The guys huddle closer and murmur; the girls' heads incline together and they whisper. They're all talking about me. I'll bet if they were naked I could see their tattoos. They've been taken. They're waiting for me to be taken too. I force myself to walk past them, even though I have the overpowering urge to run. Or scream, tell them I know all about their plans. Why me? I'd like to ask them that. I hesitate. Maybe I should ask them. Maybe there's some shred of humanity left in one of them and they'll help me escape. After watching a tv program about Otzi, a 5,000-year-old "Ice Man," Kit's friend Ike becomes convinced that Kit's destiny is to become the next ice man--a source of information for future generations. Together they obtain artifacts they think will accurately reflect life in the early twenty-first century and plan their journey to a nearby mountain. Kit gets tattoos similar to Otzi's, writes a manifesto and tries to come to terms with making the ultimate sacrifice. As he grows more and more agitated and isolated, his family and friends suspect that something is terribly wrong, but before they can discover the true severity of the situation, Kit and Ike set off on what could be their last journey. K.L. Denman was born in Calgary, Alberta, and spent her childhood in a house one street away from the open prairie. When she was eleven, her family moved to Delta, British Columbia, and she got to know life on the coast. Today she lives on a small farm on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast with her family of people, two dogs, three cats, two horses and an elderly mule. More information about Kim is available on her blog at http: //kldenman.blogspot.com/.