Rocketing toward the ground. We only had seconds.

  I looked at Mom's ropes, and with a thought, froze them solid with ice, wishing them to be as brittle as possible. Not understanding, and not caring, Mom ripped her arms and legs free, shattering the frozen rope into a million pieces. She immediately fell.

  I kicked my legs out and wrapped them around her middle, catching her, then froze her to my legs with ice to be safe.

  I could feel the ground rushing toward us.

  Another quick thought, and the sound of breaking ice came from above. Rusty immediately fell toward us. He slammed against me, and it took every bit of effort to maintain the icy hold I had to the back of the cabin. He wrapped his arms around my neck, squeezing the breath from me.

  The ominous presence of the approaching ground made my heart skip a beat.

  I looked down and reached for Dad with my free hand, looking through the windows on the front of the chopper. Time was out.

  The blades of the chopper hit the ground, life seeming to transform into slow motion as I saw them bend. My hand found Dad's neck as the sound of crunching metal filled the air.

  I pulled us to him with my last ounce of strength, and shattered his ropes with The Ice.

  As flame and metal and glass exploded in a swarm of destruction all around us, I froze my family into place, with ice so powerful I knew our hug could not be broken.

  Flames licked at us from all directions as the fuel from the helicopter exploded with a fiery roar. It never reached us. The Shield formed a perfect bubble of air, protecting us. We were encased in fire but felt no heat and suffered no wounds.

  We slammed into the ground as one, The Shield bouncing us back toward the sky, sending us straight through the burning and exploding remains of the helicopter. We tore through the flame and metal, erupting into the open air with a rush of wind, clinging to each other in our icy grips. Mom's screams pierced the air as we fell back to the ground.

  Fifty feet from the disaster, the ground rushed up at us until the outer edges of The Shield slammed into it, once again catapulting us into the air, although lower than the first time. The silence of Mom catching her breath only lasted a second before her shrieks once again boomed forth. We fell again, still clasped in our icy family hug.

  Another bounce, another scream, another bounce.

  And then it was over.

  I released the ice, and we fell off each other, our backs thudding to the ground. Panting, we stared at the sky above us, shock overwhelming disbelief.

  It had been too close. More than ever before, it had been too close. Tears came, the horror of it all just too much to bear. Dad sat up and reached out, and soon we were all hugging again, this time out of love instead of protection.

  “Jimmy,” Dad said, still catching his breath, “I don't know what you've been up to, but my goodness, boy. Thank you. Thank you for saving our lives.”

  We hugged again, and the touch of family, reassuringly safe, brought my emotions under some semblance of control.

  Dad got to his feet, and helped the rest of us do the same. As one, we looked back toward the burning wreck. The spectacular display of fire was not what made me gasp.

  Standing between the inferno and us were people.

  Normal, Japanese people. Forty or fifty of them. Everyday citizens.

  Every face stared back, filled with uncertainty. Filled with wonder. Many were holding cameras or camcorders. I glanced toward the freeway and noticed cars were pulled to the side of the road. I looked back at our audience.

  And then, it hit me.

  It was no longer a secret.

  Now, the world would know.

  The world would know about me.

  The world would know about Jimmy Fincher.

  The thundering of hooves broke through the dumb-founded chatter of our onlookers.

  Rayna, Tanaka, Hood, and Miyoko. Baka was there alongside them, and my heart lifted at the sight of him.

  I had never seen the members of the Alliance so excited. They jumped from their horses, and took their turns giving me bear hugs and slapping me on the back. Tanaka used it as an excuse to hit me especially hard, and almost as if it were a joke, The Shield did nothing to stop him. He also made some smart aleck remark about how slow I was when I flew onto the helicopter with the pillars of Ice. So I took it on myself to wrestle him to the ground and rub his face in the dirt. The grime did nothing to our spirits—we laughed the whole time.

  I introduced everyone to my family, and there were handshakes and hugs all around. Hood bent down and wrote something on the ground with his finger.

  “FINCHER FAMILY, I AM HONORED. I AM YOUR SERVANT.”

  The whole scene was beginning to turn into a circus—gawkers with cameras, my family stunned from seeing a man paint with his finger, our horses trotting around in excitement. It was time to get out of there.

  Urging my family to save their questions for later, we hoisted ourselves onto the horses. Rusty rode with me, Mom with Miyoko, Dad with Tanaka. Hood and Rayna rode alone.

  We rode off into the mountains, our horses too fast and the terrain too rough for anyone to follow. We rode for hours, until finally we felt safe and separate from the world.

  For the next few days, we lived like mountain men. Dad, Tanaka, and Rayna hunted for food. We bathed in the river. We slept under the stars. But most of our time was filled with updating each other on what had happened since our separation during the train attack.

  Mom, Dad, and Rusty had been taken to a dirty old warehouse, where they were held captive in a locked office. They had been fed and treated tolerably, the Bosu Zoku realizing that they were the only hope to get me sidetracked from my quest. The trip to the helicopter was part of a plan to take them to another place, far from Japan, to persuade me to leave and give up on my search for the Second Gift. It seemed they were getting desperate, and that encouraged all of us.

