Andrew, Chapter 2, First Draft.

Andrew was born in New York City in the seventies when his parents were already over thirty. They had decided to move to some smaller town upstate to raise their children (the one already in the oven and whoever came later) but his mother was having trouble disentangling herself from her job back then. By the time Peter was born some 4 years later in the early eighties Andrew and his parents were already living in Amsterdam, NY where his father put his programming skills on the original Coleco videogames. When the gaming industry crashed his father was teaching a course on videogame design at SUNY Albany and his mom was working full time on her real estate business. It was the first time Andrew's dad made less money than his mom, a tendency that would only accentuate as the years went by. He was already decided to lead a fully academic career when the gaming industry recovered half a decade later.
In the same manner Andrew worshiped his father for his 'mad programming chops' as Andrew would put it, his brother Peter put his admiration on his mother's skill in making cold, hard cash. It would be only fitting that Andrew should follow a creative career while Peter became a very technical professional. The irony resided in Peter pursuing a computer engineering career while Andrew decided to major in architecture.
Séamus, Andrew' and Peter's father, was a professor at the College of Computer and Information for as long as Andrew could remember. He'd take the Amtrak from Amsterdam to Rensselaer and back to Albany towards SUNY Plaza almost every day. Sometimes he'd take the 214 across the Hudson, sometimes he'd walk half a mile to work. He cherished these walks after one hour or more of sitting in the train. Andrew loved to visit dad in the downtown campus, and dad would sometimes take the 63 with Andrew to the beautiful uptown campus when he had business in the central office. Andrew fell in love with architecture during these visits to the 'new' campus, with its fountains, towers and columns. He learned from Séamus that its designer, Edward Durell Stone, had been responsible for parts of the Radio City Music Hall, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the Museum of Modern Arts in Andrew's native New York City, and all that before he was formally considered an architect. This man's connection to his hometown struck a chord with Andrew, one that would mold his decision to become an architect himself.
It would also influence another decision, the most stupid in his vast collection of stupid decisions.

Andrew, Chapter 1, 3rd Draft.

Andrew's first child had a very unceremonious burial: it was dumped in a biological waste bin outside a fertilization clinic upstate. Andrew and Vicky were no longer together when she found out she was pregnant of his son-or-daughter-to-be, and she took the decision to abort it and never mention it to him. I might have some of the details wrong, since I don't officially know about it, even after so many years; it might have been facilitated by her father the obstetrician or maybe she didn't tell him either. The fact is that she acted on her perceived prerogative and chose to keep Andrew off the loop.
Andy used to describe his views on abortion as pro-choice, but that was before being denied one; now he no longer seemed so certain. He's still learning to cope with the reality of having his fatherhood taken away and telling me this story was part of his dealing with it.
Maybe I should start by telling you the story of Andrew and Victoria and how they came to be apart. Their relationship started when he was a freshman in architecture school and she was a high school sophomore. He was one year away from graduating when she decided to pop the question, just like that (it was common for Vicky to take initiative in these subjects):
- So, Andrew, will you marry me ?
- Sure I will Vicky. As soon as we're both done with college and can afford a little apartment, I'm gonna sweep you away from your parents.
- No, I mean, right away. You're not gonna graduate for another year and I've just been admitted, it's gonna take ages and I want us to be married by the end of the year.
- Ha, ha. Funny Vick, very funny. You know we cannot afford to leave our parent's homes, not with both of us on student loans.
- Don't you love me, Andy ?
- More than I love myself, Vick. But that's beyond the point.
And so the discussion faded, but it would soon begin to sprout again in very similar variants for the few months their relationship survived this irreconcilable divergence. Andrew adored her, beyond anything he'd ever felt for anyone. But he was simply too rational to jump into a post-teenage marriage with no chance of survival.
A few months after the break up, Vicky was sharing an apartment with Bill. Guess she didn't love Andrew nearly as much as he loved her.

Printcrime

Printcrime - Copie esta história
Esta história foi originalmente publicada na revista Nature em janeiro de 2006. A revista devolveu ao autor os direitos de impressão do texto e ele o licenciou nos termos da Creative Commons, sob os quais ele está sendo reproduzido aqui. O resto deste site está coberto por termos da Creative Commons específicos para o Brasil.
Cory Doctorow
Os tiras destruiram a impressora do meu pai quando eu tinha oito anos. Eu me lembro do cheiro quente de rolopack no microondas, do olhar de concentração furiosa do papi enquanto ele a enchia de geleca fresca e da sensação de recém tirados do forno dos objetos que saíam dela.

