The alarm went off at 6:30 am. Alex briefly considered using the snooze button before reaching over to turn it off. The best way to avoid bad habits is to keep from developing them. Alex grimaced a little at the memory of one of his mother's lectures. She always seemed to have some saying or anecdote to warn him away from trouble -- and from fun for that matter.

He got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and looked in the mirror while he waited for the water to warm up. There was only a slight bruise under his left eye, the result of last night's sparring match at the academia -- the Capoeira school. Tony, his "opponent," had intended the kick to go wide but Alex had shifted unexpectedly and the kick had landed solidly in Alex's face. If anyone else had been on the receiving end of that kick, the result would have been much more serious.

Fortunately Alex was a bit tougher than normal. He was by no means bullet proof -- at least not normally -- but he didn't often have to worry about taking a hit from the average guy on the street. Tony, however, was a little larger than average, and fairly well built. He had apologized about a dozen times before Alex could get in a word edgewise. Alex had assured him that everything was all right and not to worry about it, but Tony was fairly subdued for the rest of the evening.

After dressing, he went downstairs to the kitchen. He had discovered, much to his embarrassment, that his new home had another floor to it. The day after he had unpacked his clothes, he discovered a door in the back corner of his living room. It had so closely matched the coloring of the wall that it was almost concealed. The door opened inward onto a small spiral staircase that led up to the master bedroom -- actually, master suite was a better description.

The décor was a bit more old fashioned than the rest of the flat. There was a small sitting room with an antique writing desk as you entered. Beyond that, through an arched doorway, was the main bedroom, complete with a king sized bed. There were two armoires and a long dressing table, a chest of drawers at the foot of the bed and another doorway that opened onto the master bath. That held both a shower and a separate, large Jacuzzi tub. The connected walk-in closet contained a fair amount of clothing with space apparently reserved for more. That was when he realized he had unpacked and stored all of his things in the guest bedroom. It was also the first time that he had fervently wished that the place had come with an owner's manual, a wish that he would make repeatedly over the next several weeks.

Alex went down to the kitchen and fixed himself a light breakfast. While eating, he noticed that there was a slight dust build up and reminded himself that he'd have to pay a bit more attention to tidying up.

"I'll have to get used to the idea soon. Maurice isn't here to do it for me and it won't happen by itself..."

Alex finished up breakfast, put his dishes in the dish washer and headed into his studio. The studio was set up with all of the equipment that he had before the move plus a few extra bits and pieces. The new equipment recorded what he played on Digital Audio Tape and then allowed him to play back the tape and change the sound to one produced by a different instrument. So, if he wished, he could play something on the piano and then change the track to sound as though it had been played by a trumpet. He could lay down multiple tracks, loop them for easier editing and then, once he had everything set, the software would write the music for him. Overall, a very nice set up that he only occasionally had to tweak.

He sat down at the keyboard and began reading over his notes from the previous day. He had been working on a composition for one of his classes and had a little more polishing to do on it before he felt he could pronounce it finished. Inserting a tape into the DAT player, he hit the record button and began to play.

As he neared the end of the piece he tried a few variations that he'd been trying to work out. Regardless of what he tried, he found that he wasn't quite pleased with any of them. Either the rhythm was a little off or the chord wasn't quite right or the counter point was about a sixteenth of a beat out of sync with the melody. Finally he stopped, frustrated at not being able to get to the end without something being wrong.

"Trying a little too hard, I think," came a voice from just beyond the doorway.

Startled, Alex spun hard. Weaver, dressed in his customary tattered clothing, was standing outside of the studio, munching on a piece of toast as though he'd been there for hours.

"Damn it, man. Would it be too much of an imposition for you to knock before you come in?" Alex glanced over at the entrance to the flat and noticed that the bolt was still engaged. "How did you--"

"Get in here?" finished the new arrival. Weaver shrugged, "Beats me. One minute I'm teaching a squirrel how to store a few nuts for the winter -- a terrible tragedy there, you know. Poor thing's mother was mangled by a dog. The next thing I know, I'm listening to you mangle a perfectly good composition."

Alex scowled. "Everyone's a critic. You can do better, I suppose."

"I don't need to," replied Weaver. "You can do better yourself. Just relax a little. It's not a life or death situation--"

"Easy for you to say," replied Alex acidly. "You don't have to play it for your professor, next week."

"I thought we'd settled that part a while back," stated Weaver with a little indignation. "A grade and a piece of paper is no measure of how good you are at something. Do you think that Galileo worried about the opinions of others while he was conducting his studies? Do you think that Mozart composed his symphonies hoping to get a good grade? How about Beethoven or Einstein or Copernicus or any of the other 'Giants?' Honestly, I sometimes wonder why I bother!"

