After saying a quick hello to his parents and letting the proud grandmother gush for a fair while, Taylor made his way down to the basement to see Isaac.
"Hey Ike," he greeted as he made it to the bottom of the stairs.
"Not interrupting anything, am I?"
Isaac
Isaac looked up from his computer.
"Nope," he said. "What brings you here?"
Taylor
"Curiosity, actually," Taylor admitted.
"You got some pretty extensive research done on powers, right? Did you ever find them to be hereditary?"
Isaac
Isaac lifted his hand and waved it from side to side in a so-so gesture.
"At first glance, no. But there are certain traits that tend to be herediary. Like strength, capacity... we Hanson's as you know have a tendancy towards high power capabilities - Avie's a prime example of that. Gee, potential grandmaster telepath? But then too there's generally an increased chance of getting a related or identical power. It varies. I mean, let's face it, none of us have x-ray vision or empathy, but you could argue that telepathy and tongue are related to empathy and flight is related to x-ray vision - the former both being the ability to understand people around you and the latter being physical powers," Isaac shrugged. "There are some fascinating papers on the subject if you're interested."
Taylor
"I'm more interested in what Ezra's power might be," Taylor admitted, chewing his bottom lip a little worriedly.
"I think it might be Tongue. That's really rare, right? Especially being a rare power?"
Isaac
Isaac nodded.
"Theorectically, it could be Tongue. Nat's power is rare too, isn't it?" Isaac considered. "Rarity is another hereditable trait, although as you may have noticed from the fact that both Mom and Dad have common powers it's not 100%. But then we do have uncommon and rare powers on both sides... but I digress. It could be Tongue, although it could just as easily be another rare power. Why? What happened?"
Taylor
"Ezra spoke English," Taylor said, worry evident in his voice now.
"And it wasn't just me hearing it as English, he actually spoke English. Nat can confirm it. She's been able to talk to him too, without my help."
Isaac
Isaac raised his eyebrows.
"Okay that does sound a lot like Tongue," he conceeded.
He turned back to the computer, minimised the windows he had open and opened up his powers database.
"Okay, if we assume it's a rare power... I'll limit the search to that for a start..."
Taylor
"Is there any other power that you know of that could do that?" Taylor asked.
Isaac
Isaac shrugged as he reviewed the list of powers that came up on the list.
"Off the top of my head, no," then he considered. "I suppose theorectically he could be a telepath picking the neccesary words out of you head or something, but I don't even think Avie did that."
Taylor
"I don't think so either," Taylor agreed, glancing down at his son.
He frowned a little.
"Where did you get that?" he murmured, pulling the CD from Ezra's mouth and putting it down on Isaac's desk.
Ezra remained silent, so Taylor turned his attention back to his brother.
"Is there anything that would be language-specific?"
Isaac
Isaac ran another search.
"Well, Tongue comes up. Hmm Calculate comes up, but that refers to cracking coded languages..." Isaac trailed off and frowned, looking at the desk. "Where'd that CD go?"
Taylor
"Huh?" Taylor looked clueless, before realising what he meant.
His frown deepened when he saw the CD in Ezra's mouth again.
"What the?" his face twisted in confusion, taking it away from his son and putting it on top of the computer hard drive.
"That should do it. So nothing else? Maybe some kind of aging of the mind or something?"
Isaac
"Aging of the mind?" Isaac repeated, blinking and turning to face Taylor. "I don't think I've heard of a power that might do that."
The CD lifted itself off of the computer and started floating through the air towards Ezra's mouth.
"What the -"
Taylor
Taylor caught it in mid air, and looked at Isaac.
"You're not doing that?" he pretty much accused.
Isaac
"Right. Like I want to feed your child my CDs," Isaac said dryly.
Then he frowned.
"Hang on..."
He turned back to the computer and conducted a third search.
Taylor
"What is it?" Taylor asked, not letting go of the CD.
Ezra was mumbling to himself incoherently.
Isaac
"There's an ultra rare power which I haven't been able to do any research on because the only known person with it is a known felon..." Isaac said. "Ah ha! Power borrowing. Also known as power sharing or power choosing."
Isaac shook his head.
"The knowledge base on powers on the colony ship was destroyed. It wasn't considered a huge loss at the time considering the problems they were already having. I really only have scraps of info from what different ones remember and what they've experienced at Guffrey's hands. All this says is that they can only take one power at a time."
Taylor
Taylor looked down at Ezra.
"Is that what you've got?" he asked, more to himself.
"Typically it had to be an ultra rare power that no one but Guffery has, so there's no real way to know if we're nurturing or stunting its development. If this is it," he said to Isaac.
Isaac
Isaac shrugged.
"First he shows signs of using Tongue, and then he starts showing signs of telekinesis. As I've never heard of a power that has both language and object movement skills combined in one, this is the only possibility I can come up with. And in actual fact, Ultra Rare powers are like, once every few generations so the fact that we even know of someone else with power sharing in a miracle in itself. That said," Isaac considered. "Like I said before, the power knowledge base on the colony ship was destroyed. It could be another rare or ultra rare power I simply don't know about because none of the daths or Sems in the YIRAAS database has it."
He gave Tay a slight smile.
"I'm making this really easy for you, aren't I?"
Taylor
"ABC 123," Taylor smirked, digging in his pocket for his cell phone.
"I'd better call Nat anyway. I promised I would as soon as I found anything."
Isaac
"Okay," Isaac replied.
The CD started floating over to Ezra again and Isaac caught it telekinetically.
"The CD is not a chew toy, Ezra," Isaac said firmly, plucking it out of the air. "Oho... we can both use telekinesis at the same time... learning new stuff already!"
