The Story:
As soon as he read the message that Lipwig found, Sergeant Vimes raced home, sirens blaring for traffic to move aside. His daughter was home in her room. His daughter was home in her room. His daughter was home in his room. Vimes pressed the gas pedal to the floor.
He was calling her name from the moment he pulled into the driveway and practically knocked the door off his hinges as he barged into her room. It was empty. There were no signs of struggle, no broken furniture, no open window. Instead, there was a single sheet of paper in the center of her otherwise impeccably clean desk. It looked like word find. Vimes hated word finds. He wouldn't have been able to solve it, anyway, what with his vision being all blurry for some reason. He placed the call to dispatch and managed to choke out what he needed.
The squad cars arrived a few minutes later. Lipwig was the first one in the door, already yanking on the glasses. They weren't even really needed this time. The message was easy enough to find just with normal vision. They helped speed the process, though, and they were already programmed to search for lyrics. Solving the puzzle was easy enough but, since it again didn't lead anywhere, a team was left downstairs to make sure the Sergeant was taken care of and the rest of the force left. Vimes sat in his daughter's room, staring at the perfectly aligned photographs on the wall, the bed made with hospital precision, and the desk as organized as ever.
With a start, Vimes realized that something was wrong. There were two blue pens in the cup. Anna only ever kept one of every color; that was all she needed. Eagerly, he pulled them both out. They were identical except that one had something opaque under the clear plastic. He quickly disassembled the pen and unfurled a tiny note. It took him a while to ponder and fiddle with the glasses and he had to step over to his office to use the computer, but he eventually figured it out. It seems that the hyper-modern art glasses were programmed to only find song lyrics so it missed a few words that were also hiding in the jumble. The puzzle seemed so simple that everybody else just presumed they had gotten more clever when they'd really just missed the hidden message. Now, he just had to figure out how to sneak past the team downstairs...
The Puzzle:
Can you find the song lyrics? Can you find the other message that only the Sergeant found?
The Note in the Pen:
Word Find:
Plain Text version of the Word Find:
DIHCUNGVVEOORTJEHNHGJNSTACJW
LUEVGNPGIHLBYUXFWXBEASDEHZBO
IZYLIRTISZDVORHNWOBGJXALOOEU
TIUNRVADEKIQURERVEYOABDVMSPP
TEAOLXWQLDDURXIGYRQINADNERBT
LLATAVAIEEDOPORHOGLODBYGXONY
EVLPFSYEAVPGASIKUEGRZAZSLTIL
UNLTBYFNVBKHLNXHDLOOGYCCBNGP
DRBEABZZEEGGOYVAAETAVRGHVETJ
OMBFDRQNLQPKNANENFHROPDFEVSE
ZLIOBUISQUARENFVTEMOYNEFNUKT
RCMNKEMIBESRRSIIEOERYLSMOABH
GUCSFNREAGGETZRSLNCYBBIRWGXE
HIFJRICLBYOZOAEKLLKRYLRPOUNC
CPDHRRPOYIOASGRDOWTWOHENYGDY
AYOETHTUKADJMVKOTIORUPGCOMRW
NGDRHOHIPYHBCLHRHOJSTJTSUIYC
FROGEOIUHHINAVNTACHOATASVNOG
QTZOCVNWIBMLNMCATBONTZKJFEUB
AYBNQEGBGEATBNBHQASNGDEIIJRM
QFQAIFSRHLIFZLCBCUJTUBVVRNNK
ZLCTABLEEXDUSCWYNKACGAIVEYEY
JFYOWEDJROGDAVSLKCGDKXGHOPYX
WVGHBODIHGMSFEDJMXIAOOEWVSVA
XGTHEKEYXBISHARBFRKJIJNOORXL
BYOURAKIDTCINANPZJATVPEYUINJ
YTMQOMBNRBOCGBEYENZTSERJARRW
KWIENYSYXBEJWNIHRPYIPTEVAEEG
The Follow-up:
If the police stationed at the house had tried to investigate where Seargeant Vimes had gone, they might have found the following in his computer's search history:
what is base two
convert message to base two
21+26+26+25
98*8
28*28
square table cipher
vigenere decoder
Answer
The hidden message is:
I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR SOME TIME NOW YOU HAVE DEVELOPED QUITE A NEGATIVE OUTLOOK ON LIFE IT SEEMS THAT YOU NO LONGER BELIEVE THE WORLD CAN SURPRISE YOU I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU SARGE MAYBE THIS WILL MAKE YOU APPRECIATE WHAT YOU HAVE COME TO YOUR OFFICE TONIGHT AT TWO AM COME ALONE OR ANNA DIES IF YOU THINK YOU CAN CALL FOR BACKUP WITHOUT ME KNOWING YOU ARE WRONG I AM WATCHING DO NOT BE LATE WE WILL BE WAITING
To get this:
Convert the message from the pen from ascii to binary:
The number of charactes is 98. 8 bits in the binary representation of a character gives 784 bits, which is the same as 28x28, the grid size for the word search.
Next Step:
Overlay the binary grid on the word search and wherever there are 1's record those characters travelling in row major order.
Final Step:
Decrypt the characters using a Vigenere cipher with "ANNA" as the keyword.
Image:
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