Alex watched old man, rags and tatters flying about the more animated he became. Initially, he was a bit shocked. Weaver sounded almost angry. The feeling of shock fell away to amusement after a few moments. Then amusement turned to curiosity.

"Why do you bother? I mean, why do you keep popping up at odd moments? Better still, how do you keep popping up at odd moments?"

Weaver was unexpectedly serious as he answered. "Because you have something important to do And there isn't a great deal of time to prepare you to do it."

Alex was taken aback by the intensity of the vagabond. "What do you mean? What is it you think I have to do?"

Weaver shrugged. "Beats me. I only know what they write in the travel brochures." Alex was about to demand a better explanation when Weaver said, "So. Are you gonna finish this thing, or what?"

Alex paused, a little stunned at the speed Weaver kept changing the subject. Finally, he shruged. "Maybe later. I'm a little distracted at the moment," he replied.

"Nonsense," said Weaver. "Just sit down and stop thinking about what you were trying to do. Stop trying to stick so closely to what you've already written. Don't worry about professors and other educated fools. Don't worry about grades, mistakes, or distractions. Just play."

Alex sighed and sat at the keyboard, sensing that the odd, old man wouldn't leave until he did. He reached over and again activated the DAT recorder. Then he started to play.

This time, he felt something a bit different, a certainty that whatever he played was going to be correct and that it would all come together at the conclusion of the piece. As he continued, Alex let go of conscious thought entirely and immersed himself totally in the music.

The feeling was euphoric.

His sense of time faded and his only thoughts were of the way the music sounded and felt. After a moment, even Weaver's presence faded. Alex found himself sensing something he never had before. Something far, far larger than himself and infinitely older.

Something familiar.

A presence, only half remembered and something that he desperately wanted to recall.

Alex found himself reaching for it.

Suddenly a sense of apprehension washed over him, an almost tangible fear. Not so much a fear of harm but of something else, something he couldn't quite put a finger on. Alex quickly became aware of his surroundings once more and, almost immediately thereafter, stopped playing.

When he looked around, Weaver was nowhere to be seen. He reached over to turn off the DAT recorder and, as he pulled his hand back, noticed that his hand was trembling. He was covered in sweat and felt like he had gone through a work out more intense than anything he had done at the Ministry.

He left the studio and went back to his room, stumbling a bit as he went. He took another shower and collapsed on his bed, exhausted. His last thought as he drifted into a deep sleep was, What the hell am I getting into?

Captain Andrews read the reports again, trying to resist the urge to crumple them up and throw them across the room. Apparently the individual they knew only as Weaver had visited Alex again. As before, there was ample audio evidence that he had been there. However, nothing appeared on any of the video despite the fact that the flat was fairly well covered by all of the cameras they'd installed.

As per the standing orders Andrews had put in place, a surveillance team had been dispatched as soon as it was determined that Weaver was present. The team had arrived shortly after Alex had begun playing his music and the only thing they had to report was a strange display of multi-colored lights that accompanied music of a kind they had never heard before. They did not notice Weaver's departure nor could they detect any trace of his presence.

To top it off, a few minutes after Alex had begun playing, at Weaver's request, all of the sensory equipment had gone haywire. It was as if every sensor in the flat had been overloaded simultaneously. Although they seemed to be in good working order now, apparently Weaver had managed to find a way to temporarily disable them. For a period of thirty-six and a half minutes, they had no knowledge of what transpired in the flat or how Weaver had gotten out.

Upon Alex's departure from the flat, the team was ordered to do a thorough sweep for physical evidence of Weaver. Andrews hoped to find some DNA trace that would help them to more precisely identify the man. The search was fruitless. The conclusion was that Weaver was a metahuman with the ability to hide his comings and goings as well as himself. That meant Andrews would have to recruit outside help. No one he could trust in the Ministry possessed the necessary skills to capture and eliminate someone of Weaver's abilities -- and he did want Weaver eliminated. Anyone with the ability to interfere in his plans for Alex could not be allowed continued contact with the boy. There was too much at stake

Alex's dreams were like something out of Fantasia. He saw himself in the role of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, playing with his master's spell books. Only in this version, the spell books were reams and reams of musical compositions. Leafing through them he began with the simple chords and, feeling confident, he began trying the more complex chords and movements, each more difficult and challenging than the last.

