Green River T ha n o s K a l a m i da s In New Bayou, the river doesn’t forget. B a y o u l e g e n d s G r e e n r i v e r Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Green River Green River Thanos Kalamidas From the series: Bayou legends Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Green River “In New Bayou, the river doesn’t forget. It buries your sins deep and whispers them back when you least expect.” T hick smog hung over the Ogun like a skin graft peeled wrong. It draped the old shipyards in green-tinged layers, whispering carcinogens and recycled industrial regret. From a distance, TR3 looked like a religious structure fallen into heresy, cranes craned heavenward like atrophied arms, jagged scaffolding wrapped in the soft blur of fog. Even gods, if there were gods left in New Bayou, would choke on this air. Flat Detective S’Leung ghosted along a rusted catwalk three stories up, her boots magnet-clung to the slick metal, joints damp with the stench of Thanos Kalamidas petroleum rain. Her rebreather clicked twice in warning, low charge. She ignored it. She’d died in a dozen simulations already this month. What was one more breathless hour? Three names ago, she was S’Leung. Now, she was Zhal–4217, convicted data-runner, former asset of Arcology 19, all meat and muscle and subdermal record wipes. The limp was real. The dossier that explained it, shank fight in a prison line for a nutrient bar, wasn’t. But it sold. Especially to the Itari, who respected violence more than words and trusted humanoids least when they didn’t bleed. She didn’t mind bleeding. Just hated wasting it. A voice clicked through her comm: an alien cadence wrapped in translation-skin. “S’Leung. You’re late.” S’Leung grinned behind her modulator. “You said nine-twenty. It’s nine-nineteen and I haven’t been shot yet. I call that early.” Below, Va’thell waited. A synth-gilled Itari, skin glossy and pitted like obsidian weeping, wearing a coat of woven light. His four lower arms held steady, but his upper pair trembled slightly, a tell that would’ve meant nothing Green River to most humans. But S’Leung knew how to read tension, and Va’thell reeked of it. He wasn’t alone. Two enforcers flanked him. One human, a woman with chrome veins and tribal ink burned into her jawline. The other was pure Itari, smaller, but armed with a kinetic whip wrapped around his thigh. S’Leung dropped down beside them without fanfare. Her chameleon mesh rippled once, like static over a pulse and reformed into something sleeker, sharper. Street-lethal. S’Leung’s favorite look. “You brought friends,” she said. “I didn’t bring snacks.” Va’thell made a sound like a fish being skinned slowly. “They’re here for your protection.” “Funny,” she said. “I didn’t ask.” “You’re not the one in danger.” He began walking. S’Leung followed. They moved beneath the surface arteries of TR3, down through tram lines abandoned since the New Energy Riots, a century ago, if the sprayed-over memorial plaques could be trusted. The walls bled Thanos Kalamidas graffiti: layers of symbols, gang-tags, subcultural screams preserved in phosphorescent paint that never quite died. A child’s handprint in acid-pink hovered above the words WE REMEMBER NOT TO REMEMBER. The ghosts were loud here. At the end of the tunnel, the air grew cold. And they waited. Seven of them, pulsing softly in breathable gel suspension: Anima pods. They weren’t just containers. They were vats of identity. Living repositories. Unmarked. Except for the soft flicker of color-coded tags: blue for diplomatic class, red for criminal systems, green for civilian archive. S’Leung stepped close to one. Watched as the fluid inside coiled like a jellyfish in sleep. “Who are they?” she asked. “No one,” Va’thell said. “And everyone. Lost threads. Memory architecture torn from crash sites. Old cortical backups intercepted in transmission. Green River Even a few Imperial personalities.” S’Leung’s modulator hissed as she exhaled. “This one’s breathing.” “You noticed.” “That’s not just memory.” “It’s presence ,” Va’thell said. “Semi-sentient. Fragmented consciousness, still encoded in the neural substrate.” “You’re selling living minds.” “We’re selling home , Zhal. To people who’ve forgotten what they were. Who want to relive their first tongue, their first mother. You’d be surprised what an exile pays to feel one meal in their grandmother’s house again. One fight under twin moons.” S’Leung curled her fingers around the edge of the tank. Cold. The light pulsed under her skin, and there ...a flicker. A word in her head. Not in any voice she recognized. “ S’Leung .” Her own name. From the inside of her skull. Thanos Kalamidas S’Leung stepped back sharply. “What the hell is that?” she said. Va’thell’s head tilted. “Sometimes, they leak.” “You said these were dead minds. Crashed packets. Corpses in gel.” “Mostly. But the border between memory and identity, it’s not a wall, Zhal. It’s a smogline. Just like New Bayou.” The kinetic whip snapped. The smaller Itari stepped forward. “She’s interfaced. You didn’t warn her.” “I didn’t think she’d touch them,” Va’thell said, annoyed. S’Leung’s hand twitched toward her sidearm. Then stopped. Slowly. Controlled. “Tell me who bought them,” she said. “Who’s paying for ghosts?” Va’thell didn’t blink. “House Kashiri. Sector Seven Spine. They like their concubines fluent in extinct languages.” Green River A joke. But not really. S’Leung moved faster than they expected. She slammed her elbow into the smaller Itari’s neck, heard cartilage crack. Rolled left. Drew the sidearm she wasn’t supposed to have. Fired once, twice, blue plasma bolts stitching the wall where the chrome- veined woman had been a second before. Va’thell shouted something, wet and indecipherable and the lights died. The tunnel plunged into blackness. S’Leung activated her HUD overlay. Infrared. Everything lit up in red ghosts. The enforcer moved to flank