Skeleton key

“Here,” Lisa mumbled, handing over an innocuous silver key.

“Thanks,” I replied quietly as I took it.

It really didn’t look like anything special. It was just a spare house key, one of mine that had been sacrificed in order to become a tool for just this moment. If someone were to see it, they wouldn’t think anything about it, and even I might forget about it later and continue to use it as an ordinary key.

But it wasn’t, anymore.

I crouched down, and Lisa and Amy followed me onto their knees as I cautiously lifted up the front of the cloak so that I could reach the padlock. If Coil had any secret cameras pointed in this direction, I’d just have to hope that no one monitoring them was paying enough attention to notice me.

Once I had the padlock in hand, I took a second to offer a silent prayer — to who, I didn’t know, just as long as they were listening — and I carefully pushed my key into the keyhole.

It slid in without resistance.

I let out a breath through my nose. So far, so good.

Slowly, gently, I turned the key, and through the undersuit of my costume, I could feel the tumblers shift and move beneath my fingers, until, finally — click! — the shackle snapped up and open. I felt my lips tug into a grin.

It worked.

Lisa let out a low, relieved chuckle, and even Amy made a breathy, quiet sound that might have been a laugh.

“Have I told you your powers are bullshit, recently?” asked Lisa. “Because they so are.”

“You’re telling me,” I murmured.

The third thing I’d made was a “skeleton key,” so to speak. It was a device designed for the sole purpose of opening locks, no matter how complicated or complex. Whether it was a padlock or a bank vault, as long as it counted as a lock, this key should open it.

Now, whether that meant electronic locks or biometric locks, like the kind that required a password or a retinal scan, for those, I had no idea. Maybe if I’d have enough time to put the effort into making this thing really good, rather than just “good enough” for what we needed, it could do something like that. Something this low quality and half-assed, though? Probably not.