Part 1: Crash Course
Part 2: Component X
Part 3: Box it up

After you finish hooking up the the component, you turn it around. It is easy to see it looks like it has a reflective surface, like a mirror would. There is a power key at the top, but upon turning it, the mirror starts beeping and shaking. You turn it back off, and instead turn your attention to the text at the bottom of the mirror when a fellow agent comes in.

"We have discovered Contraplexus is getting ready for more action, but information on where they will strike next is limited", he begins.

"I have their Component X with me -- maybe it will tell me something."

"Wow, let me have a look at it", he replies, and you pass it off to him. "Wow, the text is really strange -- I haven't seen any text like this. It's probably just encoded"

You write down the text: "tsfacns emb tond rofht ebns eftpmd sp mdon kbnhob lsbe emhx udz dnbu duf emb lbeb kmb ep sfmbdi rshbegb xuifhdx"

"It probably has instructions on how to operate this thing. It just started beeping and shaking when I turned it on. I also have no idea what these f, s, n and t buttons do. Have any ideas?"

"I don't know, but don't press anything until you know what to do. It will just start beeping again if you just start pressing things."

You sit down for a while, thinking about what the mirror's text means. Which buttons should you press, and in what order?

The subject has little meaning to this [The lion sleeps tonight], but I did a site search for "one away" and found four occurences, three had "One Away" in their titles, all written by whom?

The echo of 'one away, one away..' is the obscure reason for the title.

More to the point.

In the first two of the One Away puzzles, pid=4307 and pid=5205, something is taken away.

I have just reread Gamer's comment and add some of it here:
        The method of encryption is related to the title "One Away",
        but not related to either prequel.

That said, I am thinking that much of what I had written below, just a few minutes earlier is somewhat irrelevant, but might offer ideas as a base for the creation of a new challenge, so I'll leave them in.

I cannot decide whether to take out a letter from each group, particularly those referring to the buttons f,s,n and t, but doesn't seem to give me much joy. 

But then, One Away could mean that each letter offered by the machine is 'one away' from its true 'value'.  Even then I have little solace.

That the 'screen' is like a mirror suggests that elements  of the text are to be reversed or maybe the implication is that we should be reflective and look at those two earlier problems for a clue on which I have not picked up. 


In terms of 'reflecting' upon letters and being 'one away' I had decided that the first 't' was either 's' or 'u' which meant that the following 's' was 'r' or 't' .  That reasoning appears quite bad, but there still may be a twist here.

Edited on February 3, 2007, 10:29 pm

Posted by brianjn on 2007-02-03 22:20:13