Black and White [1]

Aaron Swartz was a computer programmer, writer, political organizer, and Internet activist. This story is based on real events and characters involved in the case that ultimately led him to take his own life earlier this year

[1]One

[2]Two

[3]Three

[4]Four

Black and White [1]

Quinn’s arms prickled with a cold numbness as they pressed limply onto the hard mahogany surface of the table in front of her. The document she held curled into itself like a withering leaf, almost slipping through the feeble grip of her fingers. She felt her contrite heart wilting away with it. Her eyelids drooped with the weight of her grief as she tried to mentally undo every little mistake that had dumped her where she was now.

“Mrs. Norton...” An older man’s stern, monotonous voice reached out at her from somewhere just ahead, trying to pull her back to reality. The dull clunk of thick leather shoes on marble tiling echoed distantly, and the dark haze of the man’s slender figure swelled in the periphery of Quinn’s vision. She remained motionless, with her lips pursed shut and her eyes fixated blankly on the papers in her hands.

“Mrs. Norton,” the man repeated, tersely.

Quinn twitched at the sound. She fidgeted in her sticky leather seat behind the witness stand as the room around her came sharply into focus. For a moment, she had forgotten where she was. Her eyes flitted around the room, meeting the enquiring glances of the grand jury. Some of them were young, they might have been college undergraduates, eagerly keying in on every word that had been uttered. Some of them were middle-aged men and women; they might have been fathers, mothers. There might have been a few grandparents there, too, with their wrinkled faces stretched into skeptical frowns. The jurors were seated in two rows behind two long, wooden desks that extended from one side of the room to the other.  Eyes narrowed and leaning forward, they waited intently for Quinn to speak.

“Shall we continue, then?” A man stood directly in front of her table, arms tightly folded into the vest of his indigo suit. He looked down at her, forcing a half-smile that went hidden under the bristles of his thick beard. He couldn’t hold it for very long.

Quinn looked back at him defiantly. He was a different man in front of these people, disguised with a fake rigid posture and a slow, enunciating voice. But she knew he couldn’t hold his composure forever. She knew that his temper was shorter than the thinning gray hairs on his head. She glared back at him, hoping that she might ignite his furrowed eyebrows with her intensity. But he turned away, marching back toward the prosecution’s table, and Quinn was left again to her despair.

She turned back to the papers that trembled in her hands. How could she have let it come to this? She had been so hopelessly naive, so convinced that she could protect the one she loved from the investigation. But she had done worse than simply fail him. She had betrayed him.

The bags under her eyes told of sleepless nights gone by. She’d lie there, until it was too late for sleep and too early to get out of bed, counting her mistakes. And she’d counted four of them. Four moments in the last six months that should have happened differently.

“Now I’ll ask you again, Mrs. Norton,” the bearded man pronounced, finally. His tone was tinged with irritation. “Is it true that the defendant, Mr. Aaron Hillel Swartz, is the author of that document?”

-----

One.

It was the phone call. That was the first.

The rousing smell of French vanilla drifted into the air as Quinn slipped into her seat. Cafe Luna was hidden away from the busier streets of the Cambridge core, but homely enough for her to actually work. When she wasn’t playing with her daughter at the park, or spending the afternoon with Aaron, she’d be sitting at the cafe, editing her unfinished articles for Wired magazine. Setting her coffee down on the table, she looked into her laptop screen, mesmerized by the ticking text cursor as it counted down to the call.

Her cell phone, tucked between her laptop and camera on the table, startled her as it slowly crawled towards the edge of the patio table, vibrating with a hollow buzz. The face of the device was damaged, but she could still discern the text on the screen: Unknown Caller. Quinn usually ignored calls from unidentified numbers, but she decided to answer this one, for whatever reason.

“Hello?”

“Hey... it’s me.” The sound of the connection was scratchy, distant, and barely audible. But she easily recognized the deep, dulcet tone of the voice at the other end.

“Aaron?”

“I might have a bit of a problem,” he said. In a surprisingly relaxed tone and with careful brevity, he explained to her that he’d been arrested. "They're holding me at the Cambridge Police Department. Just off the MIT campus."

He wouldn’t go into any further detail, neglecting to even explain why he was there, or how it had happened.

Apprehensively, Quinn stopped herself from asking questions. If the call was being recorded, she didn’t want him to say anything incriminating. And she certainly didn’t want to end up being dragged into the matter.

It wasn't even important, really. She’d do anything to help. “Just tell me what to do.”

“I need to post bail,” he said. She became a little more worried when Aaron brought up the name of his criminal defense attorney. 

“I’ll get the money. I’ll contact your lawyer,” she said in a hushed voice, but she knew it would be difficult. Being broke was not at all unfamiliar to her. She’d grown up that way, in an economically disadvantaged family with a dysfunctional, drug-using father. Still, not having money had never really been an issue for her before.

“We’ll get through this,” she promised, shrinking in her armless chair at the thought of having to borrow the money from a friend.

The conversation barely lasted a minute. It seemed harmless enough at the time, but she would regret it in three months.

She should never have answered; she should have let it go to voicemail. Or better yet, she should have rejected it altogether. Maybe Aaron would have called someone else. Maybe he would have tried to reach his lawyer directly, and she’d be safe from the investigation. Everything would have been better off that way.

She didn’t get any work done that night.

Continued -->