"'Something else,'" John echoes, his tone steeped with disdain and incredulity in equal measure. It's a line that could have been lifted directly from a cheap porno, as if Martin's been caught without enough cash to pay for bloody pizza delivery or something. He's hard pressed not to make a comment about it, but John glances at the recorder and restrains himself. This is still, ostensibly, meant to be an official record. He won't have it plunge off-course because he couldn't maintain a semblance of professionalism.

So he narrows his eyes across the desk, noting that faint spark defiance in Martin's tone and deciding to give it a little air — enough to snuff it under more sincere circumstances, though he suspects it won't have that effect here. "I would be fascinated," he says with a slight, sarcastic cant of his head, "to hear just what it is that you think you have to offer this institution."