Part 1 - Andrea's Eventful Birthday
*****
Andrea paused her lunch to read her phone's new text, causing a smile to cross her face. "We are officially off, have a great week sweetheart - Mom & Dad." She still wasn't sure if it was a total coincidence or that her parents were being kind, that of all the weeks for them to go away this was the one they chose. She had never been left alone for more than a day or two, and now on the week of her 18th birthday her parents would be out to sea on an 11 day long cruise. They mentioned something about this being the cheapest time of year, or that it was one of the few times they both could take off work, but in the back of her mind she wondered if this wasn't there form of a present. "Happy birthday, here's the house to yourself!"
She had certainly never given her parents reason to doubt her. She has been a solid B+ student at St. Anne's, a private all girls school, stayed out of trouble and had overall earned a solid "good girl" image. She may not be on great personal terms with her parents, but she certainly felt she had earned their trust.
"Well they're officially gone," Andrea shared with her friends across the table.
"Sweat, we only have two more periods, Lea's already done, so should we just leave from here?" Asked Sophia.
"Good with me. Megan, that time work for you?" Andrea asked.
Megan nodded her head in agreement.
"I might be a little late, I got one thing to pick up. I'll call when I'm almost back." Lea added almost cryptically.
With that the four friends went back to their lunch and chatting. They had become nearly inseparable over the years, seemingly doing almost everything together. Andrea was the last of them to turn 18, and even though her big party was this Saturday her actual day was today and the four of them planned on celebrating just the four of them.
It was Thursday January 18th, the start of a four day weekend, and the teachers seemed just as eager as all the students to get out early and get on with their day. Andrea was let out ten minutes early but was still the last to arrive to where two of her friends were waiting for Lea.
Sophia was always the easiest to spot in a crowd. She was leaning up against the wall in her yoga pants and shirt, clearly just coming from practice. She was tall and slender with Mediterranean looking olive skin and black curly hair. Even without heels, which she rarely ever wore, she still towered over almost all the girls. She had been taking dance classes since she was little and it made her at times strike a pose when waiting like she was right now and not even realize it. Between her dancing and her place on the track team, she was always in amazing shape. The two things had kept her toned and given her incredible flexibility, but she sometimes wondered if it was some kind of dancer's curse that kept her chest and ass so flat.
Megan by contrast could easily be Andrea's sister, something that certainly isn't helped by going to a school with uniforms, though she had already changed out of hers. They were both wavy-haired brunettes, a bit on the short side, had deep blue eyes, and were just a little bit curvy. They didn't have Sophia's toned stomach, there was even the tiniest bit of flab, but both made up for it with their natural C cups and round ass to match. Their short curvy frames never had trouble getting attention when they were out, and that was good enough. The only thing that visually separated the two was their different hairstyles, Megan prefered long hair done up while Andrea prefered a shoulder length cut.
Lea on the other hand was much less noticeable. She wasn't unattractive by any means but that's perhaps the best that could be said. She was medium height, about half way between her friends. She was skinny but not toned or athletic like Sophia. had a decent pair of breasts but nothing as pronounced as Andrea or Megan. She was pale, had long straight jet black hair and wore black rimmed glasses for her nearsightedness that made her look like a bit of a nerd. Honestly she was quite a bit of a nerd, but that's not exactly a bad thing. None of them were exactly quite the "cool" kids at the school. Certainly no one was complaining last summer when she was the only one to land a summer job, working with computer systems or something. They definitely weren't complaining when that summer job helped her buy a car, it might have been really old but it was more than any of them had making her everyone's unofficial taxi.
The four of them had been friends for years. The each moved to town part way through the year and bonded at first over their shared "outsider" status in this small Pennsylvania town of Tullburg. They each made other friends in time, but none of them felt quite as close. They didn't always have as many things in common with each other as they did with some of their other friends, but it didn't matter. Turns out sometimes having everything in common was a little overrated when you have a common history.
Andrea waved to her two friends as she walked up while Megan was just hanging up her phone. "That was Lea, she's only a few minutes out," Megan explained.
"Any idea what she was picking up?" Andrea asked.
"Nope, assuming it's drinks or something for tonight," Megan responded.
It wasn't drinks.
