Bound Friends Pt. 01

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.

A smile went across Andrea's face. "Start new session."

"Select players individually, or say 'all players' to add everyone signed into the device." Andrea barely let it finish before spouting out "all players."

"Set a session's maximum and minimum length" replied the machine. Andrea replied "at least till 9, no later than 11." The screen read: Min 9pm, Max 11pm, say correct to confirm. She did.

"Would you like to manually set difficulty controls, or use a generalized difficulty setting?"

Andrea had to think about it. "Hugh, generalized difficulty is also not in the free version," she said quietly turning back to her friends. "Lea, did the store say much about this?"

"Just that the generalized difficulty setting will take your past responses into account and set levels for all the different categories based on that and what you've selected in the past"

"Generalized difficulty" Andrea replied.

"Set difficulty 1-10" the box replied

"Andrea, one more thing." Lea interrupted. "The store also mentioned that there's a new feature only for boxes where you can set difficulty to 11 and it will gradually try to push us past where we've been before. I'm up for that if you three are."

Megan and Sophia were quick to agree, and while Andrea still had her doubts she had to admit it sounded intriguing. "Difficulty 11."

"Difficulty 11 may push past previous personal limits, and edicts may not be backed out of. Each player must say 'confirm' to begin." The box was using much more serious tone than it had previously used as it said this.

One at a time the box called each of the girl's names, followed by the girl responding "confirm." A drawer would open with a metal band. As soon as one girl removed it from the drawer it would close, the box would then wait for the band to go around the girl's neck and it would then call the next girl. Each band came from the same drawer, one of the girls would shut it empty and then another would open it to find another identical band dropped in there from some internal mechanics.

Sophia was the last one called and once she had put her band around her necks the box produced a loud "click" sound, like a click of a lock shutting. "All four players accept, bands will now lock." The box said in its much colder tone.

"Wait, locked?" Andrea said with surprise. She tried pulling her band but it was locked fastly around her neck.

The box continued. "Records show that while all of you meet the minimum playing hours and age requirements, none of you have played Difficulty 11 before. The rules are different here. I will take all that I know about each of you from your past play, and use your reactions to decide what orders to give. You will not choose your order type, I will. You do not get any free passes, you either do as you are told or take a punishment. You do not have any topic limits in this game, I can select any a challenge from any topic I wish. I however will not give you a kind of order you do not enjoy more than once. But so long as you enjoy what is happening I will push you further than you have gone before and you will have no choice in the matter. Sometimes I will move from player to player like a normal eDict game, sometimes I will focus intently on a single player giving them task after task until I decide to move on. I will give you a moment to think about this."

The room went silent. Everyone was too shocked to look at eachother. Andrea felt the metal around her neck, brushing it with her fingers as if that would make this make a little more sense. It was tight but not uncomfortable, besides the receiver box at the front it was a perfectly unbroken piece of brushed metal. "There should have been some more warning," she thought. This was all a little crazy, clearly whatever locked the collar was in the receiver box that now sat at the front of her neck, pulling did nothing. But as her fingers continued to lightly brush the metal she started to feel the kind of rush she used to get when she first found this game.

The booming voice returned after another minute. "This had been your final chance to back out. I am able to monitor how you feel and no one seems to be disturbed, under the terms of use this was your final consent."

"Not disturbed? How could that be?" Andrea thought. She certainly felt a little disturbed. "The fact that the disturbance was a rush shouldn't factor in, should it?" She brought her head up and looked around, Megan and Sophia certainly looked disturbed.

"What do you mean not disturbed?" Megan blasted out as if reading Andrea's mind.

"I will clarify," said the cold voice of the game. "None of you exhibit signs of panic, extreme dread or an unpleasant fear. Difficulty 11 is meant to make you uncomfortable, but not in ways that is ultimately unpleasant. None of you exhibit signs of this unpleasantness, so I will continue."

After that was more silence, I guess no one could argue that it was a bit exhilarating.

"I will ask all four of you to answer yes or no, have you read the manual for Difficulty 11?" The game asked.

All four answered no. This was followed shortly by Lea screeching in mild pain and falling to the floor grabbing her band. After catching her breath Lea quickly but quietly corrected herself by saying yes.

"I ask the three of you who haven't, would you like a chance to do so now or would you prefer it be kept from you? This will be the only time I offer, but remember to not lie as your friend just did."

Andrea looked at her two friends unsure of what she actually wanted, knowing she really didn't want whatever happened to Lea. Eventually Sophia broke the silence "I don't need to know." This was followed quickly by Meagan saying the same. Andrea was still very torn, but thought that as crazy as it seemed she might deep down agree with her friends. The not knowing was a bit exciting and a part of why she first started playing the game a while ago. "I don't need to know either."

"Good, then all you need to know is that my word is law. Break the law and you will be punished."

A rush ran through Andrea as she heard this. It all made things seem so much more real, that there were actual penalties for doing things wrong beyond just "losing" the game.

"Andrea, it is your birthday so I shall start with you. When did you first let someone play with your breasts?"

Andrea was shocked, the game had never been sexual before! She looked around at her friend's glaring eyes. It was one thing to talk about this stuff with her friends (even if they rarely did) it was quite another to have it forced out of you my a machine. "Last year."

"Meagan, have you ever stolen something from a store?"

The machine continued grilling in no particular order and with no consistent topic. Nothing very scandalous came up and that might have been the problem. It seemed like the game was actively searching for something big to run with that it just wasn't finding.

"Lea, do you find girls sexually attractive?"

Lea blushed, this was not some big revelation to her friends, she had told them some time ago, but somehow having it forced out of her seemed different. She grabbed her collar and closed her eyes, seeming ready to brace for another shock. At the last second she opened her eyes, let go of her neck and said a plain and simple "yes."

Andrea was admittedly a little surprised that this had phased Lea. What surprised her even more was that when she answered "no" to the same question, she got a shock. Andrea fell to the side, clawing at her collar but the shock was over long before her fingers ever reached. "The machine must be broken," she thought. They had in their younger years played around, but Andrea had always seen it as harmless experimentation before they started really meeting boys.

The question went racing around Andrea's mind, she had stopped paying attention to what anyone else was doing around her. It's not that she was hung up on the morality of it all, her parents and the school might disagree but she really didn't see it as wrong. No, she had simply never stopped to think about it.

"Andrea" Lea said, snapping her fingers in front of her friend's face.

"Sorry, lost in thought. What did I miss?"

"Megan and Sophia doing the same thing you did," Lea replied, pointing at the two who were holding their hands to their throats in a similar fashion to how Andrea had just been.

"Lea you read the instructions, why didn't you warn me about shocks like this?"Andrea finally asked as she sat back up.

"I didn't want to scare you, and I though it would be a small little zap I didn't know it would be this strong."

"And game.. box, whatever I should call you," Andrea started as she directed her attention at the screen in front of her.

"For Difficulty 11 games, my name is Adam for Autonomous Dictating Algorithm Manifestation."