| “ | "You've been told all your life that all men are created equal but anyone that isn't stupid or ignorant can see that isn't true. Some are rich, some are poor. Some are smart and some are fools. No one is born equal." | „ |
| ~ Hatch explains his philosophy to Michael |
| “ | "Michael:" It's time for you to pay for all you've done." "Hatch:" For all I've done? I've advanced humanity is what I've done. I've advanced science!" |
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| ~ Hatch's delusional rant about his righteousness when Michael confronts him |
| “ | Saluni: I will not bow down to you or any man. I bow only to God." Hatch: God? Where is your God in your time of need? I will tell you where your God is. You are looking at him." |
„ |
| ~ Dr. Hatch revealing the depths of his megalomania when Prime Minister Saluni refused to bow down to him |
Dr. Charles James Hatch, simply known as Dr. C. James Hatch, is the main antagonist of the Michael Vey book series. He is the current CEO of the Elgen Corporation and the archenemy of the titular protagonist Michael Vey. He is a psychopathic delusional scientist who seeks to use the powers of the electric children (Glows) to rule the world.
Personality[]
Dr. Hatch is a brilliant man with extensive knowledge about history, philosophy, sociology, science and many other topics but is also extremely hot-tempered, cruel, sadistic, megalomaniacal, and ruthless though this cruelty is hidden by Hatch's benevolent and caring exterior. Hatch tells the Glows that he cares for them and views them as his family though this "care" only extends as far as they're useful to him. Hatch's relationship with the Glows is, in reality, one of manipulation. He tries to buy the Glow's loyalty by showering them with gifts and then guilt trips them into committing immoral acts for him which he then uses to manipulate them even further. When manipulation doesn't work, Hatch reveals his true colours by resorting to threatening a Glow's loved ones or torturing them.
Hatch is also extremely unforgiving and intolerant of failure and treachery to such a degree that he has his own soldiers sent to re-education or killed for any offence and has an utter and total hatred for his enemies who he desires to destroy and dominate in every way. Hatch is, however, at heart, shown to be a coward, disregarding the well-being of others and concentrating on saving his own life. In the final book, his cowardliness is shown when Michael returns while Hatch is in the Starxource plant, he runs into a different room, ordering his guards to take care of Michael, and when finally grounded and cornered, he begs Michael for mercy. He is also highly paranoid, as he has his guards and Glows tracked with RFIDS (radio-frequency identification), is usually surrounded by bodyguards and worried about losing power.
As the books progress and Hatch's Elgen empire starts to fall apart thanks to Michael's interference, he becomes more deranged and sadistic, willing to go to even further and crueler lengths to win than before and more paranoid as he is unable to sleep after Welch's escape. Despite his immense cruelty though Hatch does genuinely delusionally believe that everything he's done has been in the name of progress.
Biography[]
Background[]
Little is known about Hatch's early life. In Fall of Hades, it is revealed that Hatch had graduated from MIT and was hired by the Elgen Corporation around when Briton Hill, the CEO at the time, passed away. He was once friends and colleagues with Carl Vey, Michael's father. He was the CEO of the Elgen company until the MEI experiment malfunctioned and killed several newborn babies, causing him to be demoted. When he was ordered to gather the children that survived, he learned that they developed electricity-based powers. He saw their potential for world domination, and proposed to the board that they should build power plants using their newly bioengineered rats. This effectively turned Elgen Inc. into a massively profitable company.
Prisoner of Cell 25[]
Hatch is first seen on the phone to the Elgen chairman (Schema) where he promises to find the remaining electric children.
He learns that the last two Glows, Michael, and Taylor, live in Meridian, Idaho, after his internet spiders notice them accessing the Pasadena General Hospital birth records. He has a robber named Clyde attack Michael and his mom at PizzaMax to test his powers before showing himself to him. Hatch has Zeus and Nichelle demonstrate their powers to Michael. He then gets Nichelle and Zeus to kidnap Michael's mother but is unable to get Michael before Ostin returns. Hatch also has Nichele kidnap Taylor though despite kidnapping her, Hatch manages to convince her that he's a good person who cares about her well-being by reuniting her with her long-lost twin sister Tara and bribing her with expensive gifts. Hatch takes Taylor and the other Glows out to celebrate their birthday and in honour of Taylor joining them though while out. They first go to a concert where Hatch convinces Taylor to reboot the singer mid-song which makes her briefly disoriented. Hatch then escalates his requests and asks Taylor to reboot a racer in mida-r, something that would probably kill him. When Taylor refuses, Hatch makes all of the Glows leave the celebration early so that they'll hate Taylor and has her imprisoned in Purgatory with Ian, McKenna and Abigail, other Glows who have rebelled against him.
