"Daniel X" ~ Chapter 2 and 3 Summaries

Allison LeBel

"Daniel X"

James Paterson 

Pages read: from pg. 26 to pg. 84

     Daniel goes back to school and, so as not to seem too smart, purposely flunks a History test. He literallyruns into Phoebe after the test. Phoebe has something to tell Daniel. She feels terrible for keeping secret the reason she had changed schools. A few months before, Phoebe's sister, Allison, had been abducted without a trace off of her own driveway. Daniel suspects it to be the work of Seth. On his way out of the school, he is attacked by some of Seth's henchmen. After incapacitating them, Daniel hurries home, where he finds his mom—only he didn't intentionally create her; he speculates he created her from his subconscious.

    Later that day, Phoebe calls Daniel to a coffee shop and gives him Allison's case file, which has details of other abductions that form a pattern, which Daniel describes as forming "an almost-perfect connect-the-dots circle with Malibu at its center." After his house is compromised (again), Daniel feels it is unsafe to return, so he goes to spend the night with Phoebe. They plot to go to Malibu the following day to investigate Allison's disappearance. Phoebe lets him sleep in the closet to avoid detection from her parents.

    The next morning, Daniel awakens to find Phoebe missing. He finds Phoebe near the school, but something is wrong. He talks to her, and she transforms, revealing herself to have been Ergent Seth in disguise all along. Seth deactivates Daniel's powers, shoots him in the stomach, and drags him through the desert and into a spaceship. The ship flies away from Earth. Daniel is put into a cell for the duration of the trip. He summons his friends, andthey begin reconnaissance. During a poker game with his "family," Daniel figures out that his mother had been pregnant when she was killed, which also killed the unborn Pork Chop.