  One misty morning, the wispy clouds draped the surrounding forests of the mountains and the air was crisp and clean and refreshing. I woke up before everyone else and went to sit and look out on the valley. It wasn't long before my gazing was interrupted by a sound behind me, and it turned out to be Rusty. I told him to pull up a piece of ground and have a seat, which sounded way too much like something Dad would say.

  “Jimmy,” Rusty said, “we really haven't had much chance to talk since the train thingy happened. How are you holding up?”

  My brother was three years older than me, but we were best friends. For some reason, when he asked me that, everything came crashing down, and I couldn't hold back the tears. Realizing that whatever he might say would just come out sounding stupid, Rusty just put his arm around me, and we both looked off into the valley below. He soon joined me in the crying department.

  For several minutes, no words were shared, but plenty of tears were shed. And somehow those moments with my brother made everything in the world right again.

  Later that morning, we held a council. Farmer had assured me he would send a guide, but we couldn't wait around for that. We needed a plan of action. Just as the morning sun began to burn away the dew and the mist, bringing a bright cheerfulness to the day, something happened.

  Something unbelievable.

  Dad started the council by recommending a trip back to America. Rayna agreed, but Tanaka and Miyoko did not, wondering why going there would be any better than searching for the Third Gift in Japan. They debated back and forth, discussing various issues that had surfaced from their experiences that would perhaps give us some clue as to where the next Gift could be. The whole time, Hood sat and brooded, still recovering from his ordeal at Raspy's hands. We had yet to hear of that story. I sat and listened to the different arguments, pretending to think deeply about them, but in reality wondering about the Gifts and trying to guess what the next two would be. Mom was ensuring that no one argued too hotly. Somewhere in the middle of all the discussion, Rusty burped and ignored the scowl from Mom.

  It was half an hour or so into the conversation when the remarkable thing happened.

  We heard the mixed sounds of static electricity and ripping paper.

  It was a sound so familiar, yet so unexpected.

  In the air above us, a small ribbon of black appeared, a rent of black emptiness, and two hands suddenly reached through it, popping out of the blackness. The black area seemed to close around his hands, ensnaring them. There was another sound of ripping. The black surged again, briefly expanding from the hands hanging in midair. Just as quickly, the Ripping violently closed back in on itself, barely missing cutting the person in half who fell through onto the ground in front of us.

  The person was a man. He stood, turning around to gaze into our startled eyes.

  “Don't worry,” he said. “The Black Curtain is still blocked. It took an army of five hundred to open it for just that long.”

  The man was bald, the man was tall, the man was skinny.

  The man was Joseph.

  Ignoring the fact that our eyes had grown to the size of grapefruits, he ran up to me and gave me a massive hug, then held me back with his hands to get a look at me.

  “Ah, Jimmy,” he said to my disbelieving eyes. “Adequate words ain't been invented to express my joy at seeing your little whippersnapper face, although it saddens me a bit to see it without a Braves hat on top. I got a lot to tell you, boy.”

  Then he stepped back and addressed everyone.

  “There is no time. I'll have to explain along the way. I know where the Third Gift is located. We've gotta hurry and find a ship.”

  “A ship?” I asked, still so shocked that it surprised me when words came out of my gaping mouth.

  “Yes, yes! C'mon, I don't have time to explain.” With that, Joseph took off toward the valley below. He must have missed the fact that we had horses.

  He turned his head and yelled back at us as soon as he saw that we didn't show any sign of following.

  “Giddyup people! The Tower of Three Days is failing, and we have to get to the bottom of the ocean before it collapses!”

  Wondering if Joseph had gone batty—but realizing that a crazy Joseph was better than anything we had at the moment—we gathered our things, jumped on the horses, and followed him anyway.

  We descended the winding trails through briar, bush, and tree into the valley below. I couldn't help but think how unlucky poor Joseph had been so far in this mess, and how good it was to have him back again.

  Just as promised, our guide had come.

  The journey for the Third Gift would soon begin.

  In the days ahead, stories would fill the papers, videos and special reports would fill the news shows, rumors and gossip would reach everyone around the world via the Internet, all debating the images and rumors of a teenage boy and his feats of impossibility.

  There would be the usual cries of hoax and fraud, but the evidence had been overwhelming, the witnesses numerous. A boy had flown with rockets of ice, men had taken to the air with black wings from a doomed helicopter, four people had burst forth from an inferno and bounced along the ground in a protective bubble of air. An entire gang of Bosu Zoku had been obliterated, with no remaining evidence but puddles of water.

  The world and its perceptions would forever be changed.

  As for my family and me, we would have to avoid that world as best we could. There would be no time to show stupid human tricks on late night television. We had far more serious things to take care of. For days after Joseph appeared, we traveled at night, staying in out-of-the-way motels, and had our food delivered. It had been a crazy week as we'd journeyed back to the town of Kushiro, on the coast, where ships and boats were available.

  At the moment, I was staring at a world of blue, and my face was green.

  The shock of seeing Joseph had still not gone away. He had been so busy the last few days that we'd hardly spoken, other than short exchanges here and there that only left me with more questions.

  Most of Joseph's time had been spent looking for a boat.

