"Don't touch him!" cried Mycroft, "He's into cerebral shock! Leave him!"
John continued shaking violently, yelling and grabbing his temples as he did so.
"We've got to do something!" cried Sherlock.
"No!" cried Mycroft, and he stooped down, taking hold of John, "Listen to me! Listen! You are suffering from cerebral shock – your brain has gone into overload, it can't cope with the influx of memory coming back! But you can control it! Now sit up!"
With Mycroft's help and with as much self control as he could muster, John sat up, still quaking violently and one of the security men lifted him up onto the table again and rested him on the pillows. After a minute or two, he managed to bring it down to a mild tremor and Mycroft regained his composure but maintained his intensity.
"Listen to me!" he said, "You are not who you think you are. You never knew Sherlock Holmes or Mrs Hudson or I. You work for and belong to us."
"W-what?" he stuttered, "What do you mean? I'm John Watson and he's Sherlock Holmes!" He pointed to Sherlock in the corner.
"He is Sherlock Holmes," said Mycroft fervently, "But you are not John Watson." Again, Mycroft pressed a button under the table and again, the door flew open. What came through, however, was entirely unexpected. As one John Watson stared at the door from the table, another John Watson came through and stopped in amazement as he stared at the image before him.
"He…he looks just like me!"
Mycroft turned to the John on the table, "You appear to be in need of an explanation. Your new memories may be mixed up at the moment but this should help to put them order." Mycroft breathed deeply and then began, "Three weeks ago, we received information that the world's number one assassin had been hired to take out John and Sherlock over there. The organisation that hired him is so intricate, so ornate in its management that we couldn't guarantee their safety by posting even the highest security precautions for them. Luckily, we had a breakthrough in our neurobiology department – our research scientists had developed a special serum that, when released into the bloodstream, would genetically alter the amino acids that make up the DNA in the body. In theory, this serum could physically change the external appearance of another human being. We've called it transmorphology. This was the first step to a remarkable innovation – after testing the serum on some lab rats, we found that we could alter the DNA of one rat to resemble another rat with alarming accuracy. It didn't take long for us to realise the possibilities that this could have for humans!" Mycroft gasped at the thought, "We tried it on some humans with surprisingly good results for initial testing. But unfortunately, this situation came up before we could carry out further tests. The decision was made to put it into action immediately and serums were created with the design to alter DNA to match the DNA of both John and Sherlock. Two agents were selected to replace them in their everyday lives until the assassin could be tracked down and caught – you were one of them." There was a momentary pause and then the John on the table spoke up, "No, no, no! I have memories, see? I remember! I could tell you all sorts of things that only the real John Watson could tell you!"
Mycroft ignored this desperate plea and continued, "That's where you come in. You see, there is little point in looking like someone if you can't behave like them too. So in order to quell any suspicion as to your true identity, memory chips were created, containing the memories of the real John Watson and the real Sherlock Holmes. These, we know, are completely successful when executed – we've used them for decades." Mycroft's enthusiasm was making him breathless. He paused for a second, coughed and began again.
