All About Nicole

Nicole walks into the Dimera mansion and tosses her fur, and the dog, onto the sofa. She walks over and pours herself a drink. John comes in and gives her one of his patented "new John" looks.

"Making yourself at home?" John asks

"Well I need to feel welcome somewhere" Nicole snaps back "My re-entry into Victor's life went over like Stefano at a Brady family reunion."

"Ahh I expected as much." John smiles "So Victor was not happy to see you."

"Not happy would have been an improvement, trust me." Nicole says "And what is up with Diva Barbie? When did Phillip hook up with her?"

"It's a long story, and one I don't care to get in to right now." John says "Besides I'm supposed to have lost my memory remember?"

"Yeah, I heard something about that." Nicole says "So why exactly did the ISA want me to come back here? It can't be just to mess with ol' Vic."

"Well that's part of it," John says "But you're right there is more to it."

"Well I'm all ears" Nicole sits on the sofa "Tell me why the big brave ISA needed little ol' me to fix their problem."

"We don't need you to fix anything, as much as we need you to distract Victor." John says "You see the Kiriakis ships have been unloading, or rather trying to unload containers for the past week. I have been stopping those containers. And up until now, I haven't had any problems, but then Victor got wind of it and frankly I just don't want to have to deal with the old man."

"Scared are you?" Nichole grins

"No, more like just not wanting to put that much time and energy into fighting him." John pours himself another drink "You see Phillip has been in charge down at the docks for the past few months, and getting around him was fairly easy. But now I guess Jr. can't handle things and has gone whining to his daddy. I need those containers stopped, and I can't do it if Victor gets involved."

"So what's in the containers?" Nicole asks

John stops mid drink and turns away, "That is none of your concern."

"Oh REALLY?" Nichole says "I'm curious now. It must be something big or you wouldn't have had to get me involved."

"I don't have the authority to give out that information" John says "Let's just say it is something that the town of Salem doesn't need in it."

"Okay now I HAVE to know." Nichole says "You can't just expect me to waltz back into Victor's life and wreak havoc without a really juicy reason."

"Why not?" John smirks "Wreaking havoc seems to be your specialty. It is, what you DO."

"True." Nicole says "But if I'm distracted by not knowing what's in those containers I may not do the best job. I could, just get bored. And if that happens you never know. I might even talk Victor INTO getting more involved with his shipping line. THEN where would you be?"

"Are you threatening me?" John frowns

"No darling" Nicole laughs "I'm just making sure I have an Ace up my sleeve. When all this blows up I want to make sure no one has any reason to suspect I had ANYTHING to do with it. And I sure YOU don't want everyone to know you've been faking your little brainwash thing all this time."

"They told me not to underestimate you." John smiles "And they were right."

"So are you going to tell me or not?" Nicole asks

John takes another sip of his drink and stares into space. He turns to Nicole and give her one of his "looks", then sits on the sofa

"I assume you remember the Paris Hilton video that surfaced a few years ago" John begins

"Of course" Nicole rolls her eyes "What about it?"

"And of course the infamous Tommy Lee and Pamela video?" John continues

"Oh LORD!" Nicole rolls her eyes again "You know I met Pamela when I was in Hollywood. I swear I don't know what the big deal is with her. It's no wonder she quit doing Baywatch. She's so plastic she'd melt if she stayed in direct sunlight for longer than 5 minutes."

"Well while those videos may have given those involved an extra 15 minutes of fame, what with all the media attention they got" John explains "There's another side of the story that no one talks about. Did you know the price of Hilton stock fell 20 points after the release of Paris' video?"

"Okay, sex video bad, I got it. But you still aren't telling me what's in those containers." Nicole said

"Well I am in a way." John says "You see, the ISA has discovered that Stefano has been secretly taping all the..uh...liaisons between Salem couples over the years, and now he's put them on DVDs that he plans to release all over the country."

"But I heard Stefano was in an irreversible coma" Nicole says

"That's what he wants everyone to think." John explains "Two weeks ago one of our agents discovered Rolf woke Stefano up not long after he supposedly went into his coma. Stefano has been pretending ever since. He replaced all the workers at the home he's in with his men. And he's been running his operation from his hospital bed ever since."

Nicole stands up and looks at John. You can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she processes this information and mentally goes through her past hook ups.

"But if he wanted to ruin everyone in Salem, why would he have the containers unloaded IN Salem?" Nicole asks "Why not New York or LA?"

"Because he knows if some of those affairs came to light it would cause chaos in Salem." John explains "There would be divorces, custody battles, paternity would be questioned. Stefano knows that. So what more perfect place for the DVDs to be released first than right here in Salem?"

"OH - MY - GOD!" Nicole gasps "John we have to stop those containers!"

"Exactly" John says "Now are you in?"

"All the way." Nicole says "Just tell me what you want me to do."