Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

Author	Richard Paul Evans
Original title	Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25
Language	English
Series	Michael Vey
Genre	Science Fiction, Young Adult
Published	Simon Pulse, Mercury Ink
Media type	Paperback
Pages	336
ISBN	1442475102
Followed by	Michael Vey: Rise of the Elgen

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 is a 2011 young-adult/science fiction novel by Richard Paul Evans, and published by Glenn Beck's owned Mercury Ink. The story follows Michael Vey, a teenager who is diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome and has electrical powers.

Plot

The story follows Michael Vey, a teenager diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome who has the ability to pulse or surge electricity out of the palms of his hands. One day, Michael gets beat up by bullies as he is leaving school, and a popular cheerleader named Taylor witnesses it. In self-defense, Michael shocks the three bullies and they fall to the ground. The next day at school, Taylor confronts him about the occasion. After he explains, she tells him that she can also read minds when she touches someone. They later on discover that they were born in the same hospital near the same date, and a machine made by a company named Elgen was used during their births. Taylor soon meets Michael's friend Ostin, a normal person who is aware of Michael's powers, and the three of them form their own group, the Electroclan.

Shortly after, both Michael and Taylor receive scholarships from the prestigious Elgen Academy. When Michael tells his mother about the scholarship, she immediately makes him leave the restaurant where they are eating. On their way to the car, a man attempts to rob them. When Michael shocks him, another man appears accompanied by two teenagers. The man reveals himself to be Dr. Hatch. Michael then passes out after being hit by an unknown electrical pulse from one of the teenagers. When Michael wakes up, he is in a hospital and Ostin's mother tells him that his mom has been kidnapped. Meanwhile, Taylor has been taken captive to Elgen Academy , where she finds out that she has an identical (but evil) twin.

Taylor soon discovers the dark side of Dr. Hatch; he likes to use the teenagers' powers for his own benefit and pleasure. When given an order by Dr. Hatch, Taylor disobeys him and gets put on Floor D with three other kids: Ian, Mckenna, and Abigail who disobeyed Hatch's orders and suffered the same fate as Taylor. After getting a car ride to Pasadena, Michael unsuccessfully attempts to free Taylor. Dr. Hatch tells Michael after his capture that Michael killed his own father, and makes him choose between his own freedom and his friends. Taylor, Ostin, and the other rebels on Floor D escape their cell only to be caught again. Michael is told to shock Wade to prove his allegiance to Dr. Hatch. He refuses and so his mother is shocked instead. Michael is sent to Cell 25, the torture cell for those who don't agree with Dr. Hatch's methods.

After 26 days, Michael is released from Cell 25 and is taken to the same room where he failed his first test by not shocking Wade. Hatch leaves Michael (who is very ill from his treatment in Cell 25) alongside Ostin, and Taylor, who are restrained in chairs. Ostin and Taylor are supposed to be killed by Zeus, but after Michael tricks Zeus into shocking him, he grows more powerful from Zeus's lightning and pulses and knocks him unconscious. He checks on Taylor who is okay, and then Ostin, but finds that his heart has stopped. After applying two shocks in a fashion similar to a defibrillator Ostin's heart starts up again. Taylor then goes into the mind of Zeus and searches his memories, to find that Hatch tricked him into believing that he killed his family while swimming in a pool at the age of 7. He then sides with Michael and the rest of the Electroclan and helps them break Ian, McKenna, and Abigail out of their cell, and using his powers, disables all the cameras they come across. A lengthy battle between the Electroclan and Dr. Hatch's loyalists occurs. Michael's group takes control of the control room and releases the human captives (including Jack and Wade) who overpower the remaining guards. Meanwhile, Dr. Hatch escapes from Elgen Academy in a helicopter with most of the other electric children that are loyal to him.

After the battle, Taylor goes to call her parents, and after dialing three digits walks up to and kisses Michael. Then another electric child, Grace, who supposedly ran away from Hatch, arrives to join the "Electoclan". With the suspicion that she may be a plant, Taylor reads her mind and confirms that she is against Hatch. Grace also says that she downloaded all the Elgen's computer files onto herself before they were deleted: her power is being able to upload and download data from computers, like a human flash drive. The book ends with Ostin proclaiming that "This is the rise of the Electroclan!"

Characters

Dr. C. J. Hatch is the main antagonist of the book. He recruits (or kidnaps), the Glows, to the Elgen Academy and gives them what ever they want (no matter the cost) at first; later, however, guilt tricks them into using their gifts for his own personal pleasure (using manipulation). He is an evil genius and attempts to capture and kill Michael and his friends several times throughout the book. Comparable to Adolf Hitler and Vlad the Impaler.

Jack is one of the bullies that attacks Michael daily. He is also friends with Wade and Mitchell. Jack drives Michael to Pasadena, along with Wade and Ostin, and the four of them eventually bond. Jack has been held back several years and is around age 17.

Wade is one of the bullies that attack Michael daily. He is also friends with Jack and Mitchell, and helps Jack drive Michael to Pasadena. Wade develops a deep gratitude for Michael, after Michael refuses Dr. Hatch's request to electrocute him.

