Zac drove to the Hanson home. He got out of his van, waved cheekily to the men sitting the the van across the street and walked up to the front door.
Isaac heard his knock and opened the door.
"About time you got here," he said in mock annoyance. "We've been waiting all day for you."
"It's ten in the morning," Zac pointed out, stepping inside.
"That's almost half the day."
"Well, only if you start counting from midnight. But it's night at midnight. And it's winter at the moment, so the pretty sun doesn't even come up until like seven or eight, and it'll go done something about six-ish, so that's about ten hours of dayness. And you've only been waiting two. So that's less than a quarter of the day, not almost half."
"It's all relative," Isaac replied on the way to the music room. "If you only measure in halves -"
"Then it depends on whether you're rounding up, down, or off, and only in the case of rounding up would it be half a day, whereas rounding down or off would say that you haven't been waiting at all. Hi Tay. Hi Nat. I thought you came over on Tuesdays?"
"I slept over," Natalie replied.
"Oh really?"
"Yeah, and she's going to sleep over next week too," Isaac said. "Tay cooked dinner last week, Nat cooked dinner last night and I'm going to cook dinner next week. Hey, if she sleeps over another week you should cook dinner, Zac."
"Wait... you sleptover last week too? You guys are leaving me out of the loop."
"Well, Taylor's little alterego decided to make an appearence, and Nat managed to exhaust herself taking care of both it, and giving him his regular treatment."
"Ahh, I see. Well it's nice to know that you didn't have to deal with Tad," Zac rubbed his hands together. "We so got him."
"Yes, yes we did," Isaac agreed. "So... about all this sounds equipment..."
"Haven't got it set up yet?"
"Not completely. We wanted your imput."
"Watch the master at work."
"No, just you Zac."
"Funny."
"I thought so."
Taylor
Taylor gave Natalie a sympathetic look, before making his way over.
"Where should we set the computer up?" he asked.
Isaac, Zac and Natalie
Zac glanced over everything, then pointed.
"There," he directed.
"Oh, don't you like it when he gets all dictator-like?" Isaac said, putting on a gay lisp.
"Ike, that's disturbing," Natalie said.
"Yeah..." Isaac said, normally. "I do that a little too well."
"Yeah."
"Ahem!" Zac said. "Computer, there. Sound desk, there. Bip, bip, bip."
"Do you watch Dark Angel, Zac?" Natalie asked, surprised. "Oh, wait... it's Jessica Alba, right? You think she's hot?"
"Well, yes," Zac admitted. "Rachel got me into it. They tried to incorporate me into Mutant X too, but it didn't have the same appeal."
"No hot women?"
"No, not that. It just seemed a little cheesy."
"Fair enough."
Isaac grinned and started moving the equipment around. Ahh the wonders of having a telekinetic around when there's heavy stuff to move.
Taylor
"Looks good already," Taylor nodded, scratching his chin.
"We should set the mic stands up over there in the corner so they're away from everything else. Give us room to work. And the piano can go along that wall."
Isaac, Zac and Natalie
"Okay," Isaac said, moving the mic stands.
"Those speakers should go there," Zac pointed. "And put those otherones over there. No, not those ones. The other ones."
Natalie giggled.
"I suddenly am remembering a prediction, who was it, Matthew Sweet? Made about you... that you'd be the quiet dictator of a small third world country."
Zac chuckled evilly.
Taylor
"This room's pretty much big enough to be one," Taylor almost chuckled, looking around, "it's great."
He stood back a little to take in Isaac's work.
"Maybe moved the desk further that way," he indicated, "then we can put the guitar stands on the side wall behind the piano."
Isaac, Zac and Natalie
"I'm so glad I'm a telekinetic and not a real grunt," Isaac observed.
"You're going to make someone a wonderful husband someday," Natalie chuckled.
"Why, thank you."
Isaac knew that she meant it as a joke, but somehow it made him happier to hear someone say that to him.
"Hmm... I think we've just about got everything sorted... can you manage the cabling, Ike? Or will we have to help -" Zac cut himself off, seeing cables start flying through the air and snake across the floor. "Okay, we won't have to help."
"You just leave all this high tech stuff to the experts, Zac."
"Right, so you're saying we should hire someone?"
Taylor
"Almost done," Taylor rubbed his hands together in glee.
"Finally we'll actually be able to record this stuff."
Natalie, Isaac and Zac
"Yay," Natalie cheered.
"She celebrates for Hanson fans everywhere," Isaac joked.
"Yes, yes I do," she grinned.
"Computer plugged in? Good," Zac said.
He made his way over to it, sat down and turned it on.
Taylor
"Start up the recorder and let's test these babies," Taylor announced, grabbing a guitar and going to stand in front of a microphone.
"Are we ready?"
Zac
"Just a second..." Zac said. "Okay, quiet now people... Five, four..."
He counted down 'three', 'two' and 'one' on his fingers and hit the record button.
