Updated Plot

Here is an updated version of our plot.  This is still in the beginning stages, and I honestly don't know how I feel about the climax, so please leave comments.

Chapter 1: We begin with Polly in the middle of a job.  She is in disguise once again, acting as a member of a drug ring.  She just needs the drug lord to reveal more information (who else is involved, where they’re getting the drugs, and a clear, recorded statement that they can use in court).  At last, the man says the last thing she needs, and then the special ops team comes in and incapacitates the members of the ring/arrests them.  Introduce various characters and their specialties (Micro uses tech to sneak inside/prevent escape/set cool gadgets to catch bad guys, Jared tackles/throws stuff, Polly uses karate, Grant shoots and directs action, and Angelina… well, she does whatever she feels like).  They cart the bad guys off to jail

Chapter 2: The team celebrates at a bar.  We see some of their personalities and interactions.  We also see Polly’s crush on Grant, and how she acts when around her teammates (as we see later, Polly acts differently depending on whom she’s with—comes from having to constantly change who she is as a spy).  As they’re leaving for the night, Grant takes Polly aside and tells her he and Micro have tracked Dr. Herron to an address.  They’ve been searching for Herron for years; they don’t know what he’s planning, but he’s a hacker who shows up every now and then online, getting into copyrighted work and stealing codes.  Grant assigns Polly to go to the address and start finding out about him.

Chapter 3: Polly returns home and talks to her roommate, Jenna (Jenny?).  We see that she acts differently around Jenna than around her coworkers.  Then she hooks up to her online game.  We see some of her life there.  She meets up with James, another player in the 2^nd life game who has been talking to Polly for a couple of months now.  She talks to him about Grant, but of course can’t tell James about her real line of work. Perhaps we also see Angelina’s online identity (though we don’t know it’s her), who has also befriended Polly in the game. 

Chapter 4: The next day or so, Polly contacts Dr. Herron.  She claims to be his new neighbor (she’s renting the house next door as a ruse) and tries to become friends with him.  He acts nice enough, but she’s unable to get inside the house.  But she’s used to jobs taking a long time. 

Chapter 5: Meanwhile, Polly is secretly commuting back to her real apartment so Jenna doesn’t get suspicious, and goes to work to collaborate with teammates about how to get Dr. Herron to reveal his secret.  Micro explains more about what Dr. Herron has done in the past.  They know he’s stealing codes, and that many of his activities seem to relate to the online game Polly is involved in.  But they can’t tell exactly what Dr. Herron is up to.  Everyone is assigned various jobs to find out what he’s doing according to their specialties.  She still likes Grant, but we see that he’s not responding to her flirts.

Chapter 6: Polly continues to try to get Dr. Herron to trust her during the next week(s).  Every day she talks to him just a little, then invites him for dinner at her place.  He comes.  There’s a dinner scene, and Polly can tell he’s beginning to see her as a friend.  But when she offers to come to his house to look at a plumbing problem he mentions (she says she knows a little about that) he declines, saying he can figure it out.  Still won’t let her in.

Chapter 7: Polly goes online to unwind and talk to James (she, of course, does this everyday, but this will be a scene rather than a summary).  While talking to James today, Polly realizes she’s falling for him.  She’s conflicted between her virtual life and reality with Grant - although Grant still doesn’t like her back, and James returns her flirts.  She talks to Angelina’s avatar (again, doesn’t know it’s her, she’s just another online friend who knows James) about it, and she tells her to go for James.

Chapter 8: Polly goes over to Dr. Herron’s house to “borrow a cup of sugar.”  He tells her to wait at the door.  She’s frustrated with how he won’t let her in.  When he returns they talk for a minute on the doorstep, then she goes to her house, with nothing to show for her work but an unneeded cup of sugar.  She goes online again, and while talking to James, he says something that Dr. Herron said earlier.  She realizes Dr. Herron and James are the same person.

