M Puzzle: Paranoia

by Lance Nathan; logic by Bridget Copley; music by Da Vinci's Notebook

Make sure to update this page once everything is actually in place. The ten people are acutally, in order:

Lisa Wu
Lauren Fahey
John Hume
Brian Bermack
LeeAnn Henn
Chad Brown
Eric J. Wilhelm
Sabine Iatridou
Dana Ozik
Todd Radford

The ten people in the puzzle are all people with Athena accounts at MIT. As suggested by "finger," "project," and "plan," the first step is to finger these ten people. Doing so gets the following crossword clues (in the projects) and pieces of a logic puzzle (in the plans):

AndyA pronounLance is lying about Jon, I am first, Bridget is after me.
JessicaWhipJon is lying about Jofish, Norvin is lying about Tanis, Todd is after me.
BridgetUnit of lengthJay is lying about Andy, Jessica is lying about Todd, Lance is after me.
JofishReservedLance is lying about Jay, Norvin is lying about Tanis, Jessica is after me.
JonHutAndy is lying about Lance, Jofish is lying about Jessica, Norvin is after me.
JaySymbol of peaceJon is lying about Jessica, Andy is lying about Bridget, Jofish is after me.
TanisRelaxesJessica is lying about Norvin, Bridget is lying about Lance, Jofish is after me.
NorvinRemarkTodd is lying about Jon, Tanis is lying about Jofish, Tanis is after me.
ToddLeisureBridget is lying about Jessica, I am last, Jon is lying about Norvin.
LanceZeroTanis is lying about Bridget, Jay is lying about Jofish, Jon is after me.

Taking the information from the flavortext that someone only makes a true statement about someone who's after them, the list can be reordered: Jay, Bridget, Todd, Norvin, Jofish, Lance, Tanis, Jessica, Jon, Andy. This gives an ordering for the clues:

Symbol of peace; Hostel; Edam or Gouda; Do, for instance; Made a reservation; Zero; Makes serene; Whip; Hut; Object pronoun

which resolves to DOVE INN CHEESE NOTE BOOKED AUGHT CALMS LASH SHACK ME--or, read aloud, Da Vinci's Notebook dot com slash acme. Fortunately, the final step is an easy one: going to that page brings up a song recorded for the Hunt by the ultra-cool a cappella group Da Vinci's Notebook. The lyrics are:

They're a good team, love their solvin'
Love MIT, and Acme too
They're a good team, but they want the answer
Or who knows what they might do.

'Cause they're coin, coin-hunting.
'Cause they're coin, coin-hunting.

Well, we're nice guys, so we're gonna tell them
The answer's the guy who wrote this song
But not the co-author, that ELO guy --
If they call him in, then they'll be wrong.

And they're coin, coin-hunting.
Yeah, they're coin, coin-hunting.

and the answer is, naturally, TOM PETTY.

(For archival purposes, we've mirrored the song locally.)

Training:

Tom Petty's 1999 album is "Echo." The answer is ECHO.