her, too slow. She shot her in the thigh. The kinetic whip lashed wild, caught her shoulder, pain bloomed electric but S’Leung didn’t fall. She kicked the Itari square in the thorax, used the recoil to launch herself backward into cover. The Anima tanks pulsed, reacting to sound, to movement, to fear One began to speak. “Help me... help me... I don’t remember the sun... Thanos Kalamidas help me...” A child’s voice. Not a recording. S’Leung froze. Then something snapped in her ear, a comm burst. Unencrypted. Someone screaming: “...THEY’RE NOT DEAD, THEY’RE MISSING ...THESE ARE LIVE SNATCHES, ALIVE... GET OUT... GET...” Then silence. S’Leung fired into the nearest support beam. The ceiling groaned. She ducked, hit the emergency collapse lever, an old smuggler trick and the tunnel roof began to fold inward, rusted steel shrieking. Va’thell screamed. His voice broke down into static. The enforcers fled. S’Leung didn’t. She grabbed the speaking Anima pod. It was heavy. Warm. It hummed against her. Green River And she ran. By the time she reached the upper gantries of the McCoy Quarter, everything behind her was ash and river-drowned fire. Her shoulder was bleeding. Her lungs were cracked glass. She didn’t know what she was carrying. Only that it remembered her name. * * * * * * The cold was worse up here, where the city’s breath thinned into the void above the TR3 shipyards. S’Leung stood at the edge of a rusted gantry, the Anima pod cradled awkwardly in her arms like a newborn corpse. The fog swirled below, a cauldron of shadow and poison, lit only by the dull green flash of industrial floodlights. Behind her, the night bled blue and red, street drones converged, alerted to the blaze in the tunnels. Her contact, Jari Voss, was late. Too late. The pod stirred again. “ Leung... don’t forget me. ” S’Leung swallowed the cold lump in her throat. The voice was faint, but real . Not a recording. Not a memory. Thanos Kalamidas Her comm buzzed, harsh and cracked. “Zhal, you’re a dead woman walking,” hissed a new voice, low, clipped. Jari. “Make yourself useful,” she snapped. “I’ve got a live cargo and the whole damn city coming for me.” “House Kashiri sent their hunters. You don’t want to be anywhere near the Spine tonight.” “Too late.” The city’s pulse quickened beneath her boots. Somewhere in New Bayou, a dozen knives unsheathed. A dozen lies unfolded. * * * * * * S’Leung’s only chance was the McCoy Quarter, a twisting labyrinth of old markets and underground docks, where no one asked questions unless you paid well. The Anima pod hummed in her grip, flickering soft blue light onto her worn jacket. “They want to sell ghosts,” she muttered to herself. “But these are lives. Real lives.” A sudden crack echoed. She turned, gun raised. Green River A shadow detached itself from the mist—a tall figure wrapped in black synth-leather, the chrome veins of a Kashiri enforcer gleaming in the light. “You can’t run, Zhal.” S’Leung’s finger tightened on the trigger. Before the shot could leave the barrel, a sharp whistle sliced through the air. Another figure landed between them, lithe, dangerous, Va’thell’s four arms a blur as he wielded twin vibroblades. “Enough!” Va’thell growled. “This city isn’t ready for what you carry.” S’Leung narrowed her eyes. “Neither am I.” * * * * * * The fight broke loose like a storm. Va’thell’s blades sang death, carving through the enforcer’s defenses. S’Leung fired three shots, two hitting the mark, the last igniting the fuel line beneath a parked hovertruck. Flames licked upward, reflecting in the river’s sickly green sheen. Amidst the chaos, the Anima pod pulsed wildly. The child’s voice came again, pleading, desperate. Thanos Kalamidas “ Remember who you are. ” S’Leung staggered, the pod slipping from her grasp, crashing onto the concrete. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. No. She dove, catching the pod before it shattered completely. The light inside dimmed, then blazed, almost angry. Va’thell’s voice was sharp and low. “They’re alive, Zhal. Not memories, not programs. Prisoners. Stolen minds trapped in amber. And someone, someone terrible, wants them back.” S’Leung’s mind raced. Trafficking? No. This was war, an identity war, fought in whispers and stolen thoughts. “Who?” she demanded. Va’thell looked away, voice dropping. “The Sovereign Collective.” The name was a curse in every sector. Green River * * * * * * Sirens screamed. Drones swarmed like locusts. The McCoy Quarter erupted into violence. S’Leung grabbed Va’thell’s arm. “We need a plan.” “Impossible. They’re everywhere.” Her comm crackled again. “This is Control. Extraction point compromised. Evacuate immediately.” S’Leung cursed. Extraction was a trap. She took a breath. Focused on the pod, on the fragile life it held. “We’re not running.” * * * * * * The night exploded. Rayfires shattered the thick fog. S’Leung and Va’thell fought their way through narrow alleys, Thanos Kalamidas bodies falling silent in their wake. The Kashiri enforcers were ghosts themselves—deadly, relentless. The pod pulsed faster. The child’s voice shifted, urgent. “ The river remembers... ” S’Leung’s gut twisted. The river was more than a boundary, it was a witness, a vault, a judge. They reached the docks, rusted cranes dangling like carcasses. Extraction ships hovered, but they were too late. A figure stepped from the shadows, tall, regal, impossibly calm. The Sovereign’s envoy. “Return the pod,” she said. “Or burn your own memory to ash.” S’Leung raised her ray. “No.” The envoy smiled, cruel and patient. Green River “Then remember this night, detective. New Bayou remembers everything.” * * * * * * The pod’s light shattered. S’Leung’s vision fractured. A scream, her own or the child’s, echoed through the river’s dark veins. And then... Silence. End Thanos Kalamidas Green River Thanos Kalamidas From the series: Bayou legends Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos