Mozart was a Xenomorph hatched from a stolen MedTech egg and raised in the Apiary under Presley Hall, in the Aliens: Music of the Spears comic and in Yvonne Navarro's Aliens: Music of the Spears novel. Composer Damon Eddington named the captive and recorded its rage for a Symphony of Hate, first with animals and then with kidnapped men. After Eddington threw bioengineer Darcy Vance into the cage, Mozart wounded her, then killed the composer when he opened the enclosure. The Xenomorph reached the hall above, tore through the android band and the crowd, and was destroyed by a MedTech security team led by an officer named Rice.
Biography
Birth In The Apiary
A former musician named Ken, known to composer Damon Eddington and by then a jelly addict, asked to be joined with the stolen MedTech egg so he could live on in what he called the source. Ken had come to worship that sound, and Eddington tried to talk him out of dying that way. Ahiro, the ninja who had taken the egg for Synsound, presented Ken to the egg in the Apiary under Presley Hall in Manhattan. A Facehugger subdued the host while Eddington looked on. The Chestburster later killed Ken when it tore its way out of him in that cell.
Mozart grew quickly in the enclosure under Presley Hall, with recording gear packed around the cage to take every sound the animal made. Eddington named the Xenomorph Mozart and treated the cell as a studio for the Symphony of Hate he still meant to write. The microphones at first caught little that he could use. That silence ended once he began to demand live prey, and ordinary animals were the first tests he ordered into the Apiary. After the birth, Eddington took a vial of jelly he had found among Ken's clothes, and the drug tightened his obsession with the captive.
Recordings With Animals
Mozart killed the cats and dogs thrown into the Apiary with almost no struggle and almost no sound, and those takes were useless for a symphony of hate. Eddington pressed Ahiro for harder prey, larger animals that would fight back and stay alive long enough to force a cry. Ahiro stole a bull and sent it into the cage as the next test. Mozart met the animal in the open enclosure and killed it after a brief fight, but the recording still did not give Eddington the cry he was after.
Eddington asked for another predator, something faster than a bull and more used to hunting live prey. Ahiro stole a panther and sent it into the Apiary, and Mozart killed that animal after a faster fight than the one with the bull. The recordings of the panther still fell short of what the composer wanted. Eddington decided that only human prey would force the rage he needed for the climax of the work. Michael Brangwen, a bioengineer on the Apiary team, was already uneasy with that turn. Ahiro was sent to find men and bring them back to the cell under Presley Hall.
Human Prey In The Apiary
Ahiro kidnapped men and locked them, one at a time, into a feeder cage that opened into Mozart's enclosure. Each man was given an electrostun rifle and told that the harder he fought, the longer he might live, and that the weapon mattered only at close range, within about three feet of the Xenomorph. The first man out of the cage fired, and the shock hit Mozart. A cry of pain came from the animal's mouth, the sound Eddington had been waiting for through all the earlier, quieter kills. Brangwen watched the new arrangement with open disgust as those prisoners were put on display, and Darcy Vance stood with him.
Man after man went in with a rifle as the fights continued under Presley Hall. Some of the prisoners got off shots, and some died quickly under Mozart's fangs. By the time the fifth man was killed, Eddington believed he had what he needed for the body of the work. Those five fights became the core of the recordings taken in the Apiary. He still wanted one last scream of rage for the climax, and he did not let that want go.
Darcy Thrown Into The Cage
With the main recordings made, Brangwen went upstairs to the concert hall for a break from the basement work. Darcy Vance stayed behind for a few more minutes with Mozart in the Apiary. Eddington, still chasing a final scream for the climax, attacked her and threw her into the enclosure. Mozart came for her at once, and Darcy had a stunner and a hidden way out, a service run under the cage floor that she and Brangwen knew about.
Darcy fired the stunner, and the shock forced a cry from Mozart. In that cry Eddington heard the sound he had failed to take from the men and the animals. Mozart could not hold her as she pulled away, and Darcy crawled into the tunnel under the cage, badly wounded, and dragged herself beyond his reach. The power in the booth began to fail as the breakers cut the boards. Eddington heard nothing more from the cage, grabbed a portable recorder and a microphone, and faced the fact that he would have to open the door to capture the rest of the sound.
Mozart Kills Eddington
An electrical failure shorted the recording booth as the breakers cut power to the boards. Eddington, afraid of losing the sound, took the portable unit and opened the chamber himself, sure that Darcy was still inside. Mozart was already loose in that space, free of the cage the composer had just unlocked. The Xenomorph killed Eddington in the open doorway, and the portable recorder never captured the death he had come to take. Mozart then left the Apiary and headed up toward the music and the crowd in Presley Hall, where Brangwen was unaware of what was climbing from the basement.