He turned to the computer to add this little tidbit to his database and Ezra took advantage of his uncle'ss distracted to kidnapped the CD again. Isaac retrived it again without even looking.
Taylor
"Daddy!" Ezra cried suddenly, making Taylor jump.
"No. It's not a toy," Taylor said firmly, hoping he understood.
"We'll get you something soon. I don't suppose there's anything he could use here for now?" he asked Isaac, "I left everything at home thinking we wouldn't be long."
Isaac
Isaac frowned and considered.
"I don't really have stuff like that lying around... oh wait..."
The wardrove door opened and a box came floating down.
"Ah ha," Isaac said picking up a ragged teddy bear.
He made sure it wasn't too dusty, giving it a once over with atom manipulation to make sure, then held it out to Ezra.
Taylor
"Thanks," Taylor said for him, as Ezra took it with his telekinesis and instantly began sucking its foot.
"You wanna hold him for a minute while I call Nat?"
Isaac
"Okay," Isaac agreed.
He carefully reached out and lifted Ezra from Taylor's arms.
"Hey Erza. Like your new teddy? Foot tasty?"
Taylor
Taylor speed dialled his wife's cell number and put the phone to his ear, reaching over to rub Ezra's forehead a little.
"Hey, Nat?"
Natalie and Isaac
"Hi Tay," Natalie replied cheerfully. "You still at Ike's?"
Isaac pulled funny faces at Ezra.
Taylor
"Yeah... listen. There's been an interesting turn of events," Taylor tried to think of how to word it without shocking or worrying her.
Natalie and Isaac
"Oh?" Natalie asked, her curiousity peeked.
Isaac looked up and gave Taylor an amused smile.
Taylor
"Yeah," Taylor chuckled a little.
"Ezra's telekinetic."
Natalie and Isaac
"Ahh... he's telekinetic?" Natalie frowned, a little confused. "I didn't realise telekinsis had anything to do with languages..."
Isaac stifled a laugh.
Taylor
"Well it does in this case," Taylor glanced at Isaac.
He put the phone on speaker.
"See, Ezra's telekinetic because he's with Ike. At home with us, he has Tongue. He's borrowing our powers!"
Natalie and Isaac
"Oh," Natalie said dubiously, then it clicked and: "Oh!"
Isaac chuckled.
Taylor
"So you can call your Mom and tell her not to worry now, ok?" Taylor chuckled.
"At least we've figred out what it is. Even if it's... what, ultra rare? Yeah."
Natalie and Isaac
"Ultra Rare? Wow..." Natalie repeated, feeling a little stunned for words.
"It's the only thing in my database that fits," Isaac told her. "Like I say to Tay, usually the ultra rares a once every few generations so... yeah. There is actually someone else out there with it amazingly enough, but he's not really in a position to offer advice."
Taylor
"She knows about Guffery," Taylor reminded Isaac.
"But yeah. Exciting, huh? Now we know what our baby's power is!"
Isaac and Natalie
"Ahh," Isaac said.
"Yay," Natalie cheered. "Wow, this is... this is so amazing. Just knowing what it is is a relief but I never expected... wow."
Isaac chuckled.
Taylor
"Yeah, pretty major deal," Taylor agreed.
"We'll just have to be careful of who's around him from now on. But we can work out specifics later."
Natalie and Isaac
"Yeah... so I guess I'm not the optimal baby sitter," Isaac chuckled. "But, actually the fact that you have Tongue might actually give you an advantage in raising him."
"I don't think mine would be useful," Natalie considered. "Wow... just thinking of all the possible way Ezra could use different powers..."
Taylor
"Let's not worry about that right now," Taylor mused.
"I'm already thinkng about the 'terrible twos'."
Natalie and Isaac
Isaac chuckled.
"Oh dear," Natalie said. "Let's not worry about that now either."
Taylor
"We'll be home soon, ok? Will you be there?" Taylor smiled.
Natalie and Isaac
"Okay," Natalie replied. "Yeah, I think I can manage that."
"Heh," grinned Isaac. "Mind if he comes home with a new toy?"
"Nooo..."
"Oh good, because I'm not sure we'll be able to get this bear off him."
Natalie laughed.
"Okay, well, I'm sure it'll be fine. See you when you get home, Tay. Love you."
Taylor
"Love you too," Taylor grinned, before hanging up.
"I guess that settles that little problem then."
Isaac
"I guess it does," Isaac replied. "Glad my reasearch has come in useful for someone. Everytime I make plans to publish I learn something new and decide I should wait."
He chuckled ruefully.
Taylor
"Maybe you just need to publish it on a different medium," Taylor shrugged, putting his phone away and reaching down for Ezra.
"An editable one. So you can keep it constantly updated."
Isaac
"Yeah, there's a thought..." Isaac considered. "Maybe I should start a website. Y'know, other than hanson.net."
He grinned.
Taylor
"And then if it's on the web, you can get other Daths and Sems to email you about their powers if they're not on the list. Or if they want to add anything to what you already have on the lesser known powers," Taylor added.
Isaac
"This is true," Isaac considered thoughtfully. "It would make tracking stuff down a lot easier. Well, as long as no idea decide to tell me about bogus powers. Heh."
Taylor
"True," Taylor nodded, staring into space for a moment.
Before snapping back to reality.
"So are you still coming this afternoon? Zac hasn't gotten back to me so I take it he still is."
Isaac
"Yeah I am," Isaac nodded. "Zac's probably distracted by the kids."
Taylor
"Yeah," Taylor sighed.
"Oh well. We'd better it the road. See you this afternoon!" he smiled as he started making his way out.
Isaac
"Yeah, see you," Isaac replied.
He waved to his brother as he left and then went back to what he had been doing.