With a turn of a key, Jed discovers he's more (and less) than he could have ever imagined. But as more questions than answers surface, Jed digs deeper into his history-and goes further into himself. Who is his father? Where is his mother? What is this place? How did these dreadnaughts get here? And . . . why is this happening to him? Strange truths, unexpected twists, and powerful revelations unfold as Jed confronts his past and contemplates his future.

Jed is a regular kid with a normal, loving family . . . that is, if it's normal for a loving family to drop their child off in the middle of nowhere and expect him home in time for Sunday dinner. Luckily, Jed excels at being a regular kid who—armed with wit and determination—can make his way out of any situation. At least until the morning of his twelfth birthday, when Jed wakes to discover his parents missing. Something is wrong. Really wrong. Jed just doesn't realize it's floating-city, violent-junk-storm, battling-metals, Frankensteined-scavengers kind of wrong. Yet. A cryptic list of instructions leads Jed into a mysterious world at war over . . . junk. Here, batteries and bottled water are currency, tremendously large things fall from the sky, and nothing is exactly what it seems. Resilient Jed, ready to escape this upside-down place, bargains his way onto a flying tugboat with a crew of misfit junkers. They set course to find Jed's family, but a soul-crushing revelation...