Today was sunny and Penny was feeling great, so she decided to pull a lighthearted and fun prank that many people would appreciate. She started by researching the background of every Secret Service agent guarding the president and selecting one with close physical characteristics to her own, then she shapeshifted and did a scan of his face and body. Then Penny did a scan of her regular body and made a mask and costume, then fabricated a suit, weapon and identification. She familiarized herself with his mannerisms and speech patterns, what words he preferred in given situations and his interactions with his colleagues. She had a large amount of data on people known as a secret.

Next, Penny researched what government employees were living close to the president and marked their residences on her maps and planned a route and timeline she would try to follow. She was already pranking people from the NSA and government restrooms, what were a few more targets added to her list?

The preparations also included infrared lights around her face to obstruct cameras, her trusty directional EMP, a multi tool in case the doors are more secure than her B&E set could handle, a stack of permanent markers and her infiltration AI so she could use their printers to leave a calling card on the scene. And the rest of the day she spend in the Learning Machine, transferring knowledge on how to infiltrate, walk silently, approach someone without rising suspicion and other general burglary, spy and Secret Service skills. You could find a lot of stuff on the internet if you knew where to look and had AI who knew how to analyze the data and apply it to the Learning Machine.

Later in the evening, Penny changed the way she looked, applied a new disguise and teleported close to her destination. And that destination was the place they exchanged the daily passwords and code words and other stuff Secret Service agents do to confirm identities. She had to have an excuse for how she knew his information, so she planted a few very advanced bugs around the room that were intended to be found at the next bug sweep. Then she intercepted the agent before he could go to his shift and rendered him unconscious with the alien unconsciousness gun right in front of a working camera, then she removed her disguise and put on her new one while being recorded. And of course all the camera saw of her face was a white circle, because of the infrared lights around her face. Hey, MacGyver did it, so it should be true enough. When she was done with her disguise, clothes and stashing the unconscious man, she removed the infrared lights, waved at the camera, send them an air kiss and went to work.

The agent greeted his coworkers, answered the phrases, passwords and whatever else, exchanged some gossip, did his rounds, visited the bedroom of the sleeping president without anyone spotting him, and printed the calling card with a laughing face like the one on her suit, then she quietly slipped away and traveled to her next destination. And then the next and the next. By the time morning came, she was done with almost all the residences she had marked on her route. At sunrise she teleported home and awaited news about the reaction of everyone who she pranked that night.

That same morning dozens of government employees woke up, went to the bathroom to do their business and then screamed from surprise as they saw themselves in the mirror. There were mustaches, beards, glasses and whiskers and a lot more drawn on their faces. Penny’s artistic sense wasn’t as high as some of her other attributes, but she had technical sense and so she stuck to the classics. Once the shock dissipated the questions started to appear. Who? How? When? They returned to the bedrooms and found the calling card of the Prankster. Most didn’t know who that was, but some were in the know. The biggest reaction was that of the President. There were agents summoned, cameras checked and an investigation started. They quickly found out about the agent that was the likely suspect and tried to find him. The writhing on the note left behind, pointing them to check an alley was of great help in finding the unconscious man. There was more checking of cameras, interrogation and much later in the day, checks for leaks in the entire system, from those on top to the grunts on the bottom. Everything kin of calmed down after they found the listening devices, but there was still a lot of tension. The prankster had been so close to the President, that if he had nefarious intentions he would be dead and they still wouldn’t know who did it. So, new security measures started to be discussed, planned and implemented in hopes of preventing something like that in the future. Then, they found out that the President wasn’t the only target and a lot of important people, some more than others, were victims to the same prank in the same night and that discovery made their tension rise to a whole new degree. And Penny was watching it all, on the cameras she installed while she was in the homes, laughing about how clueless everyone was about her. They even thought She was a He.

Still, she calmed down after a few minutes and got back to working. The look of the new avatar was set and now she just had to stuff all the technology inside to make it work like the real deal. But, that was just another type of puzzle and she was good at puzzles, even if it took her hours of trial and error and a lot of help from the AIs and their math skills and simulations to come up with a working design. For the rest of the day, she fabricated parts, assembled them with her hands and enchanted the avatar to work in other dimensions or anywhere in this universe. And in the evening, right in front of her stood and alien xenomorph with titanium gold skeleton, carbon and graphene shell and the most advanced robotics in between. She had sandwich of awesomeness in front of her. And she had to immediately try it, so she downloaded a game from the alien franchise and teleported her creation inside for its test run.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She wasn’t going to use it to kill or maim, just comparing it to the capabilities of the other xenomorphs. Could it scale walls, move through vents, sneak around unsuspecting soldiers? And of course, could it survive intense fire from military guns? And the short answer was “yes”. The long one was, yes, yes, yes, yes. It could do all of the things mentioned above and a lot more. Other than the sandwich of awesomeness, Penny also filled the thing with awesomeness gravy, micro bots with different make, so when it opened its mouth, all kinds of things could come out of it other than those freaky second jaws. Also from the tail. And the claws.

