Three days had passed since the incident at the Ouroboros Facility. Three days since the world had witnessed the death of the greatest martyr of the century.
Inside a cramped apartment in East End, London, morning arrived without warmth. Drizzle tapped against the cracked windowpane, creating a monotonous rhythm beneath the hum of the tube television in the corner. Arthur Pendelton sat on the edge of a creaking bed, staring blankly at the screen, his expression slowly shifting into amusement.
The television was broadcasting live coverage of a symbolic state funeral being held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Since Valerian Black's physical body was presumed to have vaporized without a trace in the reactor's five-thousand-degree-Celsius heat, an empty coffin draped in a UN flag had been placed in the center of the enormous hall.
The camera panned across the faces of the world's leaders. The President of the United States bowed his head, wiping away tears with a silk handkerchief. The British Prime Minister looked pale, his lips trembling as he prepared to deliver the eulogy. Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered outside the building, holding candles in the cold as they mourned the man they believed had saved humanity from mass extinction.
Arthur—or rather, Valerian, now trapped inside the fleshly shell of that low-ranking detective—lifted a cup of black coffee he had brewed from cheap instant grounds. He took a sip, then grimaced. It tasted like ashtray water.
"You really have no idea how to live, Arthur," Valerian muttered, his voice hoarse and heavy. He set the cup down on the nightstand, which was covered with stacks of unpaid bills, bottles of cheap liquor, and losing horse-racing betting slips.
The first three days after the transfer had been biological hell. Valerian had been forced to lock himself inside the apartment and let Arthur's body adapt to its new neural architecture. He had suffered a high fever, vomited blood, and experienced visual hallucinations as Arthur's old memories clashed with his consciousness. In the end, however, Valerian's iron will had conquered the detective's last remnants of soul. Now Arthur Pendelton's memories—his dark childhood in an orphanage, his gambling debts to a local loan shark, and his reputation as the most useless cop in Scotland Yard—had been neatly arranged like files in a corner of Valerian's mind, ready to be used as camouflage.
Valerian rose to his feet, feeling the joints of his new body crack. Arthur's body wasn't genetically that bad; he stood around one hundred eighty centimeters tall, had reasonably broad shoulders, and possessed decent basic neural reflexes. But the body had been ruined by a poor lifestyle: too little sleep, cheap alcohol, and miserable nutrition. Valerian walked to the bathroom mirror and studied his new face.
It was a tired face, with dark circles under the eyes and a jaw that had gone unshaved for days. He turned on the cold-water faucet, splashed his face, then took a rusty razor from the shelf. With movements of precision utterly unlike the original Arthur's carelessness, Valerian began cleaning up his face.
As he shaved, he listened to the UN Secretary-General's speech coming from the television in the front room.
"...Valerian Black was more than a man. He was the embodiment of hope. When darkness nearly swallowed our world, he stood as its shield. He didn't merely sacrifice his life; he sacrificed everything for us. His name will be immortalized in every history book, never to be forgotten for as long as humanity still breathes..."
A quiet, dark laugh slipped from Valerian's lips, echoing across the bathroom's dingy tiles.
"Oh, how easily those sheep are led," Valerian whispered to his own reflection. "You build statues to the wolf that preyed on your children all this time, simply because the wolf wore a sheep's skin in its final moments."
After finishing, Valerian walked over to Arthur's wardrobe. He opened the door and let out a long sigh. There were only a few cheap cotton shirts, two polyester suits with rough stitching, and a worn leather jacket. For a man accustomed to wearing bespoke suits from Savile Row, this was torture in its own right. But he had no choice. He chose a white shirt and a dark-gray suit, putting them on in a way that somehow made the cheap clothes look more refined. His posture was perfectly straight, radiating an aura of dominance Arthur had never possessed before.
He picked up a battered wallet from the table. Inside was a police badge: Detective Second Class Arthur Pendelton, London Metropolitan Police.
Valerian ran his thumb over the badge's cold metal. This was his new key. The tool he would use to clean up the mess he had deliberately left behind, while building his new throne in the place no one would suspect: directly beneath the glaring lights of justice.
The world might be mourning Valerian Black's death. But today, the heart of The Syndicate was ready to begin his first day on the job as a servant of the law.