When Michael, Ostin, Jack, and Wade arrive at Elgen Academy to rescue Taylor and Mrs. Vey, they quickly get captured. Hatch gives Michael a few days to decide whether or not he wants to pledge allegiance to the Elgen, with the promise that he will free his mother and his friends if he does. With no other choice, Michael signs a contract swearing himself to the Elgen. As a test of his loyalty, Hatch forces him to kill Wade or else he'll electrocute his mother. When Michael refuses, Hatch becomes enraged and Michael is held in Cell 25 and is tortured for almost a month. When he is finally let out, Hatch sends Zeus to execute him, Taylor, and Ostin to prove to Michael that he's serious though they escape and after reducing Elgen Academy to a wasteland by setting the self-destruct, Hatch and his Glows escape to the Elgen's office in Rome. When Nichelle has her powers sucked by Michael, Hatch abandons her because she has no more use to him.
Rise of the Elgen[]
Hatch is ordered to shut down his research into the electric children, relocate to the Elgen's Peruvian Starxource Plant and release Michael's mom by the Elgen board of directors and Chairman Schema though Hatch does not plan on following these orders. He goes to the Peruvian Plant alongside the Glows though on the plane he riles them up to fight the board by giving them a speech about how miserable their lives as normal people will be. Tanner, who is sedated on the plane, wakes up and tries to crash the plane with his powers due to his guilt over the crimes Hatch made him commit though he is stopped and detained when they reach the ground. Hatch has the nurse who failed to properly sedate Tanner to be fed to the rats.
Hatch then gives the remaining Glows a tour of the Peruvian Plant, showing them its inner functions and giving them a glimpse of the rat bowl. When Bryan accidentally says Zeus's name, something Hatch had forbidden, he is sent to solitary confinement for a week as punishment. Hatch also has hundreds of Elgen soldiers summoned to the Peruvian Plant under the guise of "security" though he plans on using them to overthrow the board. Hatch has these soldiers go through gruelling training and has any soldiers who he deems disloyal sent to his re-education facilities called Re-Ed where they are humiliated by being forced to wear pink shirts. Hatch has Tara disguise him as Michael with her powers in order to trick his mom into believing her son willingly joined the Elgen for fun though she sees through his rouse, to Dr. Hatch's fury.
Later on, Michael lets himself get captured by the Elgen in order for his friends and mother to escape the Starxource Plant. Hatch has Tara disguise him as Taylor to trick Michael the same way he did his mom though Michael sees through his ruse to. Hatch tries once again to convince Michael to join him though he refuses so Hatch has him sent to the rats while he and the other Glows watch. Michael, however, manages to absorb the rats energy and escape. Michael also throws a ball of energy at the room Hatch is in, forcing him to duck.
Battle of the Ampere[]
Chairman Schema learns that Hatch disobeyed his orders and decides to have him executed. Hatch allows himself to get captured by the board who make him stand trial before them on the Ampere ship and condemn him for holding Michael's mom captive when they advised him against it, leading to the Peruvian Plant's destruction at his hands. Hatch responds by criticizing Schema for not using the attack on the plant as an opportunity to invoke public sympathy and decries Schema as unfit to lead the Elgen. Schema is enraged and orders Hatch imprisoned. Elgen board members Six, Seven and Eleven side with Hatch so Schema has them fired and imprisoned with him though the Glows loyal to Hatch soon arrive to free Hatch, Six, Seven and Eleven and they, along with Elgen soldiers loyal to Hatch, seize control of the Ampere and imprison the board. Hatch then declares himself leader of the Elgen and has board member Ten imprisoned for trying to escape. Hatch has Schema hung upside down to show his domination over him though when Hatch realizes that Two has feelings for Schema he offers to let Schema down if Two will take his place which Two agrees to. Two later dies from this.
Hatch then holds a meeting with Six, Seven and Eleven where he explains he plans on conquering the island nation of Tuvalu and using it as a base to develop weapons on and expand their influence from. Hatch also appoints Quentin as his official successor.
