Week 27, Tuesday: A Gift for Pinkie

Sitting outside Pinkie’s room was a large synthwood crate, around person-sized. Attached to it was a note, handwritten in English, that read:

Pinkie,
You’ve got me kind of curious, so I thought I’d get you something for your troubles. I wasn’t sure what your tastes are, so I just bought the top games on the platinum chart.
Ida

Inside the box was an Immersion Suite virtual reality chair. Packed in with it were three sims: Dragun, a fantasy adventure game where you shoot flying lizards with all sorts of “historically accurate” firearms; Petshop 7: Game of the Year Edition, an animal simulator featuring over a hundred extinct and near-extinct animals (the existence of some being a little questionable); and GEMSTORM, a puzzle game where thousands of gemstones come flying at the player and they have to match and eliminate the gems before they drown in the tide of crystals. The cases of each game were made of pure platinum.

*Pinkie found herself confronted by a crate blocking her way into her room. In truth she had almost walked into it, her mind not so far away but very definitely on other things. Pinkie momentarily forgot to frown at the crate, simply too stunned by its, to her perception, sudden presence. The slight frown then wormed its way onto her predominately bored expression, which became tinged instead with curiosity and wariness when she realised the crate presented a mystery. Yes the note had her name in large letters on it but, Positron would not leave a little note, certainly not in his own handwriting, he said he would not have anything for me for a few weeks yet and why would he not send something via Ace? Sosie would want to to give me something in person or leave it inside my room. Xu would not trust the mail, Ace... has no reason to get anything for me and neither does Parvati. Darya, again no reason. The pendant was enough recognition for the Shi Yukiro mission and you have not done anything to warrant further reward since then. He wouldn't send anything this big.... I have not sent for anything lately... Okay fine, what are you little note? Pinkie traced her left index finger down one of the crates edges, the lockpick within dragging gratifyingly on the synthwood, as she read the card.
...
Which provided very little indeed in the way of answers and a whole array of questions. Ida, what have I made you curious about? Troubles?.... What the hell is a platinum chart? And why would you get me one?.... why do you always have to be a wild card? Pinkie shook her head and sighed. Was there not a crowbar around here somewhere? Oh well. Pinkie extended her claws and standing on tiptoe for a better angle, drove them into the top right corner. Placing her left hand on top of her right Pinkie pushed down, drawing her claws down to the very bottom, folding and crouching as she did so. Retracting her claws, Pinkie stood and with one arm grabbed the front of the crate and with some consideration, tore it off in one swift movement. Pinkie seemed to savour the action for a moment, closing her eyes, before looking inside at the truly arcane and unknowable machine contained within. Pinkie's face became the very image of exasperated befuddlement as she titled it to the side looking at, some sort of chair?. Pinkie reached inside, snatching up the reassuringly platinum, reassuring since she could identify the metal, and examined the cases for clues, common words or phrases, patterns of any kind. Instead she found only confusing and in one case clashing colours, historically accurate firearms, a promise of 100,000 hours of "entertainment" and that one of them was part of a volume? Pinkie hastily replaced the cases before openly staring at the thing in the centre of the crate in astonishment, Ida what kind of insane training regime are you expecting me to undertake?
....
Wait, that does not sound like something that Ida would do....After a few more confused moments, Pinkie returned the "lid" to the container, then with some care she lifted and shouldered the crate before setting off to seek assistance.*

Sosie? Sosie where are you? Ida has.... performed an action that I do not "get" again.

"Mmpphmmng." Sosie swallowed hurriedly. Back from the moon, content that her new body was growing well, the cyberneticist was scheduling appointments for installations next week and fattening up her body. She removed the smork'n'sausage? calzone from her mouth, and furrowed her brows, looking up at the ceiling of her room. "Gimmie a sec."

A moment later, a more or less dressed Sosie came upstairs, still licking her fingers. She paused as she entered the floor, looking from Pinkie to the crate to the flung off door to the chair. A grin spread across her face. "..Wow. What the hell did you do for Ida that she gave you an immersion suite?"

Sosie began removing packing and grabbing for the boxes, instantly absorbed in looking at it and figuring out the games. "Oh! And Gemstorm! I always wanted to give it a try!"