-It's early spring and Elizabeth and Chris are driving home to San Francisco from Lake Tahoe talking about life. Chris asks Elizabeth what cause she would be willing to sacrifice her life for? After a lot of conversation, they both decide that there are endless issues that are important and worthy, but the issues that get them most angry, fearful, and upset are environmentally related. After more talking they narrow the scope realizing that food-related issues make up the biggest group under that environmental umbrella, like: GMOs, obesity, hunger, pesticides in farming, animal mistreatment in ranching, ineffectual or bureaucratic governmental regulating agencies, etc.

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-The conversation continues as the friends try to figure out (short of dying) how to affect some change in these areas that they care so deeply about. Elizabeth references the classic mid-70s, environmental "call-to-arms" novel: Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang as an inspiration in how passionately people can believe in their causes and just how far they're willing to go. Just as the gang in Edward Abbey's novel, they decide that by infiltrating what they consider to be evil government agencies and big corporations, they can throw the proverbial monkey wrench into programs they don't favor. But how?

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-The answer is to become "eco-spies" working undercover for "evil" organizations in order to get inside access to "big, bad" projects and/or legislation, and make them fail. In order to be effective they'd need to train to completely disguise themselves, their politics and feelings, and become undetectable, physically capable, mentally sharp, etc. The ideas flow about what makes a good spy and they decide to train themselves first, then develop a secret team of spies to join the cause and have a broader reach. Some of the skills they identify that any spy should have include:

- Improvisation

- Martial arts/combat training: a way to defend oneself without weapons

- Fluency in foreign languages

- High speed driving, parkour: way to escape when chased

- "Jedi" mind tricks/influential conversation

- Creative writing

- Recruitment

- Fund raising

- Learn spy gang hand signals

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-In the following weeks Elizabeth and Chris meet to form their action plan and write a mission statement, a moral justification statement, project goals, and a spy-training guide: which includes various rules including those for creating an alias, target selection, and exit strategies. The mission statement is: "To form an empowered secret society dedicated to the environmental education and awakening of the masses. Our legacy will be realized through a new and creative approach, including rigorous spy training, inspiring others to take action, and communicating our message worldwide."

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-During spy training, our heroes need to interact with strangers (aka. targets) to practice both their new aliases and the pre-determined skills necessary to master when becoming a spy. To start, they set up their own alias back stories complete with costumes, Gmail accounts (on a public computer so as not to be traced), and prepaid mobile phones with cash and their alias' data. Next they form important guidelines to be followed as they complete their spy training:

- Never discuss the project with anyone until recruitment procedures are outlined

- At no point should anyone get hurt physically (some limited emotional/mental pain is acceptable in order to save the world)

- No serious humiliation of others

- No illegal activities, with the exception of those agreed upon beforehand

- Targets should never be able to track us down

- If member falls in love with a target

o Target selection must continue

o No recording during intimate moments with target

o Alias' true identity may be disclosed after time

- Use cash only

- Real names, addresses, phone numbers are never discussed during mission

In keeping with their Monkey Wrench Gang inspiration: Elizabeth's alias will be Abbey Edwards, and Chris will be Jack Sarvis.

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-First, they need to get "dates", aka. missions. After posting for "date" requests on craigslist.com, Elizabeth, as Abbey, scores first and sets up a "date" with a stranger in a coffee shop. Chris, as Jack, will be the handler of the mission. The duo creates hand signals for communicating non-verbally with one another during the missions, eg. cover is blown, a known friend is on the scene, need help in creating a diversion, etc. Plans for creating emergency exits and the mission goals are also made:

- Missions will consist of one "date" (second "date" avoided if possible)

- Alias persona is set beforehand (everything but name and look changes with each mission)

- Challenges are given by handler during mission to test improvisation

- Scores tallied after the "date" by the handler and alias: must reach set score before proceeding to next level of challenges and training

- Target selection: preferably with differing view, opinionated, dynamic, entertaining, alias responsible for securing a "date" every other week

- Locations for "dates": quiet enough for conversation, semi-public, good exit routes

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All of this really happened and is the start of the story, now you continue the tale of the spy training, how they infiltrate a government agency or big corporation and change the environmental world while building a secret spy society!