There's a horrible sort of satisfaction in witnessing the dawning suspicion on Martin's face, in the set of his spine, and John lets out a breath, his own shoulders slumping. There it is: everything he'd tried to avoid, though he had no right to the avoidance. Things finally skewing a little closer to true.

"I'm saying..." he swallows and drops his gaze, not so much out of cowardice but because he has to think, to remember the tidy summations he's given other people but never had to deliver to Martin. "I'm saying that th-the Institute, and the work we were doing there, it's... changed me. Changed both of us, really, but me most... dramatically." He presses his lips together, tempted to hedge but unable to justify it to himself, and a breath bursts out of him in a bitter huff of humorless laughter. "I suppose the short version is that I'm not human anymore." His eyes are still downcast, but it's cowardice this time. "And I can do things li-like ask people questions in such a way that they just can't help answering me."