Later on, the Electroclan manages to sneak aboard the Ampere in an attempt to blow it up. However, Hatch caught on immediately and trapped them in the engine room of the ship. He gave them the sadistic choice to either turn themselves to the Elgen guard or let themselves die in the explosion. He also threatens to cut off Ostin's tongue though whether he's joking or not is unclear. When reinforcements come to save the Electroclan, Hatch manages to escape before the Ampere blows up.
Hunt for Jade Dragon[]
After the destruction of the Ampere, Hatch is forced to take up residence on the Faraday. Hatch has a genius deaf and mute Autistic savant girl from China named Jade Dragon kidnapped when she figures out the formula to rebuild the MEI machine after killing her parents and has her imprisoned in his Taiwan plant. He also has word of her imprisonment intentionally spread so the Electroclan will come save her which will let him capture them.
Later on, Hatch meets with the board members and explains his ultimate plan which is to wipe out the majority of the human population using the Four Horseman: War, disease, the shutdown of all energy and mass release of the rats. Hatch plans to deploy these on a worldwide scale so that the human population can be quelled and the "superior" race of electric people can replace them. Hatch also learns that Elgen's bankers in Switzerland aren't cooperating with him so has a banker named Florian Wyss blackmailed into betraying Schema by holding his family hostage though Hatch keeps Wyss's family captive and has Wyss tortured by Torstyn even though he complied with him. Hatch doesn't recapture Schema because he wants to so how long he survives on the run.
He later meets with Nichelle who pretends to betray the resistance when she learns that Tara has infiltrated them. Hatch is at first suspicious of her but ends up believing her and welcoming her back into the "family." Once the Electroclan has been captured, Hatch has Tara disguise himself as Michael's thought-to-be dead father Carl Vey to trick Michael into thinking his father joined the Elgen. This time, Michael believes Hatch and reveals the location of the resistance. Hatch then orders the location bombed.
Storm of Lightning[]
Hatch learns from EGG Welch that Michael and his friends saved Jade Dragon and that Schema is nowhere to be found so has him imprisoned for failure with plans to feed him to the rats despite appearing unmoved by the news at first. He also buys three new ships with plans to finish what he started and conquer Tuvalu. Later, when Welch ends up escaping, Hatch has Tara disguise him as her so he can see if Quentin had anything to do with his escape because he knows Welch and Quentin were close though Quentin catches the ruse because Hatch's vocabulary is more extensive than Tara's and doesn't say anything. Later on, Hatch visits Tuvalu under the guise of a meeting with the Tuvalun government to give them a tour of the Elgen's new Starxource Plant there. After the tour and ceremonial dinner, Hatch brings a platoon of Elgen soldiers into the room and announces that his soldiers have taken over government facilities across Tuvalu while they were distracted. Hatch gives the Tuvalun government the opportunity to pledge allegiance to him though when the Tuvalun Prime Minister Saluni refuses, Hatch has his tongue cut off and forces him to live in a monkey cage in public. Almost all the other Tuvalun government officials swear loyalty to Hatch.
Once in control of Tuvalu, Hatch and the Elgen install a totalitarian regime in which the lives of Tuvaluns are tightly controlled and surveilled. Hatch appoints Quentin as the new king of Tuvalu and gathers all Tuvalun citizens at Funafuti International Airport where he announces the abolition of Tuvaun citizenship. Instead, Tuvalun's will be asked to take an oath of allegiance to the Elgen and those that do not will be excluded from public services. He also abolishes Tuvalun currency and makes them use the Elgen's new currency and has Tuvalun islands renamed to Greek names. That night, Hatch and the Elgen elite move into the Tuvalun royal palace. Hatch overhears Quentin complaining about the lack of regal glamour in his new position and steps in to give him a lesson about how to rule. He explains that dividing the people and building a web of informants are effective tools in controlling them and cites Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin as his inspiration's in governance.
Later on, Hatch holds a meeting where he explains the Elgen's new Nova Pods will be sold in developed nations like America. These pods will provide cheap and easy electricity, giving the Elgen a monopoly over those markets. After the meeting, EGG Daines pulls Hatch aside to show him a video of Quentin, Torstyn and Tara helping Welch escape. Hatch flies into a rage and barges into Quentin's room in the middle of the night to berate him for treachery. When Quentin tells Hatch he'd do it again, Hatch slaps Quentin and has him sent to Cell 25. Tara and Torstyn, meanwhile, are arrested with Hatch planning on throwing them to the rats.