Chapter 9: She’s conflicted between her fondness for James and her duty to work against Dr. Herron.  She consults with Jenna without revealing too much, explaining that she’s fallen in love with a guy online, but she’s met him in real life, too, and he’s a jerk.  How does she reconcile that?  Jenna suggests she find out which part of him is his real personality—the online sweetheart, or the real life jerk.  We’re different people online and offline, and one or the other can be a front. (sort of blatantly stating the theme).  Tells Polly to get to know him better and then decide what do to.

Chapter 10: Polly decides she needs to find out exactly what Dr. Herron’s plot is before she can figure out what part of him is his real self.  She finally gets inside by going over to his house and telling him her toilet is broken and she needs to use his bathroom.  He is slow to let her in, but does.  She notices several areas of the house he seems to be protecting.  Asks him about it, but he makes excuses.  Finally, Polly reveals that she is the girl he’s been talking to online.  She says she knows he’s up to something—he’s obviously hiding something (doesn’t reveal she’s with the government)—and he can trust her.  James/Dr. Herron tells her his plan to use codes stolen from the 2^nd life world to allow people to make themselves look like their online avatar.  It’s sort of a cosmetic thing.  He’s tried to get the software company to give him the codes, but they won’t release them to he public, so he did it the hacker way.  Polly can’t bring herself to tell him it’s a bad idea, since she would love to be her online identity all the time.  She’s relieved that at least he didn’t have evil plans to take over the world or something.

Chapter 11: Polly goes online and talks to Angelina’s avatar (she still doesn’t know it’s Angelina’s, though).  She tells her she’s met James in real life and she really likes him.  Angelina tells her she should ask him out, gives relationship advice.  Polly goes to work and tells Grant that they should drop the Dr. Herron case; it’s not a matter of national security.  Grant, however, is not willing to give up on a case he’s been working on for years.  Polly tells him Dr. Herron’s real plans, explaining it’s just not a big deal, and Grant raves that Herron is a criminal for hacking codes and must be stopped.  Angelina surprisingly defends Polly.  Micro agrees that hacking is a felony and they can’t just drop the case, though he’s intrigued by Dr. Herron’s idea, and can’t bring himself to totally turn against Polly.  Jared ponders the situation and when he tries to give his opinion, Grant dismisses him as an oaf, and Jared takes Polly’s side.  Grant storms off.

Chapter 12: Worried about the way Grant left, Polly goes to warn James.  Angelina offers to help as well, and we find out Angelina was the other friend Polly had in the game.  Jared and Micro aren’t friends with James like Polly and Angelina, but they’re worried about what Grant will do as well.  They run to James’ house; he’s just hooked himself up to the game. Polly and the other three have to go online to tell him he’s in danger (Micro happens to have a consol they can all hook up to).  When they find James in the virtual world, he tells them he’s about to test his theory of transforming himself to look like his avatar.  Grant arrives, both physically and virtually.  He has a remote consol that allows him to walk around, and as he’s physically fighting the other four, trying to get to James, he’s also mentally taking them on in the virtual world (they have to keep coming in and out of the game to stop him).  James is just starting to transform himself when Grant grabs him physically and virtually.  The electrical pulses get crossed, and instead of Herron being transformed to look like James, Grant’s consciousness is trapped in the online game.

Chapter 13: The others try to get Grant out, but he’s stuck.  They confront James/Dr. Herron about his plans, and none of them can really blame him for what he did.  Yes, he was a hacker, but he never really hurt anyone.  Grant got himself in trouble, and Dr. Herron never made any money off of the codes he hacked.  Jared, the most thoughtful person in the room, decides they should let James/Dr. Herron off the hook this time.  Meanwhile, Polly confesses her feelings for James, and he does the same.  Micro ends up with Jenna, who has become a good friend since his girlfriend broke up with him.  (Who votes Jared ends up with Angelina, since he’s the first man who is thoughtful enough to see her for the person she is?)