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You have stolen the object.

You have completed the mission.

You're ready to get out.

There's just one little snag:

Your driver was captured and you no longer have an escape route. You sent a communique to TFC Command on your secure device, requesting further orders, and the following string was sent back to you.

73 + 97 + 22 + 98 + 32

Clearly Command is unsure if you've been compromised, or not, and so they sent their response, encoded.

You must figure out how you're supposed to get out, quickly, before you're caught! Get to it!

Hint:

  1. The orders give a method of escape. You already know where to go.

  2. You know who you work for, and you have a pre-planned method for decoding these messages. You remember that the name of the organization you work for plays a part in decoding it.

  3. The organization you work for seems to be a little robin hood'ish, in everything that they do.

  4. Your organization regularly uses the + symbol to delineate things, in communiques. They consider it ironic.

  5. I'm positive that you can solve this, once you've figured out what the numbers mean.

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    $\begingroup$ Hold on... if you expect us to figure out the result from nothing more than the communication itself, doesn't that mean that it isn't an indicator of whether or not we're compromised? $\endgroup$
    – Ian MacDonald
    Apr 4, 2016 at 19:45
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    $\begingroup$ The encoding is meant to protect Command, not you. If you're compromised, it's your own job to get safe. :) $\endgroup$
    – Khale_Kitha
    Apr 4, 2016 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ Is there an obvious meaning for TFC that I'm missing? $\endgroup$
    – Alessandro
    Apr 5, 2016 at 15:19
  • $\begingroup$ No, but the company logo looks like this: <C $\endgroup$
    – Khale_Kitha
    Apr 5, 2016 at 16:16
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Is it Thieves For Charity? $\endgroup$
    – Alessandro
    Apr 11, 2016 at 16:13

4 Answers 4

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Oh my goodness, how did you make it out in the cold so long? You should take the

Helicopter

as soon as possible.

See, TFC is robin hoodish in that it stands for Take From C, where C is the Roman numeral for $100$. So you subtract each number from 100, giving $27\ 3\ 78\ 2\ 68$. The chemical symbols for the elements of these numbers are CoLiPtHeEr, which can be rearranged into HELICOPTER

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    $\begingroup$ Get to the choppaaaaaahh $\endgroup$
    – Matt
    Apr 12, 2016 at 19:57
  • $\begingroup$ Zed's dead, baby $\endgroup$
    – question_asker
    Apr 12, 2016 at 19:58
  • $\begingroup$ I thought of chemical symbols but didn't connect the name/logo to the operation necessary to make it work. $\endgroup$
    – feelinferrety
    Apr 12, 2016 at 20:19
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    $\begingroup$ @Matt I seriously considered putting "Figure out the place you need to get to", or something similar, in the puzzle, somewhere... $\endgroup$
    – Khale_Kitha
    Apr 12, 2016 at 20:28
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One of the full forms of TFC is

Theater Finance Command

It gave me a clue that it is something about movies and stories.

Some of the Robin hood movies and show were released in
- 1973
- 1997
- 1922

Other remaining numbers are 98 and 32

Possibility 1

9832 Robin Ave NE, Albuquerque or 3298 Robinhood Rd, Tallahassee, Florida

Possibility 2

By rearranging 98 and 32, we get 82 and 93 and the movies related to them are:
- 1982
- 1993
So clearly, the place is related to Robin Hood. So, it must be Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. Or it can also be Archer City

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  • $\begingroup$ I have no clue if it's right, but I love this answer. $\endgroup$
    – Chris Cudmore
    Apr 6, 2016 at 18:07
  • $\begingroup$ A nice idea, manshu, but not quite what I'm looking for. I added another tag, a bit ago, as a clue. $\endgroup$
    – Khale_Kitha
    Apr 6, 2016 at 22:03
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73 + 97 + 22 + 98 + 32

Adding up the numbers as suggested by Command gives us 322. Considering that the map is an XY plane (with North being 0°), 322° would mean 38° east of North. Since the sum was made of 5 numbers, that could probably mean that you have to travel 5 klicks in that direction to reach the rendezvous point.

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$73 + 97 + 22 + 98 + 32 = 7397229832$

Splitting it up into to halves makes:

$73972\quad29832$

Add the decimals and you get longitude and latitude of:

$73.972\quad29.832$

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3
  • $\begingroup$ I like the thought process, but the result is not a location in decimal degrees. $\endgroup$
    – Khale_Kitha
    Apr 4, 2016 at 19:17
  • $\begingroup$ Was the caps lock really necessary? $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Apr 4, 2016 at 19:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Deusovi Sorry, I'm on my break at work and for my work I need cap locks on :P $\endgroup$
    – DemonicBirdFlu
    Apr 4, 2016 at 19:27

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