BLACK ICE #1
“Violent Harvest”
by Frederick Vaughn
 
Copyright (C) 2009. Frederick Emory Herbert. All Rights Reserved.
 
 
   Tex Tobias had had enough. Didn’t anyone care? The politicians all say 
they care. Until the election is over. But they don’t care at all. Not at all.
   It was a long way from Indiana. People kept asking him why he was called 
Tex when he came from Indiana. It was all about that summer when he was 
sixteen. How he loved Texas. Now Texas might secede. Good for them.
   Twenty four hours later, Black Ice and King Crab were investigating an 
explosion off Ivey Place in Norwich.
   “What could the motive be?” Black Ice, the black superhero, asked his 
white, six armed partner.
   “This apartment building was going to be used for public housing,” King 
Crab stated.
   “We need someone who can see what isn’t here.” Ice was referring to his 
friend Berdache. He called the gay white hero who was in the area for an 
art show. Dache appeared at the explosion site and used his native Ganymedean 
second sight.
   “I see a white man from Indiana, but with a connection with Texas. He is 
called The Farmer and he is against the government. Including public 
housing.”
   “But that doesn’t make sense,” complained King Crab.
   “He heard of a famous online poet who was in public housing just last 
year.”
  “T. Stanley Bryan.” Ice realized.
   “Look who is here,” sneered a figure ten feet away. “Did you get a 
government grant to play Halloween and interfere with justice?”
   Black Ice used his powers to lower body temperature to subdue The 
Farmer. “I don’t even get reimbursed on my thermometers.”
   The Farmer was down, but he threw a bomb made of radishes. Soon the 
three heroes were down. The Farmer came over the trio with an combination of 
herbs to kill the heroes. The wind started to blow. Should he kill these 
strangers? Tex wondered. Is that what he was about? Isn’t that what people thought 
of people like him?
   The Farmer took off.
   It started to rain and the heroes awoke.
   “What happened?” asked Ice.
   “He could have killed us. But he is having second thoughts,” explained 
Berdache.
   “Where is he?”
   “A cheap motel seven miles away. Let’s go.” The three heroes went on 
their motorcycles. All three bikes were registered to Lou Flynn, King Crab. 
Black Ice and Berdache had secret identities and the Department of Motor 
Vehicles doesn’t have to know everything.
   At the motel, the three heroes found The Farmer. He was checking out.
   “Going somewhere, Tobias?” Black Ice asked.
   “I would say how to you know my name. But I see you have a gay psychic.”
   “It pays to have a psychic on the team,” smiled Berdache.
   “I’m going back to Indiana.”
   “Aren’t you forgetting something? You blew up the housing.”
   “So what? Can’t you heroes put it back together?”
   Black Ice used his powers on The Farmer. This time Tobias didn’t have 
his herbs. Ice lowered his body temperature,a power he received when posing as 
a villain and volunteering for the Svengali Effect. What would General 
Lombard say if he knew that Black Ice had defeated another right wing villain? 
Guess all would be revealed on XNN.
 
The End