the expulsion hearing: performed falsehoods, read accurately

The expulsion hearing itself runs entirely on the currency the scene diagnoses: statements everyone in the room knows are false, performed anyway. Pemulis offers the "Troeltsch tricked Wayne" story knowing it's limp; deLint's nostril-flare signals that he smells "horseshit and knew you knew it"; the actual message (you're expelled, the drug-evidence is on the table, the blackmail's been countered) travels as coded pleasantry relayed from "Mrs. Inc" — the mock-benediction "may the road rise up to meet you whitherever your future travels lie," the news that the doorknobs are "rubberized" and the mirrors "reanodized." Nobody says the true thing plainly; the whole proceeding is a fluent exchange of performed falsehoods that both sides read accurately. It's the register-war as administrative ritual — a hearing where sincerity is structurally impossible and everyone's competence is measured by how well they perform statements known by all to be false.