Fall of Hades[]
Hatch is worried about Welch's escape since Welch knows a lot about the Elgen's operations and places a million-dollar bounty on his head. Hatch enters Torstyn's prison cell offering to give him anesthesia while he's being eaten by the rats on the condition he tells him where Welch is. Torstyn is unable to tell Hatch anything due to not knowing where he is. Hatch is not pleased by this so decides to have a cage put around Torstyn's organs to make his death more gruesome. Hatch also has Quentin placed in the monkey cage. Later on, Hatch is contacted by J.D. who offers to betray the resistance. Hatch agrees to give J.D. a hefty sum of money and let him keep Taylor as his personal "pet" for his help.
Hatch learns that Michael and his friends plan on freeing Quentin before attacking the Hades prison island and freeing Tara and Torstyn. Hatch decides to allow their plans to go ahead because he plans on launching an attack on Hades to decisively crush the resistance in a spectacular show of force. Hatch also plans on cooking Michael and serving him as a feast to the Elgen elite as a means of further degrading him. The attack on Hades goes smoothly and results in the deaths of numerous Elgen enemies until Michael harnesses the power of the storm to go "supernova" and destroy the Elgen fleet.
The Final Spark[]
After the destruction of the Elgen fleet, Hatch (who barely survived) had been living on an escape pod in the middle of the ocean for days. He finally arrives back to Funafuti at the start of the book and is furious at Michael for destroying his Navy, the theft of his personal submarine vault, the Joule, and Enele Saluni's uprising in Tuvalu though takes some solace in the fact that Michael is "dead". He spends the majority of the book holed up in his bunker at the Tuvaluan Starxource plant giving orders and coordinating attacks against the Tuvaluns. After learning of the Electroclan's takeover of the Joule, he calls the Philippine Navy and alerts them about the supposed terrorists. When the Philippine Navy captain, Shool, arrests Welch and the Electroclan, Hatch appoints him as the chief admiral of the Elgen, enticing him by offering him a pay increase. Hatch manages to get in contact with the Joule and threatens to activate the boat's self-destruct mechanism if they don't turn themselves in though Welch tricks Hatch into revealing the mechanism's location to his horror.
Later on, Hatch manages to capture the Electroclan and has Welch put in Cell 25 immediately. He forces them to watch the crew members of the Joule who had helped them get devoured by the rats as a grim reminder of what's going to happen to them. Hatch plans on feeding one Electroclan member to the rats daily and establishes a point system where those who annoy him get points and the person who has the most points by the end of the day is fed to the rats. Later, he introduces the final Glow, Zara , who has the ability to copy the other Glows' powers. He orders Zara to read Cassy's mind once she sucks the power from Taylor, learning the location of both the Voice and the Resistance's base, as well as learning that Carl Vey is still alive and in command of the resistance. Hatch orders the destruction of the Christmas Ranch, the secret base, presumably killing many resistance agents and capturing Dr. Coonradt (aka The Voice) and recapturing Michael's mom to use as bait to lure Carl Vey to Tuvalu.
After convincing Carl Vey to show himself, he introduces him to the Electroclan as the leader of the resistance. Hatch offers to let them live if the Electroclan members throw bricks at Carl Vey, however, Sharon instead hurls one at him, causing a brief scuffle that Zara has to break up. Hatch then angrily orders the entire Electroclan's immediate execution but then Michael reemerges from his metaphysical state. Hatch panics and orders Zara to attack, but Michael quickly fries her, as well as some of the Elgen soldiers. Realizing the situation he's in, Hatch tries to flee, only for Michael to catch up to him. Michael gives him three choices: either spend the rest of his life in Cell 25, get sent to the monkey cage he forced the Tuvulan Prime Minister in, or be fed to the Electric Rats. Realizing that Michael has beaten him once and for all, he chooses the rats, but Michael then realizes that he'd be stooping to his level, prompting Hatch to beg Michael to kill him. Michael decides to vaporize him with his electricity quickly and painlessly, effectively putting an end to Hatch's reign over Tuvalu and the Elgen once and for all.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- It was stated in The Final Spark that Hatch was born in Minnesota.
- Throughout the majority of the series, it has been suggested that Hatch is wealthy.
- In The Fall of Hades (during the flashback chapters), after Briton Hill's death, it was revealed that Hatch graduated from MIT, and was the CEO of an “upstart pharmaceutical company”.
- During the occupation of Tuvalu, Hatch has jalapenos grown because he likes them.
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 Villains
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Glows Elgen Corporation Others | ||