After finishing her testing, Penny went to bed. The next morning after her hours of routine exercises, she started working on something connected to her secret project, but also could probably function without, a fog machine. No, not the dry ice and water stage show fog machines, real fog made from cooling water vapor in the air close to the ground. That could also function as a practical test for all the weather learning she did a few weeks back or a prototype for a weather machine. That could come in handy and villains from old movies always threatened the world with weather machines, so why not? So, how was Penny planning on making fog? With laser cooling water vapors in the air. For that purpose, she needed to create a device with 6 laser pointed towards a central point through which to vent air. She would then create a number of these devices and install them around the place she wanted the fog to form. And with a little tweaking in the design she could form even clouds and possibly find a way to move both the fog and clouds. Possibly. So Penny got to work designing and every ten or so minutes, she send her ideas to be checked by the AIs and receive data to change or improve her design further. She was this close to finishing her secret project and if this fog machine worked, she would be almost done.

Penny was just about to go to her next flying lesson, when her glasses started ringing. Looking at the caller, she saw it was the people testing her craft for the experimental aircraft license, so she quickly answered the call.

-Please tell me you didn’t crash my car! I put a lot of time and effort into building it.-

-What? No! We didn’t crash anything. No, we are calling because we found a function you didn’t tell us about and after looking at it, we have to tell you, you will need a separate license for that one.-

-Wait, why? Isn’t piloting a submarine the same as flying, just underwater?-

-Don’t know, don’t care. Just calling to tell you we can’t certify your submarine. And how the beep were you able to cram both an airplane and submarine to that thing?-

-As I said, piloting a submarine is the same as flying, just underwater. So I just made the plane able to fly underwater.-

So, now she had to research where to get a submarine license, which would probably take several more weeks in which she won’t be able to drive her new car. Good thing she took her frustration on the government yesterday, or she would be steaming to do something to them for all these hoops she has to jump through. So, anyways, she went to her lesson, flew around a little to register the hours, studied the experience to program into a new simulation game, then when she was done, she went to get herself an ice cream cone to drown her frustrations. She also made her AIs read Dungeon Games on Royal Road and make the same game for the holographic boards, but with less individual AIs for every creature and more of the one AI for the civilization or species. There would still be direct control of characters with the VR helmet and avatar programing, just not as realistic and no psychological effects on the user. And thinking of the VR helmets, Penny called Jenny to talk about the new games that needed testing and the marketing for the helmets.

-Hey, Jenny. How are you doing?-

-I am running a company, how do you think I am doing?-

-Cool, cool. So I was bored and made a new periphery device for the game console and was wondering if the testers can, you know, test it?-

-Your boredom is a scary thing. What did you make this time?-

-Oh, nothing much. It is more of me getting existing technology and cobbling it together. I took the AR/VR glasses, the neural band from the Sextobot, a bunch of studies on the brain and every kind of signal it gives, how to read and interpret them and finally a noise canceling headphones and put them all into a VR helmet. You can now control any avatar with just your thoughts, without a need for a controller. If we use the haptic suit as sensory input for touch, the glasses for sight and headphones for sound, I just need to come up with something for smell and taste and we would have total emersion.-

-Whew, you actually did something normal for once. It is still incredible, don’t get me wrong, but in the realm of something others could do with just more study. For a second there I was afraid you would tell me you cracked full dive VR technology.-

-I don’t think I can achieve full dive without resorting to some kind of implant. I still don’t know if it is possible to intercept the signals from the optic nerve and other senses with just outside stimuli, so to achieve them I will have to get inside the head with external equipment and that would require medical testing, so I don’t plan on doing it any time soon.-

-So you do know how to achieve full dive technology!-

-Sure, I just don’t want to waste my time with medical testing. This type of VR can be just as realistic if we work on it a little, so why bother with the other kind? Anyways, I will send a batch of helmets and a few new games for testing. You just send me the testers data on the games and any grievances they have, so I can work on them.-

-Sure thing. Bye for now.-

Penny ended the call, programmed for ten helmets to be fabricated and then got to work on new games for the console. She wanted to have between 20 and 50 games for the release of the console and for now she didn’t have even ten. It was time to remedy that and start actively thinking of new games to program.