A/N: Ok. Missed updated yesterday because I updated my VLD fic Druid in Blue instead. Now, I'm exhausted, it's been a long day, and this chapter fought me tooth an nail. I've given it a rough edit and will deep edit it tomorrow, as per usual. In the meantime, enjoy~

Chapter summary: In which Sam gets to nerd out and Daniel has a couple realizations, not all of them good.


12: Discourse

"So that's Nirrti," O'Neill muttered as he watched the traitorous Goa'uld be forcibly taken through the Gate by the other two System Lords Cronus and Yu. He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Not impressed."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, at least we have the Treaty now. That's all that matters."

"And Maj. Cart can wield a Goa'uld healing device," Teal'c added, glancing respectfully at his blonde teammate. "An ability I believe will be of much use."

Sam nodded and rolled her shoulders self-consciously. "Let's hope so," she agreed.

Teal'c gazed at her for a moment longer before looking back up at the Stargate just as the wormhole disengaged. Perhaps the Jaffa was aware of how uncomfortable her ability to use Goa'uld devices made her feel. Jolinar may have been a Tok'ra, but she still took Sam without consent. All Sam could do was find a way to use her Goa'uld given abilities for something that could help her friends. It was the only way to heal.

"Penny for your thoughts, Major?" O'Neill asked, clearly aware of her inner turmoil without even looking.

"I don't think they're worth that much," she said, shooting O'Neill a wry grin.

"Oh." The colonel actually looked a bit disappointed. "Well, I guess I get to keep my penny."

Despite her mood, Sam still found herself huffing a laugh. Eager to change the subject, she said, "Actually sir, I didn't want to say anything before it case it offended our guests," she glanced significantly at the now inactive Gate."

"Who are so easily offended," O'Neill said, nodding. "Did I tell you saying 'hello' offended them?"

This time even Teal'c lips twitched in what could be a smile.

"I think I may have found Nephthys, sir," Sam said, and yes, she was now the center of three very surprised and interested gazes.

"You did?" Daniel asked, looking less eager and more apprehensive.

The major nodded. "With your permission, sir," she said to the colonel, "I took the liberty of putting together what I have in the briefing room."

O'Neill smiled. "Well, what are we waiting for? Always ready to go snake hunting."

Daniel opened his mouth to say something before ultimately deciding against it. Probably for the best.

While Col. O'Neill went to inform General Hammond of her findings, Daniel and Teal'c made themselves comfortable in the briefing room overlooking the Gateroom. Sam went to work setting up her presentation. Since she hadn't directly been involved in the Treaty negotiations progress and preferred to keep her distance from the Goa'uld, she'd used to put her unexpected downtime to use. By the time Gen. Hammond and O'Neill joined them, she was ready.

"Whenever you're ready, Major," her senior commanding officer said, startling her.

She looked up and nodded respectfully to the grandfathery man. "Yes sir." Taking a deep breath, she began. "Based on the information we got from Dad and the Tok'ra, we know that even though Nephthys is a queen Goa'uld, he prefers a male host. Judging from our encounter with him at Seth's compound, we can assume he hasn't changed his preferences."

"So, I took that into and began searching for anyone matching Nephthys' current description in the databases I had access to," she continued. "I used Daniel's method of tracking down Seth to narrow the results."

"Which was?" the general asked, resting his arms on the table and listening closely.

"We know Nephthys is a Goa'uld," Daniel spoke up, "and the Goa'uld enjoy power, worship, being the center of attention on some level," he gestured vaguely, "you get the idea."

Sam nodded. "Right. Unfortunately, unlike Daniel's search for Seth, there were no results of any cults to Nephthys or something similar spanning through time." She shook her head in remembered exasperation. "However, it did help me narrow down the results for Nephthys' current occupation. Turns out, there aren't as many people in positions of power who are under thirty and have both brown hair and blue eyes."

"But still too many to feasibly sort through, I'm assuming," Jack said. She nodded and bit back a smile when the colonel grimaced in sympathy.

"That's why I added something else to the list of filters," she said. "Now both Teal and the Tok'ra claim Nephthys had a power that no Goa'uld could replicate." She turned to Teal'c for confirmation. coerce

"That is correct, Maj. Carter," the Jaffa said, nodding gravely. "It is said Nephthys could induce an intense fear in his victims, force people to obey him, and call down winged lightning if he wished."

Sam nodded, her mind coming up with several possible explanations for such phenomena.

"Winged lightning?" O'Neill repeated in dry disbelief.

"That is the story," Teal'c said simply.

"So maybe a weapon or something?" Daniel offered. "I mean, based on the phrase 'winged,' I'm assuming the weapon was probably airborne."

"Like a UAV," Hammond offered.

