Operation Justice Unlimited: Snickers Bars Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, And Other Origins

It was Sunday morning in Palo Alto, and the sun was out. We zoomed on our way to Stone River, a large art installation on the Stanford University Campus, close to the Rodin sculpture garden. Along the way, conversation turned to the pre-clue hint "Please bring hammer fire cash coins".

"We have not used the hammer."
      "We should have done, at the candle."
   "But-- the fire--"
    "Sure, you can burn it if you wanna, but..."
          "We haven't used the cash, either."
     "We're gonna use it at the sculpture garden."
                 "Hi, I'd like to buy that sculpture, please."
         "I didn't bring that much cash."
    "That's OK, they don't really own the sculptures, so they'll give us a good price."
  "Good point, it's pure profit for them."

Enter the Snacks

David Walker was a grad student at Stanford, and knew where to find Stone River. When we parked the van, he was off like a shot. I jogged after him, feeling slow but also feeling good to be out of the van, back in daylight.

David came running back, carrying a plastic bag. He said that some Game Control people up in a tree had taunted him and thrown him this bag of snacks. So now Team Mystic Fish had a bag of snacks.

It was nice to be out of the van, out in the air. Someone had the brilliant idea of not sitting in the van to solve this puzzle. Instead, we grabbed a whiteboard out of the van and went over to the sculpture garden to sit at a picnic table.

"Break time! JUSTICE UNLIMITED is legally obligated to give all employees some time off during the work day. Enjoy your federally mandated libation! Just call us when you're ready to get back to work."

The most clue-ful looking thing in our bag of snacks was a bottle of JJONZZ soda. That is, it was a bottle of Jones soda, a brand which allowed people to order bottles with custom labels over the internet. I had learned about them a while earlier when some guy had asked for permission to use one of my photos on a label. Game Control had taken advantage of this, putting a picture of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter on the label. There was also some text on the label, but we were not getting much out of it.

There were other snacks. Mini Snickers bars, a tube of M&Ms Minis, Sun-Maid raisins, Sun-Maid yogurt-covered raisins, Inka Corn. Since the bottle label featured the Martian Man-hunter, we wondered if there was something special about the treats from the M&M Mars candy company. But nothing leapt out.

Stochastic Methods

So we started taking data: for each snack item, its weight (if on the package), its manufacturer (M&M Mars or other), its name, its bar code number (if any). No patterns leapt out.

We tried peeling the label off the bottle. Opening the bottle to look at the cap.

Someone thought to look through our free comic books for ads: He quickly found one for the M&Ms Minis. But we didn't find ads for any other snacks. The M&Ms Minis ad featured one of those paper-finger fortune-telling toys. We cut it out, folded it, operated it: was there a hidden message? Had Game Control made friends with someone who did advertisement art for M&M Mars? Apparently not, because we never got anything worthwhile out of the fortune-teller.

Alexandra had wandered off for a catnap. Now she came back to the table and asked: How were we doing? Well, we had data that we saw no pattern in. And we had a fortune teller.

Alexandra was aghast. We had spent an hour to come up with this? We should have called Game Control earlier.

Now I was aghast: an hour had gone by? I hadn't realized it, but it must be true. How sleepy was I? My sense of time was gone.

Later, I thought about the words of Doctor von Cranium: "Many of the superheroes who have vanished into these portals may not realize that time is passing more quickly for us than for them..."

The Fateful Hint

Alexandra called up Game Control. Game Control told us that we should enter the name "JJONZZ" into the DRUID.

Suddenly I was no longer mellow. I was furious. How were we supposed to figure that out? Why was I wasting my time with this nonsense? My eyes were narrow slits. I heard a rushing in my ears. I was on the Stanford campus, close to CalTrain. I could take off now, ride a train home, and do something worthwhile with my Saturday Sunday. But then I got a grip.

Hadn't Game Control pulled off some great puzzles? I thought about the chicken wire. I thought about the balance scale. I started breathing again. I thought about the bat blinker. OK, this activity was worthwhile. I thought about the Hostess Cupcakes ad in the fake newspaper. I realized that I was enjoying myself overall. Do not blow this, I thought, another cool puzzle will come along soon. So I didn't leave. But I was still sulky.

When we entered the name "JJONZZ", the DRUID administered a multiple-choice test of superhero origins. We didn't know many of them, but Google did just fine. Soon we had our code word for Game Control. Soon we were back in the van, heading for East Palo Alto.

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