The Presley Hall Massacre
Mozart came up into Presley Hall, where an android band, the Helltones, was playing to a packed house. The Xenomorph tore through the performers on the stage and then moved into the crowd below. People in the hall took the first moments for part of the show, as if a droid alien had been added to the set. Some of the crowd still treated the attack as part of the act, while others tried to reach the exits. Mozart used the stage, the mezzanine, and the floor of the hall as one killing ground.
A MedTech security team that had been tracking the stolen egg, under an officer named Rice, broke into Presley Hall in the middle of the massacre. Mozart was still loose among the remaining crowd when that unit reached the hall. The team had followed the stolen egg to the concert building, and now found the Xenomorph in the open. Rice led the security men in while the attack was still under way. The slaughter had not yet been stopped, and the captive Eddington had raised was still among the audience.
Death
Mozart was destroyed in Presley Hall by a MedTech security team under Rice. The team killed the Xenomorph in the hall before the slaughter could run further through the remaining crowd. Mozart went down in the open among the audience it had already torn through on the stage and the floor. Acid from the destroyed body struck people nearby as the security unit ended the attack. Rice's men stopped the massacre there, in the concert hall the animal had reached from the Apiary.
After the kill, the MedTech team went down into the basement under Presley Hall. In that space they found the Apiary and the equipment around the empty cage. Ahiro, the ninja who had stolen the egg for Synsound, was still there, attacked the team, and was shot down during that search. Brangwen came back down from the hall, found Darcy still alive in the tunnels, and got her out for treatment. Darcy had crawled under the cage after the stun fight, and she was still in those tunnels when Brangwen reached her.
Comic And Novel Differences
Navarro's 1996 novel sets the story in 2123 and 2124 Manhattan, ten years after the Homeworld War, a date the comic does not give. The book names the host Ken Fasta Petrillo, taken from the midtown Church of the Queen Mother, one of the city's Xenomorph cults. In the novel the infant's shell went from brown to blue-black, and in three days Mozart stood about seven feet without straightening. The book also describes Mozart as a Drone Xenomorph and adds a cow, a sheep, and a wild Indian gaur to the animal tests, plus a Bronx Zoo panther that clawed Mozart before a Xenomorph tail strike helped end the fight.
The novel names MedTech Elite Security chief Phillip Rice as the man who ended the massacre by putting a grenade into Mozart's chest, and it gives official news a week later as seventeen dead and thirty-two injured. It also says jelly vials on the concert floor drove Mozart into a frenzy. Darcy, in the book, argued that Mozart showed attachment and was the only person the animal seemed to recognize. Three months later the company restaged the night as the Presley Hall Slaughternight with Android Xenomorphs, and the hall played Mozart's real death scream, while Brangwen's Rage Symphony used Eddington's death cry as the finale.
Personality And Traits
Mozart dispatched early animal prey with little sound, fought harder when the bull and the panther fought back, and went toward the music and the crowd once the Apiary was open. The novel adds more about recognition. Darcy held a hand to the quartz, and Mozart put its claws on the same spot from the other side. When Eddington locked her in, Mozart paused and tipped its head before it attacked, and later recoiled from a thrown, dead rifle the way it had learned to do in the stun fights. In the hall, the book says, jelly on the floor drove the animal into a frenzy.
Behind The Scenes
Mozart first appeared in Aliens: Music of the Spears, a four-issue Dark Horse series published from January to April 1994, written by Chet Williamson and penciled by Tim Hamilton, with inks by Timothy Bradstreet, colors by Matt Webb, and covers by Bradstreet and Guy Burwell. Yvonne Navarro novelized the story for Bantam Spectra in October 1996, adding a set date and further Apiary detail. The series is one of the Dark Horse Aliens stories of Xenomorphs on Earth after the infestation, in the same rebuilding period as the Aliens: Genocide comic and the Aliens: The Alien comic. The title's "music of the spears" refers to the sound of Mozart's rage.
Conclusion
Mozart was the Xenomorph Damon Eddington named, raised, and recorded under Presley Hall in the service of a Symphony of Hate. Animals and then five men were sent into the Apiary to force a cry, Darcy Vance was thrown in after them, and Eddington died when he opened the cage to finish the recording. Mozart reached the concert above, tore through the Helltones and the crowd, and was destroyed there by a MedTech team. The death scream the composer had wanted was heard later, when an android restaging of the massacre played it to a cheering hall, and when Brangwen premiered the completed Rage Symphony to a much thinner room.
Appearances
- Aliens: Music of the Spears comic (Dark Horse, January-April 1994).
- Aliens: Music of the Spears novel (Yvonne Navarro, Bantam Spectra, October 1996).
Tag Categories: Individual Xenomorphs | Xenomorphs From The Comics | Xenomorphs From The Novels | Xenomorph Appearance | Alien Lore
