Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter20 (section)

===Rosetta’s Journal: Today’s Second Entry===

War is coming to this city. Things are so noisy outside even at this late hour and the sirens never seem to stop. I am hiding in the mansion’s best hiding spot.

I am in the room that I was told was a torture room. But instead of that it is actually a small study. All of the books in here are about Belle de Marionnettes and Lourd de Marionnettes. The diagrams stacked up and lined up along with the books all have the same name on them: Jack McWild.

That is the same name as Lady Beretta’s father and Mother Rose’s husband. It was my master who opened up this room. Not me. When he called for me I told him I had found the room. He immediately brought me to the room and opened it. Then he told me everything.

First he told me I am not a human. That much I already knew.

But he next told me that I am not a Belle de Marionnette either.

He says I am a weapon.

I did not understand most of what he said about the Attesor Project but I did understand that I am a Belle de Marionnette designed to Recréa into an Appareil.

He told me my body and foundational memories are based on my many predecessors in the project.

That is why I have dreams of walking in the forest of Bourgogne and why I fear harming people. Those are not simple instincts. They are images imprinted on my memories through the process that created me.

The Attesor Project ultimately failed. It is a Belle de Marionnette’s destiny to become human. But the Belle de Marionnettes of the Attesor Project were asked to become a weapon instead so they chose to take their own lives.

The solution to that problem was incredibly simple. You raise the Belle de Marionnette until she is human and then have her Recréa into the Appareil. Their failure was in having the Belle de Marionnettes Recréa into the Appareils before that growth was complete so it was thought the process would be safer if she was closer to being human first. My master apparently figured that out when he lost his leg and one of my predecessors chose to evolve mid-battle and lost control.

That happened at the end of the great war. To make up for all their mistakes they used the results of their research to create a single completed Belle de Marionnette. That Belle de Marionnette was left at the Balleroy residence where she spent 10 years without ever moving and only received maintenance from Jack McWild. But on his final visit before leaving Paris to return to America she awoke and began to move.

That Belle de Marionnette is me.

I was born in that lab that is now a pile of rubble and I am here now.

My master said his role in the Attesor Project was to teach the Belle de Marionnettes how to fight with a Lourd de Marionnette. He also said that knowledge remains in my foundational memories.

I am a weapon. That means I have been lying to everyone all this time. I cannot even cry. Because weapons cannot shed tears. The only things weapons are allowed to shed is blood.

What am I supposed to do now? Weapons are supposed to kill their opponent. I was born to kill people.

But. But. I want to deny it. Yet when I see everything in this room. It. It all proves what I am. It proves everything I never wanted to know about myself. The one ray of hope is about Lady Beretta. My master did promise me one thing.

“That girl is searching for the truth of the Attesor Project but she cannot have found it yet.”

I agree. The way she tried not to involve me during our time in Bourgogne and elsewhere tells me she does not know I am a weapon.

For that alone I am glad.

Otherwise I would have had to suspect she was only trying to make me human to complete the Attesor Project.

I am so thankful my master told me that.

I have a book and a gun in front of me right now.

The book is the old journal that was inside the room. Jack McWild’s name is on the cover. That is the name of the person who made me. The gun is the Liberator handgun that fell from the sky. I dismantled it earlier to see what exactly a weapon is. It is a very simple device.

Does that mean I too am simple?

I do not know what to do. I am a weapon. A weapon’s job is to kill people. I also wish to be a person myself so does that mean I should kill myself? If I reassembled the gun in front of me and pulled the trigger I could do just that.

What should I do?

…I don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know! I keep writing but no answer presents itself! I was born to kill people. But I lived my life to become a person. Which one was the right life for me?

It reminds me of the difference between a comma and a period. If Lady Beretta is a period with a clearly defined use case then I am the comma. The difference between us is slight but only I am so poorly defined.

Only I do not know what to do with myself.

Lady Beretta is not with me so I have to find the answer on my own.

I plan to read Jack McWild’s journal soon.

I hope that will help me understand why I was born.