Fiction: Lock and Key

by Robert B. Schofield

I was at my local hackerspace finishing up my Arduino powered 3D LED grid.  It was currently displaying a 3D falling rain of light, when I heard a voice over my shoulder.

"Nice.  Very nice," it said, in an accent I didn't recognize.

I turned to see a skinny man in jeans and a leather jacket, with an English driving cap that bore the Union Jack across the top.  He had a bushy mustache, and a small triangular beard.  His accent was not British.

"Thanks," I replied, turning back to my project.  Next was a wall of light going front-to-back, left-to-right, then top-to-bottom.

"My name is Boleslav," the man behind me said.

"Lock," I said, turning around.

"That is an interesting name, and very appropriate for what I would like to discuss with you."

"And what is that?" I asked.

"This."  He reached into his jacket and slowly pulled out a key.  It was made of glass.

"What?"

He held it out and I took it.  I immediately realized it was not glass, but clear plastic, and there were tiny fiber optic lines inside.  I also noticed that the teeth of the key were all at the minimum key depth.  It was a bump key.  A clear plastic fiber optic bump key.  What in the world?

"Can I buy you a drink?" Boleslav asked.

Two beers later at the local dive a few blocks down, and I asked Boleslav, "Where did you get that?"

"No.  No questions about that," he said, holding up a hand.  "Yes, it is unique.  Very special.  And I have a proposition for you.  Would you like to work with it?"

"Sure.  I mean, maybe.  Work with it how?"

He grinned.  I think he knew he had me.  Still, I was wary.  This was not something you find online, not even on Silk Road, before that was shut down.

He pulled out the key again and held it between us.  "Notice the op-tiks," he said, in his strange accent.

I did.  They led from each of the teeth to a small connector on the bow of the key.

"It connects to a ka-mara," he said.  "A digital ka-mara."

I shrugged.

"You know what a bump key is?" he asked.

"Of course.  The teeth are all at the lowest possible point.  You insert the key, then back it out a notch.  You tap the key with a bump hammer while you turn it slightly, and if you're lucky, it opens the lock.

Boleslav grinned.  "Exactly.  If you are lucky."  He held up the key.  "This is for something better, to eliminate the luck."  He took a big swig of beer.  "You have a MakerBot at your haker-space.  You put this key in a lock, bump and take picture inside the lock.  Ha!  Your name!"  He patted my shoulder.  "Then you turn picture into real key.  What do you say?"

Interesting.  It seemed possible, at least in theory.  A unique challenge.  If the key really worked.  "Maybe," I said, thinking.  "Not an Arduino, it'll need a computer."

"Must be small," Boleslav said.

"A Raspberry Pi," I replied.  "But I don't have one, or the time to work on it."

"I have Bitcoins," he said.  "I have been mining since the start.  Ten now, and ninety more when it works."

I took the key from him, turned it around in my fingers, and nodded.

Of course this was not on the up and up.  I was not that naive.  But it was a challenge.  And what a unique key.  I cashed the Bitcoins and got the Raspberry Pi.  The key and small digital camera that connected to it that he gave me worked.  When I bumped the key in a lock the camera flashed the inside of the cylinder and pins and took about a hundred pictures.  I wrote some Python to calculate the proper length of the cylinders based on the pictures and then convert those to key teeth height.  A friend of mine, Sh0kwave, helped me turn that data into a MakerBot file, and easier than I expected, it worked!  I could print a working, plastic key that was easily strong enough to work in a lock.

Bump, snap, calculate, print, and you had a working key.

Boleslav met me at the bar, very excited, when I contacted him.  "Very good! Excellent!" he said when I showed him the plastic key and how it opened the test lock I'd used.  'Give to me and I will transfer the rest of the Bitcoins."

"Are you sure you'll transfer them?" I asked.

"Yes, of course!  You have my phone number, my email."

I hesitated a moment, then said, "O.K.," and handed over the equipment.

I checked the next day, but of course there was no transfer.  I didn't really expect it.  I'd traced his email through the header and his phone number and knew they were both throw-aways.  That was O.K.  It had been a fun challenge.  I still got ten Bitcoins to help fund my next project.  I knew Boleslav was a crook, or a spy, or something.  That was O.K. too, because the next time Boleslav, or whoever he worked for tried to use the gear I'd given him they would get a nice little surprise.  It would make a small object, but not a key.  They would slowly see a very small human fist appear.  And as they continued to watch, they would see that the fist had a single finger extended.