Down the Road: The Fall of Austin by Bowie Ibarra

wherever it may lead, even all the way south to Texas.
Plus, having been called “Liz” or “Beth” alternately depending on
which family member addressed her, she found the stability of being
called “Noble” to be a welcome change. Pretty for a tomboy, she
kept her black hair cut to shoulder length, making her small frame
somewhat more noticeable. But when wearing her uniform, her dark,
haunting eyes over porcelain skin—and a perfect smile—were the only
indications of her femininity, a gothic appearance she never
intended to have or could readily alter.
    Specialist Hageshiro Knight was the only
child of two computer programmers who fell in love in college
during the late ‘80s. His mother was from Tokyo, Japan. His father
was from Laredo, Texas. The parents latched on to the company that
would change the face of computers in the ‘90s: Apple . Sharp
as a knife like his parents, Hageshiro chose the military over
college. Most of his motivation to join came from the chance to
express the anger he had built up from being called zipperhead , chink , and many other racial slurs due to
his half-Asian background. His mother was fullblooded Japanese, and
if it wasn’t for his mastery of the English language, he could
easily pass as an Asian immigrant, even though he was a fullblooded
American.
    Spc. Rodriguez had infiltrated the group of
senators and was holding the bottle of L’Amour Whiskey hostage like
a bully holding candy from a small child. A tattoo of a goat head
sat on his right forearm, stretching down to his wrist. A
black-robed wraith with a scythe stretched down his left forearm.
He always kept his sleeve rolled up to proudly display his satanic
ink. Many also felt it was his true spiritual allegiance. A trim
moustache sat on his thick lips below his bulbous nose. A unibrow
stood thick over his dark eyes. A perpetual bully, Rodriguez was
enjoying his time intimidating the senators. He was intimidating
enough even without flaunting it. He had obviously found ways to
receive and use steroids, though no one really cared as long as he
was on their team. Born in Panama but raised in the U.S., Rodriguez
was a standout defensive lineman from Skyline High School in
Houston, Texas. His grades and bad attitude during his school years
were more fitting for the military than college. His large
trapezeous muscles gave the illusion he had no neck. The ink on his
arms were on proud display, though nondescript from a distance
against his dark black skin.
    Spc. Daniel Talltree, standing in the hallway
between the two secured sections, took in the social dynamics of
both sections. Talltree was a proud Mohawk Indian, which his family
thought would exclude him from service in the military. The Mohawk
Warrior Society, a strong militant segment of the Mohawk nation,
had gained a bad reputation in Canada, forcing the northern nation
to label the society a terrorist organization. The Oka Crisis, as
it became known, found Mohawks taking on the town of Oka, Quebec,
Canada, in a fight to recover their native land. It was
particularly important to the natives, as the sacred pines and land
the city planned to tear down in order to build a golf course was
home to a sacred Mohawk burial ground. The Mohawks fought the
system with numbers and tenacity. And though the land moved into
the hands of another governmental force that promised to protect
the land, the Mohawks became a force to be reckoned with. Despite
the reputation the militant segment of the Mohawk nation gained
after the incident, and the fact some of Talltree’s family members
participated in the event, Talltree was allowed to enlist.
    The recruiter saw something special in
Talltree, something that could be used to the Army’s advantage. The
recruiter who signed him up by ignoring his tribal affiliation was
already experiencing it. It was a kind of ESP, a spiritual
infiltration that bordered on the psychic, but was somehow
instinctual. Talltree had a way to connect so