"That's what I thought," Sam said. "We know that the Goa'uld ribbon device can create intense pain and a fear response in their victims, the Goa'uld nish'ta both Seth and Hathor used could evoke obedience of a sort, and we've seen what the Asgard motherships are capable of."

"You're saying you think this Nephthys may have a weapon of mass destruction just lying around somewhere?" the general asked seriously.

"I doubt it," Sam said to her team's relief. "It's more likely he's currently in a similar position that Seth was in. Hiding out with just enough Goa'uld technology to get by."

"But he may have had a weapon of mass destruction just lying around," O'Neill said.

She nodded. "It's possible," she admitted.

"That's not the best news I've heard all day," the colonel said casually.

"Agreed," Hammond said before looking back up to her. "Please continue, Major."

"Thank you, sir," she said. "I ran with the idea that Nephthys' power was connected to technology and decided to narrow down the results to only people who were involved in the field of science or technology. I got a hit."

She clicked her remote and stepped out of the white light from the projector so the image of a young man with short brown hair and piercing blue eyes was clearly visible to everyone in the room. He wore a pale blue button up shirt and a dark blue tie underneath a professional white tailored suit. He stood straight and tall, his arms crossed over his chest, giving the photographer the kind of superior, disdainful expressions only a Goa'uld could master.

"That's him," Daniel said suddenly, pointing at the photograph. "That's- That's Nephthys."

Now for the important part. "This is Seto Kaiba, CEO of Kaiba Corporations," Sam said, gesturing to the photograph on the screen.

"Oh boy," O'Neill muttered, sharing a look of grim understanding with the general.

"What?" Daniel asked in confusion.

The colonel leaned against the table and said, "Well, among other things, Kaiba Corporations is one of the world leaders in weapons manufacturing. They sold to the highest bidder, all countries welcome. I think we found the weapons of mass destruction."

"Actually, no sir, I don't think so," Sam said, surprising her superior officers. She hurried to explain. "Ever since Seto became the new CEO, he's shut down all of KaibaCorp's weapons manufacturing departments and reallocated all of their assets towards technology, gaming, and alternative energy sources."

This time even Teal'c seemed surprised. "That does not sound typical of the Goa'uld," he said, studying the photograph with renewed interest.

"No, it doesn't," Hammond said. "Were you able to find out what precipitated this drastic change?"

"Let me guess," O'Neill said. "It had to do with the previous CEO."

"That's… actually correct, sir," Sam said, turning back to the screen and clicking her remote. Two more photos appeared on either side of Seto's. The one on the right was of a young boy who couldn't be older than twelve at most with messy black hair that hung to his upper back. The boy's dark gray eyes were friendlier than Seto's but he was dressed in a white suit that was eerily similar to the Goa'uld's.

The photo on the left was a stark contrast to the other two. The man in the picture was of a Japanese man in his sixties who was the epitome of a Wall Street business mogul or, dare Sam think it, a Hollywood mafia boss. Where Seto was cool and disdainful, the silk covered dagger, this man was hard and Sam could easily envision a P-90 in his huge hands and not see any difference.

"This," she started, pointing to the businessman, "is Gozaburo Kaiba, the former CEO of KaibaCorp and the adopted father of Seto Kaiba and" she pointed to the photo of the young boy, "Mokuba Kaiba."

O'Neill lifted a finger and asked, "Adopted father?"

"Yes sir," Sam said, her expression making it clear she found just as unbelievable. "None of them are related in any way. I did some digging and found out Mokuba was born Mokuba Takahashi. When his parents died, his family passed him around before dumping him at an orphanage. That's where he found Seto."

"Good place to recruit followers," Daniel said. "With no parents or family members to keep track of them, orphans can easily slip through the cracks."

Sam nodded. "That's what I thought. But actually, according to the orphanage's records, Mokuba found Seto barely conscious in an alleyway nearby. He was apparently severely dehydrated, disoriented, and seemed to be suffered from hallucinations. They've been inseparable since."

"Wait." Everyone looked at Daniel. "Did they ever find out what made him…" he waved vaguely, "like that? When Mokuba found him, I mean?"

"Unfortunately, no," Sam said with a sigh. "Interestingly enough, although I couldn't get a hold of any medical records without prior authorization-"

"Which you were never going to get," O'Neill added wryly.

"-I did find that Seto's system was apparently clean. Completely," she said. "They should have been able to detect the naquadah in his system. They wouldn't have known what it was, granted, but they should have been able to find it. They didn't. Or, if they did, no one mentioned it."

"You think he may not have been a host yet?" Hammond asked.

"Actually, I think he was," she replied. "And this is why."

She turned and clicked the remote to the next slide appeared on the screen. "This picture of Seto Kaiba is from the official KaibaCorp website." She clicked the remote again and a video appeared. "And this is a video from a Japanese news reel from the day Gozaburo adopted him and Mokuba five years ago."