Michael Vey is fourteen during the book. Michael is the main protagonist of the series. Michael has been diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome, which results in him involuntarily blinking and/or gulping when he is stressed or nervous. Due to his small stature Michael has endured many years of being bullied and unable to retaliate from fear of his powers being exposed. Michael's powers consist of him being able to shock people by contact or if they are connected with something that can be conducted. He can also cause electrical surges that can destroy electrical equipment and stun people. Michael not only is immune to electrical attacks or discharges, he is also able to absorb them which makes him more powerful. According to Hatch, Michael could be the most powerful Glow alive and has hinted that Michael may have killed his own father by accident. His best friend, Ostin, and girlfriend, Taylor, formed the Electroclan and as a group learned that there were fifteen other teenagers like himself and Taylor. Mix of an electric eel, a normal 14-15 year old and Jack Bauer.

Taylor Ridley is a fifteen-year-old high school cheerleader who is the most beautiful girl in school, smart, popular, and everybody loves her. She was adopted when she was young and did not know that she had a twin sister named Tara. Her abilities are mainly attributed to electrical signals in the brain. These abilities include being able to "reboot" a person's brain, making them forget what they were doing at that moment. She is also able to read people's minds through contact, with this ability being stronger if she is touching a person.

Ostin Liss is Michael's best friend and is considered a genius by everyone. It is said he has a GPA of 4.00 but only because it doesn't go any higher. His mother named him after the city in Texas but spelled Austin wrong which Michael finds ironic because Austin is a genius and his mom can't even spell the city they lived in.

Nichelle is a girl who helped kidnap Taylor. Her power is being able to electrically depress the nerve endings to cause pain and pressure comparable to the worst migraines. Nichelle can literally "suck the power" from a Glow the same way mosquitoes suck blood from a host. She is disliked by the other kids at the Elgen Academy and is also gothic in style. Nichelle is looked at as a freak because of this, and the fact that she enjoys torturing others with her dark power. She can only inflict pain upon others when she is in close distance. She could not affect Michael when he was absorbing electricity from a power source as it was too much electricity to handle at one time. This is similar to the way mosquitoes cannot handle excessive blood while drawing it out. In the end, Nichelle is banished to go live in the "real world." She admits that she would rather die than live there as she is considered a loser. She is recruited by Michael in the fourth book to help fend off Hatch's Glows. Nichelle slowly begins to grow loyal to the Electroclan and goes so far as to trick Hatch and break everyone out of custody.

Zeus His real name is Frank but he is named Zeus due to his ability to shoot bolts of electricity that are similar in appearance to lightning. He became part of Hatch's group when Hatch fabricated his memories, saying Zeus killed his whole family by jumping into a pool they were in, thus shocking them to death. Due to his inability to touch water, he never bathes, thus making him sensitive and violent about people commenting about his stench. He joins the Electroclan after the truth about his family is revealed. Zeus also can not touch water as it causes boils and red burns to appear because the water makes him shock himself. He starts to fall for Abigail.

Ian is an African American fourteen-year-old who is first introduced in Purgatory when Taylor is sent there. Although he is blind, it is not a weakness, as his ability is what is called electrolocation where he can track anything with an electrical current, meaning animals, electric appliances, etc. This is most helpful as he is able to track Glows as well as see through almost anything.

McKenna is a Chinese-American girl. Has the ability to create light and heat. She can heat herself to more than 3,000 Kelvin. She is also Ostin's crush. She is very smart.

Abigail is a platinum blonde haired girl who is first introduced in Purgatory. She is known as Abi. Her ability allows her to relieve pain by contact. The drawback of this is that once physical contact is broken the effects eventually wears off. She is very nice and optimistic

Grace acts as a “human flash drive,” and is able to transfer and store large amounts of electronic data. She quit Dr. Hatch's group of electric children to join the Electroclan. She is shy to all the kids.

Tanner is a very regretful person, he has the ability to interfere with a plane's navigation system making it crash. He is forced to murder many people by Dr. Hatch

Tara is Taylor's identical twin sister that is completely and unmoveably loyal to Dr. Hatch. Like her sister, Taylor, her abilities also deal with the mind, although that is the extent of their similarities. Tara can stimulate different parts of the brain to cause pain or pleasure and everything in between. She is able to make the person she is using her powers on see and feel what she wants them to, as seen when she causes Michael to believe there were black widows crawling on him and a shark was going to attack him.

Quentin, also known as Q., has the ability to produce a small EMP or electromagnetic pulse. He is a bit of a flirt and both Tara and Kylee have a crush on him.

Bryan has the ability to create highly focused electricity that allows him to cut through solid objects such as metal by burning through them.

Kylee was born with the ability to create electromagnetic power, she is basically a human magnet.

Sequels

Mercury Ink released the sequel, Michael Vey: Rise of the Elgen, on August 14, 2012. Michael Vey: Battle of the Ampere was released September 17, 2013. Mercury Ink will release the fourth book in the Michael Vey series called 'Michael Vey: Hunt for Jade Dragon' on September 16, 2014.

Honors

• Number one book on the New York Times Chapter Book list for the week ending August 28, 2011.
• Number one selling book in Barnes and Nobles, number 2 in Amazon.com for Michael Vey.
• On August 25, it was ranked number 38 on USA Today's best sellers.
• Michael Vey reached number Seven on the chart for USA Today in August.
• The Salt Lake Tribune announced that Michael Vey made number seven on the Deseret Book for the week of Aug. 22 through Aug. 27 chart.

Reference List

Categorical syndrome