Since the message wrapped up the screen went back to normal the desk and chair rose. At almost the same time the lanky fellow came in from the other room.
"So, now you've seen the video. What questions do you have?" he asked moving straight to the point as he moved to the desk and sat down making a steeple with his hands.
"Where do I begin! This is insane! I can live on a spaceship or ride a dinosaur!!! How could I possibly choose?" Clark said completely flabbergasted at the amount of information he was receiving.
"Well, to start you may want to look at the bios of each person you could replace. Even though the planets or systems you can live on are important. The life you are replacing is even more so. The video does a good job giving you an overview but I feel it lacks a little in that respect. Anyway, my point is, you may live in a place with spaceships but that doesn't mean you will be the space captain. It is actually quite the opposite in fact." he said explaining some of what Clark wanted to know but leaving him with more questions.
"What did you mean by it 'quite the opposite', does that mean anywhere I go I will likely be at the bottom of the totem pole!" Clark said with a little worry creeping into his voice.
Unfortunately for Clark, the lanky fellow hesitated, confirming his fears. "Well, that isn't always the case but…" the man began hesitatingly. However, upon seeing Clark's face he appeared to decide to change what he was going to say. He took a deep breath and looked Clark in the eye once before continuing, "Yes, you are. To put it bluntly, you are leaving your world because the opportunity you had wasn't the best for you. Every other fellow has the same situation. Which in almost every case means that you will be at the bottom of the lower than anyone on the planet." he said with a bluntness so harsh Clark couldn't help but feel like he was doomed.
With a conciliatory tone, the fellow began again, "However, we rank each opportunity for you, after all, you are not only chosen because your life is bad and you need another hand in life. But, also because you will be able to do better for someone else's life. And if you are really worried you have 32 opportunities which are larger than normal so you may find a good opportunity among your options."
"So, I might be a King or a Lord?" Clark asked more than a little hopeful.
Once again that deadly hesitation began again before the lanky fellow started again, "Well, not likely but if you do get a position like that… You are probably going to be absolutely miserable. At least at first. Otherwise, the person who is swapping lives wouldn't ever want to switch."
This made sense to Clark but he was more than a little worried and with this worry, he realized he'd missed an important part, "What do you mean by swapping lives?"
"Well, simply put, we don't make new life nor do we destroy it here. We just swap your life with someone else's," he said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"So do I lose my memories? Or do I look like them? Will I become a woman?!? How does it work?" Clark said really hoping he hadn't made a mistake.
"Don't worry it's not as bad as you think. You have a couple of opportunities to chose from. One you keep your memories and part of theirs. Or you can just keep your and you will have "amnesia" so you will only have your prior memories. Both have pros and cons just know that any embarrassing moments or ones that could affect you poorly in some way. Such as a constant fear of spiders will be removed either way." he said summing up the options well but leaving Clark to chose rather than leading him.
"Is there anything else that I need to know?" Clark asked knowing that there'd be something that he'd forget.
"Ah, yes. Did you notice the blue woman on the screen?" he said with a gesture toward the wall behind him.
"Yes, I did! How or Why was she blue?" Clark asked having completely forgotten about the blue woman.
"Each planet can have… Unique, challenges. In her case, the planet had a different make-up than earth's and her body produces blue-colored melanin. Her planet also has more cool colors than earth. In particular iron is actually really rare but metals that are blue in color are more common. Unfortunately, that means the air can at times be more toxic. To combat this, people on that planet have a higher tolerance to chemicals." he said bringing up an image of the woman with different element statistics and planet statistics up on one of the screens behind him.
Clark noticed now that the screens all started showing different planets with their respective compositions. He saw that the solar system like group showed a simplified screen with multiple planets that were habitable for life. This made him wonder if it could help him cheat to find out if any planets on earth were habitable but he supposed that knowing the answer wouldn't help him once he wasn't on earth anyway.
"So, as I've said before, 'one never knows how much time they have' speaking of which we actually have 3 customers in the lobby right now. This means that you need to decide or possibly lose some options." the man said looking at a watch that Clark apparently had missed before.
"Does that mean that if I don't choose how they will go first?" Clark asked hoping he wouldn't be too out of luck if that were to happen.
"That's sort of true. Essentially I can set you up for your plan. However, if you need more time you can go back to the lobby to think. If you take extremely long we even have some beds in an adjoining room. We actually had a lawyer that stayed here for a week! He just couldn't decide. He ended up losing lots of options because he took so long. The reason it took him a week was because he didn't like the other options and once a decent option showed up he realized he had to take it and off he went." the man said seeming to smile at the memory.
Clark's brain finally started kicking to overtime as he realized the implications. Apparently, he had 32 options. But, if he couldn't choose now the option he wanted may be gone. "Can I have just a few minutes to look at the options?" Clark asked hopefully to stall just a little so he could learn what he needed.
"Of course, I will just take another break and maybe I will talk to the others in the lobby. Since there are multiple people there I might be able to expedite some things a bit." The lanky man said before setting down his drink which was finally empty and he went towards the door where Clark came from.
"OH! Before I forget, just ask the screens what you want to know or look at the pamphlet in your pocket. The pamphlet will turn into a table and has lots of options to help you out." he said and with that, he left Clark alone to his devices.
Clark hurriedly pulled out the pamphlet and immediately it unfolded and became a tablet. However, Clark noticed that as it opened up. It appeared that the tablet had no thickness. He tried to grab it and his hand felt some resistance but he couldn't really touch it.
"Amazing tech, I wonder how they got it…" Clark wondered. But seeing that this was a world between worlds. He figured they could get whatever tech they wanted.
Upon opening the tablet up, it immediately showed him a list of planets and the ranking that had been mentioned. It showed safety, success, and destiny. He tapped one of the success percentages and a little pop up informed him that it ranked their likelihood to be successful in a worldly way. Such as getting money, lands, and other kinds of opportunities that could make his life easier.
He did the same to safety, which seemed to give the obvious answer of how safe he would be. Last, of all, he clicked destiny. It said, "This shows how likely you are to bless and help the world you would go to." This sounded like the obviously most important option but also the one that would help him the least.
He saw that currently it was alphabetical and it showed Abet. The forest/jungle planet with the big dinos. It had a score of 8% safety, 66% success, 48% destiny. He thought it was interesting but he wasn't willing to worry about having an 8% safety rating.
Upon noticing this he saw he could change to look at the worlds based on safety. This immediately shuffled the world with the first at 93% safety. Not much to Clark's surprise, it was the space world's place. It showed a 76% successful ranking and a… 11% destiny rating? Even though he had already started leaning toward that option. It seemed apparent he did not have much destiny for the place.
He really wanted to go there but Clark knew, in his heart, if he couldn't bring about good like he had talked about with his professor. He simply wouldn't be happy. Still, he thought. 11% isn't 0 right? Also maybe all my scores will be that low he thought.
Upon thinking this he clicked on the destiny tab. It immediately showed the jungle planet at 48% destiny to which he nodded his head. "See, 11% isn't that bad right?" he thought to himself trying to justify his opinion. Unfortunately, it seemed that destiny had to intervene literally.
Just as he was about to click on the success tab, a new world popped up with a 99% destiny rating. Once again Clark was shocked into almost losing his eyebrows