She clicked the remote and the video played. The sound was a bit muffled but no words were needed to see the soon-to-be Seto Kaiba soundly defeat Gozaburo at chess. Mokuba stood by his brother's side, clinging tightly to his arm and watching the game closely with wide eyes. Seto, by contrast, looked almost bored with the situation as he picked up his bishop and toppled Gozaburo's king.

There were several garbled exclamations of surprise followed by a rapid exchange in Japanese. Gozaburo looked murderously furious for a brief instant, glaring at Seto who met it with a single lifted eyebrow. Then the businessman's expression smoothed and he said something in clear, deep tones which drew awed reactions from the people present. The vide cut abruptly, jumping to a Japanese reporter who was able to get a few words out before the video ended for good.

"He hasn't aged a day," Daniel murmured.

"Did you see that eyebrow thing?" O'Neill said, pointing to Teal'c. "I'd pay to see him and Teal'c out-stare each other."

Teal'c lifted an eyebrow and murmured, "Indeed."

"Are you sure he wasn't implanted between arriving at the orphanage and this video?" the general asked, ignoring his subordinates' antics.

Sam thought carefully on the question. "I don't think so, sir," she said finally. "I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think so."

"I trust your judgement, Major," Hammond said firmly. "What I'd like to know, is what would possess a Goa'uld to shut down one of the most profitable departments of a multi-million dollar company."

"Not that we're complaining," O'Neill said quickly.

"I think that has to do with the previous CEO, Gozaburo," Sam said.

She clicked the remote several times until a photo of the New York Times cover page appeared. The headline read in big, bold, black letters 'CEO of KaibaCorp Death Ruled Suicide.'

"Now that looks suspiciously like some Goa'uld meddling," O'Neill said.

"This was published two years ago," Sam said. "According to the court records, Gozaburo met with Seto and the Board of Directors. The CCTV footage of Gozaburo's death acquired by the Japanese police didn't have any audio but it and the witness statements from Mokuba and everyone present at the incident all said Seto was on the opposite end of the room when Gozaburo jumped out the window."

Daniel blinked in disbelief. "He jumped out a window?"

Sam nodded. "Of a thirty story office building," she said.

"Oh. That's… nice."

"That is not the word I would use, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

"Not exactly the word I would use either," the general said. "Do you think Seto was behind it?"

"I'm honestly not sure," Sam admitted. "I was able to see some clips of the footage, it's gathered quite a bit of conspiracy theorists, and Seto does stay away from Gozaburo."

"I hear a 'but' in there, Carter," O'Neill said.

Sam frowned as she tried to piece together what she wanted to say, turning to face the headline on the screen as she did so. "Sir," she started, "glass for most modern tall builds is laminated meaning it's extremely thick and durable. It's not easy to break. The amount of force required to break a window on the top floor of a thirty-story building… I mean it is possible for a full grown man of Gozaburo's build to do it if he really tried, but it wouldn't be easy. The only way for the glass to break like it did in the video was if the window itself didn't meet code or a significant amount of force was added to Gozaburo's body mass."

"So a Jedi did it," O'Neill said. "I'm not making fun of you, Major," he added quickly before Sam could snap at him. "We know those ribbon devices throw someone across the room."

"And we know he has one," Daniel added. "He used it to fight Seth at the compound. You think he might have used it on Gozaburo," he said, giving Sam an intuitive look.

"Something like it, maybe," she said. "Look, sir," she turned to the general, "KaibaCorp may have shut down its weapons manufacturing but it is dominating in the science and technology departments. Everything from computers to cell phones to cybernetics to artificial intelligence to holographic technology."

"Holographic technology?" Daniel gasped. "We have holographic technology?"

"How have we not heard of this until now?" Hammond asked with a frown.

"Probably because Seto, or Nephthys, refuses to sell his technology to the military," Sam said. "Not from any country. He keeps a strict control of who has his technology and what it's being used for at all times."

"Now, the holographic technology," she continued, her eyes sparkling with interest, "while impressive, isn't very portable or useful on a large scale yet. It requires a specifically designed stage called a Duel Arena. It's large and often treated as a permanent structure due to its size. It's also only useful for the strategy card game Duel Monsters which Seto seems quite invested in."

"A card game?" O'Neill said flatly.

"Yes sir," Sam said. "As unbelievable as it may seem, most of the technology manufactured by KaibaCorp is related to gaming."

"That's interesting," Daniel said. "I don't think Nephthys is associated with games in mythology."

"Either way," General Hammond said, stopping the potential philosophical debate before it started, "if Nephthys ir Seto or whatever he's called is the CEO of a Japanese company, what was he doing at Seth's cult?"