  He'd meant what he said about the ocean, and we agreed to go along with his plan. He searched and searched, finally finding a large, hefty, sea-worthy yacht to take us on a long journey, with a captain and crew and everything. How in the world he paid for it was beyond any of us. He would only say that things were not what they appeared to be, and that the whole concept of money wasn't really an issue. It sure seemed to be an issue when he showed up one day with a trunk full of crisp, green cash.

  He promised us over and over that he had not robbed a bank, but could not explain to us yet how he had gotten it.

  “Just look at it as a gift from the Givers, and quit worrying your little heads about it,” he had said.

  The yacht was huge, nicely furnished, and scary. The thought of being on that big boat in the middle of the ocean gave me the shivers. Now as I stood and gazed upon the rolling waves of the ocean, barreling through the waters toward our destination, my fears were realized.

  The ocean was so big. The sheer size of it was overwhelming, almost feeling like it was on top of us instead of below us. I was having a very difficult time getting used to it. Not to mention the up and down motion that turned me green and kept me near the railing when I was outside and near a bucket when I was inside.

  We were quite the group. Dad, the patriarch. Mom, the mediator. Rusty, my best friend and brother. Tanaka with his gangly eyebrows. Rayna in her green leather. Miyoko with her strong smile. Hood with his Bender Ring. Our crew (who couldn't help but give our friends of the Alliance the strangest looks now and then). Hairless Joseph. And me, of course. All riding on an expensive yacht, sailing toward a place that only Joseph seemed to know about—although even that was sketchy.

  He had purchased enough maps before we left to start his own store, and spent every waking moment studying them. The Givers had given him specific guidelines, so he was busy trying to figure out where this Tower was located. The only hint he would share with us is that the tower was supposed to defy time, and that it was always simultaneously three different days at the tower. Three separate days, at the same time. This, of course, made no sense to any of us.

  Nothing Joseph had said since his return made much sense. However, we trusted him, and knew we would be enlightened at some point. Farmer had told me a guide would be sent, and I felt sure that Joseph was the one.

  Before we left shore, we'd paid for a place to keep our horses, and we were promised that they would be well cared for. I almost broke down and cried when we had to say goodbye to them. Baka had become like a brother, as moronic as that sounds.

  Rayna also sent a message to Geezer before we left, saying that he was to gather as many members of the Alliance as he could, and to wait for our return. From what I knew of Geezer, it seemed impossible that he could accomplish such a task. But Rayna looked at me intently when I voiced that opinion, and assured me that Geezer had never, not once, failed a mission he'd been entrusted with. I often tried to imagine what other sorts of people made up the Alliance. For some reason, different versions of Tanaka kept popping in my head, so I gave up.

  So, once again, on that massive boat in the middle of the ocean, all was well for a short period. There was time to be together as a family, to enjoy one another's company. We would never again take for granted the simple wonder of being safe and united. I would've thought it impossible, but the love I had for my family was now even stronger. They meant everything to me.

  And so it was that one morning, I stood at the railing on the edge of the boat, staring at the passing waters of the ocean, its dark blueness both comforting and foreboding. It reminded me of the black eyes of Kenji, and everything we'd been through went crashing through my head.

  Thought through from beginning to end, it was tiring. But this was my new life. And that morning, perhaps truly for the first time, I accepted it. The future of the world rested with me.

  I also thought about the many questions that were still unanswered.

  The other two Gifts, the strange evolution of the Shadow Ka in our world, the huge monkey in the woods, the black, gooey face that Rayna was carried into by the flying Ka. The questions were endless.

  The image of stone beds filled my head, and I thought of the lingering mystery of the Stompers.

  Farmer had said they were not what they seem. Since I had no notion of what they were in the first place, this didn't really help me very much. But Farmer had been emphatic in saying that we must speak of them in the near future, that they were not like anything we could imagine.

  And, that the biggest surprise of all was still to come.

  Something was missing. In all of it, in all my thoughts, in all my experiences, something was missing, and I could not grasp it. But I could sense that someday, when the entire truth was revealed, one way or the other, it would blow us all away.

  The yacht rolled, and my stomach finally gave up. With a good bend over the railing, I tried to give some pre-chewed food to the beasts of the ocean. However, a sudden burst of wind changed its course, followed by a familiar Japanese yell of disgust from an open window below me, and I couldn't help but laugh, at the same time realizing that I'd better run and hide. Tanaka was quick.

  As I looked for the perfect hiding place, my brain reminded me that dark days lay ahead, and I wondered for the millionth time if it was all worth it. Ducking behind a huge wooden box piled with all kinds of boat supplies, I decided that it was. There was a renewed hope, and we were doing the right thing in taking that big boat to the middle of the ocean.

  I wanted the Third Gift.

  To be continued in …

  Book Three of the

  Jimmy Fincher Saga,

  The Tower of Air

  James Dashner was born and raised in Georgia. Although he currently resides in Utah, he will always be a southerner at heart.

  After high school, James attended Brigham Young University, where he went on to receive a master's degree in accounting. He also took a couple of years off and served a mission in Japan. Since graduation, he has received his CPA, worked for a major audit firm, and now works as a financial analyst.