Taylor
"I waited
Here for you
I waited
For you to come home to me
But I waited
For the wrong reasons
And now I don't know
If I'll ever see you again now..."
Taylor sang the second verse before stopping with a grin.
"Yes? No? Maybe?"
Zac, Isaac and Natalie
Zac hit the playback.
"It's peaking," Isaac observed.
"Yeah, it must be set too high," Zac replied.
He fiddled around with the software and the soundboard. Isaac agve him a hand. Natalie watched, curiously.
"Okay," Zac said finally. "Now try it."
Taylor
Taylor eyed off some headphones, deciding against putting them on before repeating what he'd played before.
"I stuffed it up a bit, but did it work?" he asked after, adjusting the strap on his shoulder.
Zac and Isaac
Zac played it back again and they listened.
"That definitely sounds much better," Isaac nodded.
"Yeah," Zac agreed. "It'll probably want some more tweaking later, but yeah. Should do for now."
Taylor
"I'll need to re-record that part anyway," Taylor insisted, slipping the guitar from his shoulder and going to put it in a rack.
"Let's check the instruments."
He sat at the piano, and waited for Zac's signal.
Zac and Isaac
"Well, duh, Tay," Zac muttered. "We're just making sure we have everything working. And again: duh."
Isaac rolled his eyes at Zac.
"Okay... recording... now."
Taylor
Taylor rolled his eyes and played something he'd been working on.
When he was done, he turned to look over his shoulder at them.
Isaac, Zac and Natalie
Again, they played back the recording, and listened to the result. Tweaking followed. Record, playback, tweak, repeat. Natalie start to wonder if they cycle was ever going to end as they went through just about every instrument they had (or at least the ones they expected to be recording with in the near future).
At last the torture - err, configuring - was over.
"Okay, that looks like everything," Zac said, satisfied. "What say we get this song on the road?"
"Isn't it show?"
"We're musicians, not actors. As proven by your guest appearence in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Who, I might add, wasn't even playing a teenager for that season, given that she was in college."
Isaac poked his tongue out at him.
"We still put on shows."
"We're not touring at the moment."
"We're not on the road either."
"That's because we want to get it on the road. You need to be off the road first in order to get on it."
"But then when we're on the road, we'd be touring, therefore there would be a show in question."
"Are they always like this?" Natalie asked, looking at Taylor.
Taylor
"Be thankful they haven't got me started yet," Taylor winked at her.
"Are we sure that was everything?"
Isaac, Zac and Natalie
"Yeah, I think so Tay," Zac replied, then turned back to Isaac. "Uhh, excuse me, but I don't know if you've noticed but in order to get on the road, we need a song."
"Actually, we need a lot of songs," Isaac returned. "Otherwise we'd be charging people tickets to out concerts which will only consist of the one song. And once we have multiple songs, it becomes a show."
"Umm, guys?" Natalie spoke up. "Look, it strikes me that you could go on for ages debating that -"
"Yep!" Zac said gleefully.
"- might I suggest you actually start recording a song? Y'know assuming that -"
"See? Natalie said song!"
"- you haven't missed anything in your setting up. And you can only record one song at a time, I'm sure Zac."
"Told you so."
"Yeah, but we still need multiple songs," Isaac said. "And that makes it a show."
"Yeah, but you get one song ready for the road and then you repeat the process -"
Taylor
"In order to record these songs..." Taylor cut in.
"We actually have to start recording parts of songs. Now, are we going to get there today? Or are we going to keep debating something that has the same resolution anyway?"
Isaac and Zac
"Do you have to make me choose?" asked Zac.
Isaac chuckled.
"C'mon, Zac, lets get started."
"Hmm, okay, so what did we want to start recording first? The song you were playing earlier, Tay?"
Taylor
"Sure," Taylor's eyes brightened.
He got up to fetch his guitar again, then hesitated.
"Music first, vocals later?"
Zac, Isaac and Natalie
"Sounds good. Okay, Ikers, you can get the record button from here, right?" Zac inquired.
"Just sit the curser on the record button, and I'll hit the mouse when we're ready," Isaac nodded.
"Cool - "
They were about to continue, when there was a knock on the door. Natalie stood and opened it.
"Tony!" she exclaimed, checking her watch. "Wow, it's that time already?"
"Yeah... I waited at the front door for a bit, but no one answered. I know why now," Tony reply wryly. "Maybe you guys should invest in a doorbell."
Natalie chuckled, and turned to them.
"Well, I guess I'll see you guys next week," she said.
"Bye Nat!" Isaac said. "See ya."
"Todaloo," Zac added.
Taylor
"Already?" Taylor couldn't help looking disgruntled.
He checked his own watch.
"Ok. Sure. See you next week," he gave her a smile and wave.
Natalie and Zac
"See ya!" Natalie said again. "Have fun recording."
"Oh, we will," Zac said, a tinge of evilness in his voice.
Natalie shook her head, and she and Tony departed.