"You can call me Tessa," she said, "The others thought they should all come, but a group of us dubbed The Abnormals used our veto power on that. As you can obviously see, I am in fact a female."

"But you are still a Terrance? Why are you so hot?" Terrance said and they both immediately went pale. Tessa's eyes opened wide and then she started giggling.

"Well that's a new one," she said with a smile, "Yes I'm a Terrance, and as for my hotness, you aren't bad-looking yourself. You are the first Terrance that's ever called me hot, though. That's not the important thing right now."

Tessa continued in following Terrance to his living room. She was like him in some ways, but different in others. It was both comforting and unsettling at the same time. Tessa sat down on his couch and patted the seat next to her.

"Right, so, can you explain this thing about me not being in danger, but only for right now?"

"There are currently 255 universes that are connected to the multiverse, not counting yours. Of those, there have been 248 of those universes that had a Terrance that existed as far as we can tell. There are 235 living Terrances other than you. The next person with the most versions is a historical figure with 102 versions. The next living person we have only been able to verify 39 versions of a person with the name of Li Feng, usually Li Feng Xu. We help them out too when we can, but we haven't managed to track them down here, at least not yet. This all means a new Terrance always turns into a weird fascination for people and they think we have some deeper connection to the multiverse. We have to deny it, but we actually do seem to have some connection. Almost all universes join the multiverse while a Terrance is alive, and a Terrance is always heavily affected by their universe's genre."

"What is a universe's genre?"

"Reality for a universe warps when it connects to the multiverse. Each universe seems to get some change to it, so our shorthand for it is the universe's genre. We have noted that each universe seems to change a bit more than the last one. I was from the last integrated universe about two years ago. I was also the only female Terrance so they didn't notice me right away. My universe is pretty similar to yours; my universe ended up with people gaining low to mid-level superpowers."

Terrance stared at Tessa absorbing all of this new information.

"What's your power, Tessa?" Tessa smirked at that.

"Why don't I just show you? Touch my hand."

Terrance got a bit nervous and started overthinking things. He reached out his hand and interlaced his fingers through hers. Tessa's eyes widened and stared at Terrance in amazement.

Then Terrance heard a voice in his head, 'I'm so sorry, I should have explained more first." And Tessa looked mortified as she looked down.

"I'm assuming you can hear and project thoughts. I'm not responsible for anything you see in my head, especially this time. If you look in there, it's your own fault." Terrance said stone-facedly.

"Yep, that was one hundred percent on me. I will keep everything," she gulped and squirmed, "confidential."

"Was the group from the video call assembled to look as similar to the planet's Terrance as possible?"

"That's correct," Tessa said regaining some of her original confidence. She continued, "I should explain about the Abnormals. We are each a Terrance who had something that greatly deviated from the supposed average. As you can tell, I'm a woman, and the other Terrances are men. There are 14 of us that are Abnormals, and I think you make number 15."

"How am I abnormal?"

"None of this is meant to be mean, it's just how things are. The average Terrance is a neurotypical male, has a light tan, and reddish brown hair. You are as pale as me, your hair has turned more brown, but the key thing is that you are the first Terrance that's on the autism spectrum. I would say you are probably only the third Terrance to actually be neurodivergent. Technically one of the Terrance from the call claims he has ADHD and a few of the neurotypical believe him, but he mainly just uses it to get away with being rude. He doesn't ever take any medicine for it, he doesn't have trouble in social settings, and he handles everything else fine. Obviously, we can't know what it's like in his head is what I've been told, but I'm skeptical since I've never actually been allowed in his head. I actually have ADHD and it takes a lot to keep it managed."

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"I bet that's hard with your powers," Terrance said

"Yes, thank you. I actually have to keep my powers off most of the time. I don't actually have to have touch, but I use that as a focusing technique to block everyone else out…."

Terrance leaned over and hugged Tessa. Tessa flinched at first and then hugged back.

"What are you doing Terrance, I'm supposed to be here to help you feel better."

"You seemed like you needed it. Your lips had a downturn left corner, there was a slight tension in the corner of your eyes and you were slowly wiggling in your seat closer towards me."

"That's how you see everything in the world, isn't it? The constant analysis then figuring out what the patterns of behavior match to?"

"Use your power if you want to know."

Tessa's face went slack for a moment before she came back to herself.

She opened up her purse and showed a tiny plushie in it.

"Yes, I also have a plushie to hold during stressful times. I saw that thought wandering around in your head. It's a stegosaurus."

Terrance reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out an ankylosaurus plushie of the same size. He bumped his ankylosaurus's head against her stegosaurus's head and Tessa let out a giggle.

"Welcome to being an Abnormal Terrance. No one is going to push it yet, but you'll want to be thinking of the nickname you want to go by, otherwise the council will assign you one."

Terrance refocused and said, "I'll want a list of what's taken, but I don't want to see it yet so I can avoid poisoning the well"

"I have a directory for you along with some other information for you to read through, so that will tell you what's taken. All paper files. They are in the rental car right now. Now, I want to give you the rundown of what's going to happen to your universe. It's all best guesses, but it usually follows the same rough pattern, with more deviation in the most recent additions like mine."

"Okay, let's hear it."

"First, the world governments are going to put out heavily redacted info packets in a few days. At least until someone leaks the full thing, which usually happens within a month. I've got you a full copy of that to go with your info packet. Obviously, you should not be the leak, as that will come with a lot of attention you don't want. Usually, in about 6 weeks the first reality shifts will be noticed. Everyone on this planet will be affected, but the level of effect varies. Most people in my universe were just up to 5% faster, stronger, or more flexible, or something like that. The very first people that catch attention will be more changed than most people, but will still be on the mid to lower range of changes when everything has settled into place. Sometimes someone like an international-level athlete getting a lot better out of nowhere catches attention, but only if something equivalent to the Olympics is going on. Mostly, the first magic or supernatural powers shown off will catch the attention initially, and that is not necessarily good.

Most people will have experienced whatever change is going to happen within two months. If you are like me, then your manifestation will happen around week 9. This will be a big time of societal upheaval. The multiversal coalition will help most governments not let it get to apocalypse levels or anything like that, but you are going to want to hunker down. The Council of Terrance always helps the new Terrance during at least the first four months after a transition. We can't take you out of your universe until your manifestation happens, so usually a team of Terrance hunkers down to help out the new Terrance. You have the option to just have me, or you can have a group of…"

"I pick you"

"Well okay then. Anyway, we'll help you through this time. I'll be your contact. I have a hotel room for now."

"So we don’t know what will happen, but it will be up there with everyone getting superhuman abilities. You say you are upper tier of the abilities your planet has, and I’m likely to be similar. There will be turmoil, and once people start connecting dots, I'll be recognized as some kind of special existence. Among this Council of Terrance, I will be considered abnormal. You will stay and be a point of contact and help. Did I miss anything?"

"I think you got all the basics."

Terrance looked out the window, lost in thought. Tessa watched him, noticing the furrowed lines on his forehead. She reached out her hand and placed it on his, offering a comforting touch.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"I'm just processing everything," he replied, his voice low. "This is a lot to take in."

"I know. But you're not alone. We'll get through this together."

He smiled weakly at her, squeezing her hand in gratitude. Tessa's heart swelled with warmth, happy to be able to offer him some comfort.

She wasn't reading his mind, but she could get a sense of the amount of activity going on in his head right now.