When John woke up he couldn't see a thing. Not a single darned thing. He sat up in a panic, and remembering his rescue risked embarrassing himself and called out to his older brother.
"Virgil" "Yeah?" And when Virgil's deep voice answered despite himself, John let out a sigh of relief, then reminding himself of what his problem was, took a few deep breaths and struggled to keep the panic out of his voice as he said "I can't see a thing."
Silence. Then someone, presumably Virgil tilted John's head back and held John's eyes open and put a few drops of liquid in John's eye. "Blink." Virgil said so John did. Virgil was the best medic among all of them after all.
He blinked a few more times. He could see again, but everything was all a blur. "How's that?" "I can see but everything's all a haze." "Must be a side effect of the new equipment we tested today. Don't worry though, once your eyes are finished adjusting you'll be able to see normally. I can stay until your eyes are finished adjusting. Got nothing better to do anyway."
John let out another sigh of relief as he back down on what was presumably the infirmary bed. "Never thought the day would come when I would need rescuing." John said with a forced laugh. "Everyone needs rescuing once in while. Even the rescuers need rescuing." Virgil replied with what was unmistakably a note of sadness in his usually cheerful voice.
"Virgil, what's wrong? Did someone die on the rescue?" There was a silence for one full uncomfortable minute before Virgil replied. "No, what you just said reminded me of something that to a brother that's all." After a few moments Virgil added "You look and sound just like him, you know."
Oh. This probably wasn't his older brother Virgil then. This was another Virgil. And it most likely wasn't a prank because Virgil was never good at acting. Not his older brother Virgil anyway.
John tried to remember back to the rescue to try to piece together what happened and who had rescued him but then discovered that he couldn't remember much of what happened shortly before or during the rescue.
John wondered for a few moments if this was an elaborate setup by one of International Rescue's enemies then decided that if it was he could do nothing about it at the moment and so decided to play it by ear.
"He's alright now however." Virgil said drawing John's head back out of the clouds. John blinked a few times as his surroundings came into focus.
There was a big guy in front of him that looked just like John's older brother Virgil Tracy except for the fact that this guy was slightly bigger, taller, had different clothing tastes , had black hair and looked younger.
And although the Virgil in front of him was smiling a forced looking smile, John sensed that he was telling the truth about the mysterious brother that this Virgil was talking about. Maybe not the whole truth, but it was still a start.