A little over a year ago, a company combined some of the recent computer breakthroughs to put a new spin on an old game. It receives its fair share of mockery, but not from Lea, her friends or the almost million other regular players. It's essentially a high tech, computer controlled game of truth or dare called eDict.
eDict can be played a few different ways. There's the "trial" version, where you are given requests through the website, and it's up to you to be honest. There's the free version, which is a bit of a misnomer because while there's no monthly cost you need to buy what the company calls a TruBand to play. It's online as well, but unlike the trial version the TruBands can detect whether you are following orders and answering truthfully.
Finally there's the paid version which requires you to buy hardware and also pay a monthly fee. You first purchase an eDict Box, they come in different sizes, and they will be pre-packed with things that might be used during dare edicts. What it gets packed with is personalized based on criteria and user history, and they can be repackaged at any store or by mail if you don't mind waiting a bit. People can manually pick an inventory, but most just rely on probabilities since then it maintains a bit of uncertainty. Boxes are meant to be the only thing you need when playing.
Lea just purchased a box as a gift and she needed to pick it up from the city, which was a bit of a drive. She sprang for the deluxe model, and while it had wheels she still had trouble getting it in the back of her car. It was the size of a large trunk and Lea only had a small hatchback. She covered it with a blanket and a few odds and ends to keep it a surprise. As she picked up her waiting friends and drove to Andrea's now empty house, they didn't notice a thing.
"Make yourselves at home," Andrea snickered as her three friends started meandering back to the living room while Andrea went upstairs to change out of the maroon sweater and grey skirt that was her uniform.
After an hour or two of flipping through a whole lot of nothing good, Lea ducked back to get her gift. The box was heavy but once it was on the ground she could wheel it to where she needed it. Lucky for her there weren't any steps and she quickly had it moving down the hallway to her friends.
"Andrea, I've got a surprise for you," Lea announced as she walked into view just before the box she was dragging.
"Oh my god, is that what I think it is?" Sophia exclaimed
"Yes it is. Andrea, I know you play this as much as the rest of us, might as well play in style."
Andrea got up off the couch and started moving the coffee table towards the corner of the room. "Bring it here, this thing's massive."
"Do we need our bands? I could still run over and get mine," Sophia asked.
"Nope, this has enough bands for eight players, and they're a bit more serious than the fabric ones we normally play with." Lea started explaining
One of the technologies part of eDict are what the game makers call TruBands. It's all based off some breakthroughs law enforcement came up with years ago while trying to make an infallible lie detector, but no one saw that tech being used for a game like this. The bands equipped with a small camera, wifi to connect to a computer or a box and enough sensors it can pick up on just about anything no matter how subtle. You place a band around your neck like a collar, and from there it combines with voice reading software to tell when someone's not being truthful. It's so good it doesn't even need yes/no answers, it can tell if what you're saying is in any way not the fully truthful even if it's not an outright lie. It can even often, though admittedly not perfectly, tell someone's answer just by how they react to the question without them saying a word. Most people just use the standard rubber lined fabric bands you manually tighten with a velcro strap. But those people don't have deluxe boxes.
"This is the deluxe box, it has eight bands included and they're metal," Lea explained. "There's still the rubber lining, but instead of a velcro strap you feed one end into a box on the front and it clicks closed."
"Wait, so where do we get these bands?" Andrea asked as she examined the box.
Lea lifted up a flap revealing a screen. "We just sign in here to our regular accounts, start a session and a compartment will open with our bands. Andrea, it's your machine, you go first."
Andrea sat in front of the machine and proceeded to connect it to the home network and sign in to their online accounts. It the screen asked "add more players or continue" after each person had finished logging in. Once all four were signed in Andrea pressed continue.
"Welcome" the box said, chiming to life. As it spoke the TV turned back on, showing an enlarged version of the words being spoken. "I have detected a TV in the room, if you do not want me to use this say 'no extra displays' or select the option from the touch screen. To start a new session, say 'start new session' or select it from the touch screen."
"It talks! The free version never talked!" squealed Andrea in excitement.
"Yes I do, I can also accept voice commands for everything but adding new profiles," said the surprisingly human like voice. "You can always change these settings by saying 'voice options' or by selecting it from the menu. I also am program to learn from experience to enhance the quality of the games, something my free counterpart also can not do."
"This is so cool, what do you say, start playing now?" Andrea said as she turned back to face her friends.
"It's your day, what do you want?" asked Megan.
