Authors: Richard Paul Evans
To the Kyngs
Michael Vey
Power: Ability to shock people through direct contact or conduction. Can also absorb other electric children's powers.
Michael is the most powerful of all the electric children and leader of the Electroclan. He is steadily increasing in power. He also has Tourette's syndrome, a neurological disorder that causes tics or other involuntary movements. Elgen scientists believe his Tourette's is somehow connected to his electricity.
Ostin Liss
Power: A Nonelânot electric.
Ostin is very intelligent, with an IQ of 155, which puts him at the same level as the average Nobel Prize winner. He is one of the original three members of the Electroclan and Michael's best friend.
Taylor Ridley
Power: Ability to temporarily scramble the electric synapses in the brain, causing confusion. She can also read people's minds, but only when touching them.
Taylor is one of the original three members of the Electroclan. She and Michael discovered each other's powers at Meridian High School, which they were both attending. She is Michael's girlfriend.
Abigail
Power: Ability to temporarily ease or stop pain by electrically stimulating certain parts of the brain. She must be touching the person to do so.
Along with Ian and McKenna, Abigail was held captive by the Elgen for many years because she refused to follow Hatch. She joined the Electroclan after escaping from the Elgen Academy's prison, known as Purgatory.
Bryan
Power: The ability to create highly focused electricity that allows him to cut through objects, especially metal.
Bryan is one of Hatch's Glows. He spends most of his time playing video games and annoying Kylee.
Cassy
Power: Ability to electrically contract or “freeze” muscles from remarkable distances.
One of the most powerful of the electric children, Cassy is also the only one to be found by the resistance before the Elgen. She has lived with the voice since she was four years old. Her job, in addition to special missions and acting as the voice's bodyguard, is to keep track of the electric children. She is well versed on each of their powers and on the backgrounds of both the Glows and the Electroclan. She is a big fan of Michael Vey.
Grace
Power: Grace acts as a “human flash drive” and is able to transfer and store large amounts of electronic data.
Grace was living with the Elgen but joined the Electroclan when they defeated Hatch at the Elgen Academy. She has been working and living with the resistance but has not been on any missions with the Electroclan.
Ian
Power: Ability to see using electrolocation, which is the same way sharks and eels see through muddy or murky water.
Along with McKenna and Abigail, Ian was held captive by the Elgen for many years because he refused to follow Hatch. He joined the Electroclan after escaping from the Elgen Academy's prison, known as Purgatory.
Jack
Power: A Nonelânot electric.
Jack spends a lot of time in the gym and is very strong. He is also excellent with cars. Originally one of Michael's bullies, he joined the Electroclan after Michael bribed him to help Michael rescue his mother from Dr. Hatch.
Kylee
Power: Born with the ability to create electromagnetic power, she is basically a human magnet.
One of Hatch's Glows, she spends most of her time shopping, along with her best (and only) friend, Tara.
McKenna
Power: Ability to create light and heat. She can heat herself to more than three thousand kelvins.
Along with Ian and Abigail, McKenna was held captive by the Elgen for many years because she refused to follow Hatch. She joined the Electroclan after escaping from the Elgen Academy's prison, known as Purgatory.
Nichelle
Power: Nichelle acts as an electrical ground and can both detect and drain the powers of the other electric children. She can also, on a weaker level than Tessa, enhance the other children's powers.
Nichelle was Hatch's enforcer over the rest of the electric children until he abandoned her during the battle at the Elgen Academy. Although everyone was nervous about it, the Electroclan recruited her to join them on their mission to save Jade Dragon. She has become a loyal Electroclan member.
Quentin
Power: Ability to create isolated electromagnetic pulses, which lets him take out all electrical devices within twenty yards.
Quentin is smart and the leader of Hatch's Glows. He is regarded by the Elgen as second-in-command, just below Hatch.
Tanner
Power: Ability to interfere with the electrical navigation systems of aircraft and cause them to malfunction and crash. His powers are so advanced that he can do this from the ground.
After years of mistreatment by the Elgen, Tanner was rescued by the Electroclan from the Peruvian Starxource plant and has been staying with the resistance so he has a chance to recover. He carries deep emotional pain from the crimes Dr. Hatch forced him to commit.
Tara
Power: Tara's abilities are similar to her twin sister, Taylor's, in that she can disrupt normal electronic brain functions. Through years of training and refining her powers, Tara has learned to focus on specific parts of the brain in order to create emotions such as fear or joy.
Working with the Elgen scientists, she has learned how to create mental illusions, which, among other things, allows her to make people appear as someone or something else.
Tara is one of Hatch's Glows. She and Taylor were adopted by different families after they were born, and Tara has lived with Hatch and the Elgen since she was six years old.
Tessa
Power: Tessa's abilities are the opposite of Nichelle'sâshe is able to enhance the powers of the other electric children.
Tessa escaped from the Elgen at the Starxource plant in Peru and lived in the Amazon jungle for six months with an indigenous tribe called the Amacarra. She joined the Electroclan after the tribe rescued Michael from the Elgen and brought them together.
Torstyn
Power: One of the more ruthless and lethal of the electric children, Torstyn can create microwaves.
Torstyn is one of Hatch's Glows and was instrumental to the Elgen in building the original Starxource plants. Although they were initially enemies, Torstyn is now loyal to Quentin and acts as his bodyguard.
Wade
Power: A Nonelânot electric.
Wade was Jack's best friend and joined the Electroclan at the same time he did. Wade died in Peru when the Electroclan was surprised by an Elgen guard.
Zeus
Power: Ability to “throw” electricity from his body.
Zeus was kidnapped by the Elgen as a young child and lived for many years as one of Hatch's Glows. He joined the Electroclan when they escaped from the Elgen Academy. His real name is Leonard Frank Smith.
W
hen I was just eight years old, a few months after my father died, I was going through a box of his things when I found a wooden plaque engraved with these words:
Be ashamed to die until you have
won some victory for humanity.
âHorace Mann
At the time the plaque didn't mean much to meâother than that it had belonged to my fatherâbut it must have meant
something
because I never forgot its message. Lately I've found myself thinking about it a lot. Maybe because it's now my reality. You could say that I'm fighting a battle for humanity. Of course I could die and not win any victory, but I think that's got to be worth something too.
I once heard a story that really bothered me. I don't know if it was true or not. I hope not. I don't even want to share it with you, it's that awful. But for the sake of my story I'm going to. It goes like this:
There was a man who was in charge of switching the railroad tracks for the train. It was an important job because if the train was on the wrong track, it could crash into another train, killing hundreds of people.
One evening, as he was about to switch the tracks for an oncoming train, he suddenly heard the cry of his young son, who had followed him out and was standing on the track he was supposed to switch the train to. This was the dilemmaâif he switched the tracks, the train would kill his son. If he didn't, the people on the train, hundreds of strangers he didn't even know, might die.
At the last moment he switched the tracks. The people on the train went on by, not even knowing the disaster they had missed or the little boy who had been killed beneath them. The father went home carrying his son's broken body.
I hate that story, but it makes me think. I've wondered if, given the same situation, I would change the tracks or not. It's easy to act noble and say you would when you're not there, but what if it's someone you can't live without? What if it were Taylor standing on the tracks? Or Ostin? Or my mom?