in fact, to go on a first contact knowing who you were looking for. But Emma Frost was nothing if not efficient and had narrowed down their contact area to Circus Zeus. There were even pictures and videos online if you knew where to look for them.
“You wait there, I will get him for you.”