[The communicator is propped up on Ford's desk, in his study. There's weirdness detritus in the background -- globes, crystals, watch parts, a laptop, a miniaturized stage inside a terrarium? -- but it's hard to make out clearly in the dim light. Ford's sitting at the desk, resolutely facing the camera.

He looks tired. Ford's seen the network posts, the anger and chaos that he's caused. It's not what he meant to do. It's precisely what he'd tried to avoid, by timing what he said so it wouldn't be during a feelings-sharing flood. And on top of that, he's....well, he's got something he has to own up to.]

I don't have inmate readings.

...

What I mean is, I can't get inmate readings.

Two inmates with watches have disappeared over the last few days, and both sets of sensors came up with....nothing. Just interdimensional static, impossible to trace or analyze. I can't draw any conclusions from it at all, except that...

[A heavy, raspy sigh; a six-fingered hand drags over his face.]

...that I'm an old fool who's wasted everyone's time on nothing again. The data from this project is useless. What I got was being controlled the entire time, and I was never going to be able to do anything with it -- just like I was never going to make it to the Authority.

[Which had been another disaster, one that was his fault, that no one had made him do but he had done anyway. No one who hadn't been in on that had cared why he'd done it. They'd all just shouted at him, called him a monster. He's starting to think that they're right. That's what a monster is, isn't it? Something that, intentionally or not, because of its inhuman nature, threatens and hurts what people care about? They've all been right this whole time, but he was too determined to be the one who solved the problem to see it. To prove that a freak like him was useful and smart, and was worth anything.]

The Admiral says we haven't caused any apocalypses, by the way, for what that's worth. He says the whole thing is more nonlinear than my instruments suggested. Hange was the one who got it out of him. It would have been nice to know that before I sent the Barge into a destructive panic, but apparently, [bitterly:] I can't be trusted with that information.

[His eyebrows draw up, and he looks down. The sarcasm in that last sentence fades out into sincerity. He isn't trustworthy. He's hurt people, even when he hasn't meant to. Even when he's tried not to.]

....I can't be trusted to do anything, really. Everything I try that's more complicated than lightbulbs turns into a catastrophe, no matter how careful I try to be! Even the quantum entangler I put together to send people's pets home with them when they vanish is only going to cause more unrest, because every predictive model for it only works with wardens!

....

--I'm not good at being here. Not like some people are. Some people are so popular that it doesn't matter if they go around lying, killing, or torturing other passengers, and the Barge never gets any worse because of it. But even when I thought I'd finally found something I could do to help, something that wouldn't hurt anybody, I--it still went wrong. I was wrong.

I really believed in this. Thought it'd be worth it, if it meant inmates would have a better shot at coming back to life. But it's just caused trouble. I've just caused trouble. I'm no good as a warden, no good as a scientist, and...

[no good at being around normal people.]

...anyway. The project's scrapped. I won't try anything like it again. Maybe someone around here is capable of changing things for the better, but I have to accept that I'm not.

I'm sorry for everything that's come out of this. You should never have listened to me. I just hope nobody's died this time.

[action]

[Ford isn't around his usual places. He's missing from meals, the gym, the enclosure, the greenhouse.

But his cabin door's still there. He's still aboard the ship.]