Os tiras entraram brandindo os cacetetes, um deles lendo o mandado através de um megafone. Um dos clientes do papi tinha vendido ele. A polícia pagou em drogas de alto nível - anabolizantes, suplementos de memória, aceleradores metabólicos. O tipo de coisa que custa uma fortuna na farmácia; o tipo de coisa que você pode imprimir em casa, se não se importar com o risco da sua cozinha se encher de corpos grandes e musculosos com cacetetes balançando no ar acertando tudo e todos em seu caminho.

Eles destruiram o baú da vovó, aquele que ela trouxe da terrinha. Eles acabaram com a nossa geladeira e com o purificador de ar que estava na janela. Meu canarinho escapou da morte se escondendo no cantinho da gaiola quando um grande pé embotinado transformou quase que ela inteira num emaranhado de arame de impressora.

Papi. O que eles fizeram com ele. Quando acabou, parecia que ele tinha brigado com um time de rugby inteiro. Eles o arrastaram pra fora pros repórteres darem uma boa olhada nele enquanto era jogado pra dentro do camburão. Tudo isso enquanto um porta-voz contava ao mundo que a máfia da pirataria do papi tinha sido responsável por pelo menos 20 milhões em contrabando e que meu papi, o vilão desesperado, tinha resistido à prisão.

Eu via tudo pelo telefone, nos restos da nossa sala de estar, olhando a tela e me perguntando como alguém podia olhar pro nosso apartamentinho naquele prédio horrível e achar que era a casa de um chefão do crime organizado. Eles levaram a impressora, lógico, e mostravam a coisa como um troféu para os repórteres. O cantinho dela na kitchenete parecia horrivelmente vazio. Quando eu me recompus, resgatei meu canarinho e arrumei o apartamento, coloquei um liquidificador lá. Tinha sido impresso, então só ia durar um mês antes de eu ter que imprimir novos rolamentos e peças móveis. Naquele tempo eu sabia desmontar e re-montar qualquer coisa que pudesse ser impressa.

Quando eu fiz 18 o papi saiu da cadeia. Eu só fui visitá-lo três vezes - no meu aniversário de dez, no dele de cinqüenta e quando a mami morreu. Fazia dois anos que eu não o via e ele estava um caco. Uma briga na cadeia deixou ele manco e ele olhava tanto por cima do ombro que parecia um tique. Eu estava envergonhada quando o minitaxi nos deixou na frente do prédio e tentei manter distância daquele esqueleto manco e arruinado enquanto subíamos as escadas.

"Lanie," ele disse, e me fez sentar. "Você é uma garota esperta, eu sei disso. Você não sabe onde seu velho papi pode arrumar uma impressora e um pouco de geleca?"

Eu apertei meus punhos com tanta força que as unhas machucaram as mãos. Eu fechei os olhos. "Você ficou na cadeia por dez anos, papi. Dez. Anos. Você vai arriscar mais dez pra imprimir mais remédios, liquidificadores, laptops, chapéus de grife?"

Ele sorriu. "Não sou idiota, Lanie. Aprendi minha lição. Não tem chapéu ou laptop que valha ir pra cadeia. Não vou imprimir essa porcaria nunca mais."

Ele fez uma xícara de chá, que ele agora bebia como se fosse whiskey, uma bicada seguida de um longo suspiro. Ele fechou os olhos e se recostou na cadeira.

"Vem aqui Lanie, deixa eu cochichar no seu ouvido. Deixa eu te contar o que eu decidi nos meus dez anos de cadeia. Vem aqui e escuta o idiota do seu papi."

Eu senti uma pontada de culpa por ter gritado com ele. Ele estava meio lelé, isso era óbvio. Sabe Deus o que ele passou na cadeia. "O que, papi?" eu perguntei, chegando o ouvido junto dele.

"Lanie, eu vou imprimir impressoras. Muitas impressoras. Uma pra cada pessoa. Vale a pena ir pra cadeia por isso. Vale qualquer coisa."