Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

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 326
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 the ability to pulse or surge electricity out of the palms of his hands. It is the first book in what is to be a heptalogy.

Plot

One day, Michael gets beat up by bullies as he is leaving school, and a popular cheerleader named Taylor witnesses the bullying. 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 some hesitation he explains his powers, and she tells him that she can read minds when she touches someone, and also "reboot" people's minds. They later discover that they were born in the same hospital near the same date, and a machine, called an MEI, made by a company called Elgen, Inc., was used during the time of their births. Taylor soon meets Michael's friend Ostin, a very smart though ordinary human 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 Pizza Max, 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 drained of his electricity by Nichelle, 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 from her cheerleading practice after a horrible headache to Elgen Academy, where she finds out that she has an identical (but evil, to be found out later in the story) twin, named Tara.

Taylor soon discovers the dark side of Dr. Hatch; he likes to use the teenagers' powers for his own benefit and pleasure in ways that have possible harmful consequences. When given an order by Dr. Hatch, Taylor disobeys him, is tortured by Nichelle, 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 with the guys who were bullying him, 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 kill 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 are enemies of Dr. Hatch and his 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 weak 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, causing an electric wave, knocking both Zeus and Ostin unconscious. He checks on Taylor, who is okay, and then Ostin, but finds that Ostin's heart 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. Nichelle is sent to be a normal human where she can't hurt anyone after Michael finds out her weakness.The book ends with Ostin proclaiming that "This is the rise of the Electroclan!"


Dr. 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, he 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. The poster boy of 21st century fascism.

Jack Vranes 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 West is one of the bullies that attacked Michael with Jack. He is friends with Jack and Mitchell, and helps Jack drive Michael to Pasadena. Wade develops a deep gratitude for Michael, as Michael saved his life at least twice in Pasadena.

Michael Vey is the protagonist of the series. He is fourteen at the beginning of the novel, but is fifteen for the rest. 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.

Taylor Ridley is a fifteen-year-old high school cheerleader who is a very popular girl at Meridian High, and, as Michael describes her, "the most be. 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, 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 Ostin is a genius, but 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.

Zeus His real name is Leonard Frank Smith but he is called 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 cannot bathe because he would shock himself, thus making him sensitive and violent about people commenting about his stench. He joins the Electroclan after the truth about his family is revealed. He starts to fall for Abigail.

Ian is an African American fifteen-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, which means that he can see through most substances and track anything with electricity.

McKenna is a Chinese-American girl. She has the ability to create light and heat on any part of her body. She can heat herself to more than 3,000 Kelvin. She is also Ostin's crush.

Abigail is a platinum blonde haired girl who is first introduced in Purgatory. She is also known as Abi. Her ability allows her to relieve pain by contact by stimulating nerve endings. She is kind and optimistic.

Grace acts as a “human flash drive,” and is able to transfer and store large amounts of electronic data. She left Dr. Hatch's group of electric children to join the Electroclan. She is shy, even to people she's known for years.

Tanner is a very regretful person. He has the ability to interfere with an aircraft's navigation and electrical systems, making it crash. He murdered thousands under Dr Hatch's bidding.

Tara is Taylor's identical (but evil) 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 emotions such as fear and happiness. 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 things crawling around in Cell 25 with him.

Quentin, also known as Q, has the ability to produce a small EMP or electromagnetic pulse. He is a flirt and both Tara and Kylee have a crush on him. He is loyal to Hatch, and has shown to be corrupted, acting without any regard to "ordinary human beings".

Bryan has the ability to create highly focused electricity that allows him to cut through solid objects such as metal by burning through them. He is loyal to Hatch, and has shown to be corrupted, acting without any regard to "ordinary human beings".

Kylee was born with the ability to create electromagnetic power, she is basically a human magnet. She is loyal to Hatch, and has shown to be corrupted, acting without any regard to "ordinary human beings".

Sequels

Mercury Ink released the sequels: Michael Vey: Rise of the Elgen on August 14, 2012, Michael Vey: Battle of the Ampere on September 17, 2013, Michael Vey: Hunt for the Jade Dragon on September 16, 2014, and Michael Vey: Storm of Lightning on September 15, 2015.

TV series

On September 15, 2015 on Glenn Beck's radio program, Richard Paul Evans announced that he reached a deal with a British producer to make a TV pilot. [ref]

Honors

Reference List

  1. ↑ New York Times Bestseller List: Children's Chapter Books, <http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-08-28/chapter-books/list.html/>.
  2. ↑ It's Official: Glenn Beck Is The New King Of Book Publishing Business Insider Glynnis MacNicol 3 August 2011 http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-beck-michael-vey-2011-8
  3. ↑ "USA TODAY BEST-SELLERS." USA Today. 08252011: n. page. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. <http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/25/usa-today-best-sellers/>.
  4. ↑ Donahue, Deirdre. "Best-selling novelists dive into young adult genre." USA Today. 20092011: n. page. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-09-19/grisham-picoult-gregory-young-adult-novels/50474590/1>.
  5. ↑ ""A Nashville Tribute to the Missionaries" among best-sellers at Desert Book ." Salt Lake Tribune . 06092011: n. page. Web. 21 Sep. 2011. <http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsburger/52530658-53/book-mormon-anita-aug.html.csp>.

Categorical syndrome

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