"I may have an answer to that, sir," Sam said promptly. She approached her laptop and sifted through the websites and pages of information until she found the one she needed. "The International Convention of Technology and Gaming in Seattle just concluded two days ago and Seto was confirmed as present. He was scheduled to present the latest version of his holographic technology SolidVision on," she paused to double check her facts, "the day we took down Seth actually."

"I guess he missed that one," O'Neill said.

"He did and it looks like that created a bit of an uproar," Sam confirmed. "Several newspapers reported on his absence. A couple mention he might be having a relapse of some kind?"

"Relapse?" Hammond asked.

Sam shook her head. "I'm not sure, sir. I'll have to look into that."

"Perhaps the questions we should be asking is what was Nephthys doing with Setesh and how did he escape our notice," Teal'c said calmly.

"That's a good point," O'Neill said, leaning back in his chair and staring longingly at the coffee machine nearby. "ATF had the whole place surrounded and we had Sam, Jacob, and Teal'c in the escape tunnel. He had to've walked right past us."

"I didn't sense any Goa'uld except Setesh and Selmak," Sam said, looking up from her computer.

"Neither did I," Teal'c said.

"Now that is what worries me the most," the colonel said, glancing at the general. "How we miss him?"

Sam frowned and looked back down at her computer screen. That was not something she wanted to dwell on right now. A Goa'uld who could walk right past her, Selmak, and Teal'c without any of them noticing was not someone they wanted for an enemy. She clicked on the next webpage listed on the Google results.

"Um, Colonel?" she called. "Take a look at this." She clicked on the image on the website, enlarging it, and squatted down so the image projected on the screen was visible. "Look familiar?"

"Well I'll be damned," O'Neill muttered, staring at the messy blonde hair, brown eyes, and wide goofy smile on the face of the young man standing on the right in the photo.

The blonde was one of two people giving an enthusiastic hug to a goth boy with bleached bangs and dyed hair. The other hugger was a brunette about the same height as the blonde and between the two of them, they squished the goth in what looked like a rib-creaking embrace.

"Wait," Daniel said, sitting up suddenly. "I've seen all of them. Yes, I-I saw them in the hall after I left Jack in Seth's throne room to take care of getting the people to the Rings. Those two," he stood and walked up to the screen, pointing at the blonde boy and the boy with bleached bangs standing in the middle of the photo, "were holding him," he pointed to the brunette on left, "up. Like he'd been injured or... zatted."

He stopped and turned to his team. "Nephthys had a zat when he ran from Seth," he said quickly, his mind racing as it began to piece together events as he saw them. "Nephthys was fighting Seth. Teal'c, before you shocked us out of the nish'ta, do you remember what Nephthys said? Something about serving-"

"He said he swore his absolute, unwavering loyalty to the person who defeated him in a fair test of skills," Teal'c said, tilting his head in acknowledgement. "I too found that interesting."

"Then after we snapped out of it, Nephthys said something about having a- a First Prime," Daniel continued enthusiastically. "But Teal'c was the only Jaffa there."

"Unless Nephthys has taken one of the Taur'i as a First Prime," Teal'c offered calmly.

"Then where was he? Or her?" Daniel asked. "Nephthys implied he brought an army with him to Seth's cult. But what if he didn't? What if he was bluffing?"

"As interesting as that is, I'm not sure what this has to do with the photo," Hammond said patiently.

"The point is, What if Nephthys really did only come there with a First Prime or someone he trusted?" Daniel said. "What if... What if Nephthys wasn't there because he wanted to be? What if Seth had something on Nephthys, er, Seto, or whatever! What I'm trying to say is, what if Nephthys was with Seth because he had no choice?""

Plausible. Blackmail was nothing new to the Goa'uld. But what could Seth possibly have on Nephthys that was important enough for them to meet in person?

"Something like what?" Sam asked, hoping Daniel had an answer.

"Something important like..." He paused. "Like a First Prime. Someone Nephthys would have trusted." He blinked, and groaned. "Oh. There were four people in the hallway," he murmured, falling into silence as he realized his mistake.

"Daniel?" O'Neill called, verbally nudging his friend out of his funk.

"When I saw them," he pointed back at the people in the photo, "in the hallway, they weren't alone. There was someone else with them. But I never saw their face because their hood was up and they were... looking away from me. Oh god," he groaned, dropping his face into his hand. "That was Nephthys."

"I believe that to be Nephthys as well," Teal'c said, nodding to the photo.

Sam frowned in confusion and followed the Jaffa's gaze back to the photo. At first, she didn't know what Teal'c was talking about. Then she saw it, him. There, in the background, stood a tall young man with short brown hair. He was wearing a dark blue trenchoat that made him stand out against what looked like a large, white yacht or ferry boat docked nearby. A boy with messy black hair was sitting on his shoulders pointing at the camera.

"Oh my god," she murmured.

"Okay," O'Neill said, finally getting up start the coffee pot brewing. "Bets on who's this mysterious First Prime?"