The scene shifted and he saw himself on an impossibly high mountaintop, conducting an impossibly large orchestra consisting of planets, stars and galaxies. Each movement of his arms having a dramatic and disastrous impact on the Universe. The more he tried to undo what he had done, the worse everything became. It continued this way for what seemed forever until he heard a deep and decidedly evil voice laughing at him from the darkness.

Looking up, he saw an enormous humanoid figure with horns, bat-like wings stretching to the horizon in either direction. It's gaze focused on Alex and he felt himself withering. The last thing he remembered was the Thing reaching for him. Then he woke up.

It took a few moments for Alex to realize where he was. He noted the time, well into the afternoon, and got up. He felt much better than he had when he collapsed on his bed earlier but he still had an intense feeling of unease. Not knowing what to do about it, Alex changed into some sweats and headed over to Mestre Juca's academia to get in some more practice.

Alex was finding that capoeira was useful for more than self defense. While practicing, the mestre called it playing, he often found that his mind was clearer and he was more in tune with his surroundings. It's possible that the music they played while practicing played a role in that, but Alex didn't have the same feelings of being "charged up."

There were still a few hours to go before he needed to be at the academia so Alex took the opportunity to wander around the Upper West Side. He didn't have a particular destination in mind, he just wandered. He shied away from the campuses of Columbia University and Barnard college for no reason in particular, although he caught a glimpse of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. There was the Julliard School, of course, as well as The Met and Lincoln Center. In wandering he also passed the Museum of Natural History and the New York Historical Society, both places he'd visited before and found things of some interest if not exactly fascinating. As he ambled past Grant's Tomb, he noted the time and decided to head over to the academia.

He began to jog on the way over and covered the distance fairly quickly. He entered the building, nodding to a few of the people that he'd met in the last couple of weeks.

"Hello Alex. You're a little early, aren't you?"

Mestre Juca had a pronounced Jamaican accent but Alex barely noticed. He often didn't even realize someone had spoken to him in a different language unless it was pointed out to him or, as happened every so often, he responded to someone in the wrong language. At that point, he was usually met with a glassy stare and an almost universal "huh?"

Alex smiled and replied to the capoeira instructor. "I was in da neighborhood and t'ought I'd come by for a little more practice."

Juca smiled back. "I t'ink dat you may be spendin' a little too much time 'ere. You're startin' to talk like me."

Alex realized that he'd just spoken to Juca in the same patois as his instructor. Alex turned a slight shade of red and apologized.

"Sorry. I have a habit of picking up on patterns of speech that often find their way into the way I talk."

"Don' worry 'bout it. Why don' you put away your things and warm up. We'll start in about 10 minutes."

Alex dropped his bag against the far wall and did a few exercises to warm up. Tonight there were relatively few students. Most of the ones Alex saw when he arrived had been on their way out. The few who remained were either instructors themselves or those who were trying to get in a few more sessions before the holidays. In any case, it wasn't too long before Alex and Juca were the only ones left. At that point they decided to call it a night and close up.

Alex was learning the art much faster than a student would normally, a fact that the mestre had commented on often. "If I were a younger man, I'd be jealous. You are doin' t'ings dat took me years to learn. Maybe I should be chargin' you more for your lessons," joked the older man.

Alex smiled in return. "I don't know about that. I seem to be having a little trouble figuring out how I'd apply what I'm learning in a real confrontation. I mean, when I'm practicing here, the others playing the instruments and beating out the rhythms. Somehow I don't think I can count on a band of wandering minstrels happening by to play for an actual street fight."

Juca sighed, slightly exasperated. "Use your brain, mon," he said. "The music we play is just to help you with your timin' when you learn the moves. When you're fightin' for real, your opponent ain't gonna be dancin' in time to da music. He'll be lookin' to smash your face into da dirt. What he don' know is that he'll be movin' to his own rhythm. If you need a beat to 'dance' to, learn it from da udder guy. Of course, if you can't do dat, just make up a tune yourself and go wit' it."

Alex thought for a moment then smiled and asked, "Isn't this the point in the movie where the Master teaches the student about some secret 'Whirling Tiger Claw Strike' or something?"

Juca smiled, shrugged and replied, "If there's a secret to capoeira you're lookin' for, you just heard it. Once you've got your opponent's rhythm, you'll know how he's gonna move and when. Dat leaves you all kinds o' possibilities." Juca smiled again and continued, "but if you need a technique named for an animal, call it the 'Way of the Chameleon' -- it's somet'in dat constantly changes with each opponent. Now get your t'ings, grasshopper. It's time to go."

Alex grinned, put on his coat, picked up his bag.

"Good night, Mestre", he said and headed out the door.
 

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