"Are you ready for this?" Xina asked and Cagliostro looked at her and nodded, even thought elook on his face told a different story. He had never been a fan of technology, it was a kind of magic he had never truly been able to accept, even though he had seen it in action many times and he had been impressed by it.

Xina smiled as she saw the look on Guiseppe Balsamo and she nodded at Sarah. The Moon Knight had said that she too would go on this with him, if only to keep an eye on him on behalf of Doom and Cagliostro would need a guide. The limitations of cyberspace had not been discovered as yet, and it was regarded as the technological version of the astral plane, where the normal rules of space did not apply. That was more his arena than hers, but Sarah knew technology.

She also hoped to find out what it was that Doom kept from her. She knew he knew something about her, a clue to her past. She knew bits and pieces, that she was of Egyptian descent, but what family she had were gone and she had never searched for her past. How she had ended up on the Moon had also been a mystery. Sh eh had just been there, and she had survived whatever had come her way, even a cold and agonising death of the surface of the lunar landscape.

It had never bothered her before and though she would trust Doom with her life there were things she had started to have a need to know and she could not use the equipment of the Watcher without him knowing. She would not betray him like that, but there was a need to know and perhaps the vast store of knowledge that was in Cyberspace would aid her.

"I am ready," she said. "Make the connections."

"Okay," Xina said as she made a final check and the two of them were jacked in to the system and she watched on the monitors, wondering what she would see happening and she hoped that there would be some clue as to the location of the Darkhold that Victor sought. She looked at the two people, who seemed to be almost sleeping. "Good luck," she said.

Cagliostro looked around the vast emptiness that was cyberspace and he wondered if this was it.

"It has changed it's look since last I was here," said Sarah. "The Phalanx invasion did much damage to the shape and structure of the place."

Balsamo looked at it and wondered what it used to look like. Was it the thriving metropolis of activity or was it more an open meadow with rolling hills. He was not used to the starkness of the white, and he knew he had done more damage with the Phalanx invasion than he had considered possible.

"If I could undo it, if I had the power," he muttered. "I would do it another way."

"I know the role you played," Sarah said. "The moon was hit hard, people died, the solar batteries lost power in the shadow of the Phalanx invasion, gravity was adjusted and there was chaos. Until they were gone."

"My thinking was limited," admitted Cagliostro. "I have lived a very long time, using the blood of the undead and my thinking has stagnated. Times changed and I did not change with them. I was a fool."

"If Doom can change, then you can too," said Sarah. "At night, if I sleep, I dream and the Moon God tells me of Doom. I know he was once a monster, but change is possible."

"I hope so," said Cagliostro, thinking Doom had changed for the Doom of old would have killed him on the spot for betraying the Earth.

"So Doom sent you," a figure said and they turned to see a man standing there. "Wondered when he'd get around to checking in on me."

"Who are you?" Sarah demanded.

"I am Zero Cochrane," he said. "They called me the Ghost Rider. And not the computer programme, either. I'm the real one. Version 2.0." He chuckled but the other two didn't seem to get hgis joke. "Whatever." He looked at them. "I know why you're here."

"Really?" said Cagliostro. "You're very well informed."

"Part of my job," said Cochrane. "Doom's after the Darkhold and you can't find the pages, even though they're supposed to be indestructible and with half the planet underwater you need a more technological solution."

"Very good," said Sarah.

"Coming from the Moon Knight, that's pretty shocking cool." Cochrane looked at her. "I kind of owe Doom, I guess. That's why I'm going to let you in."

"Let us in?" asked Cagliostro.

"The Ghostworks is real enough, and there's a vast amount of knowledge there, but it's more of a place where a load of living computers sit about and talk and stuff. I've got more control of them now, which is a kind of cosmic payback, if you believe in that stuff..." He looked at them. "Yeah, guess you two might." He drew an outline in the white with his finger and he drew a door. He touched it and then it opened.

"Mr Balsamo, Miss Maximoff," at which Sarah bit back a gasp. She had always been Sarah, never having a surname as such and now she had one. "Welcome to the Ghostworks." They stepped through and inside it seemed to be a library.

"Impressive," said Cagliostro.

"You have no idea," said Zero. "It has taken me a very long time to gather all this information, and I needed help to do it. The thing with the Phalanx was that it caused massive damage, but it also took away defences and such and it allowed me and others to gather what would have been lost, before it was lost forever."

"Doom knew," said Cagliostro. "He knew of this place."

"He knew what we could do," said Zero. "When he made Ghost Rider the Head Marshall of Justice, he knew of the Ghostworks, from his incident in Cyberspace not long after he arrived. He almost became a god, and he learnt much of what was out there."

"He plans and plots," said Sarah. "He never likes to be out of step."

"He's still only human," said Cochrane. "He makes mistakes, but he allowed me to make this place... well, what it is."

"Where are the rest of the Ghostworks?" asked Cagliostro. "I understood there were many."

"Not too many. They're a bunch of AIs who though they knew better, but I've the power now. They just don't have the humanity to do the things I can do, and because of that, I've got them over a barrel."

"What of the Darkhold?" said Cagliostro. "Can you aid us with it?"

"Perhaps," said Cochrane. "You have to understand it's not like anything else here. It's a book of all the arcane knowledge of Chthon. It's in a language..."

"You cannot read, and dare not unless you risk your soul to the elder god," said Cagliostro. "I know, and that is why I have never dared use it, for my powers are linked with the words within."

"So we couldn't just upload a copy," said Zero. "The Darkhold is something we decided could not be stored anywhere but on Earth, but the only people who know where it is are within the Ghostwork and unless we let you in..."

"They'll never find it," said Sarah. "The question is where can we find it? There is a dark power rising."

"Yeah, we got that. However Doom's risking a hell of a lot if he thinks the Darkhold will help. He'd be going up against an elder god."

"How about the sons of an elder god," said Cagliostro. "Set's children are coming and seven against one is not a fair fight, however one on one..."

"Good point," said Zero. "If it was anyone other than Doom..."

Xina paced the floor of the office, wondering what was going on. She had seen the man appear and she had seen them go through the doorway and then they had been gone. She had checked the plug-in from the computer then to the sockets she had fitted to them, to allow them to jack in and though their archetypes were missing from the cyberspace, their sprite bodies on the above monitor indicated they were there, just out of range.

It was not something she knew was possible, but then the references to the Ghostworks had always been quite vague. Transverse City's reputation had spoken for itself. However there were no problems with their physical bodies either, both of them still in the c-trance states. They were to all intents and purposes in a very deep sleep while their sprite bodies roamed another universe. However with all that was going on, she couldn't help but worry. Doom was dealing with one threat, before going on to the main event.

Plus she had seen the look on Sarah's face. Her last name was Maximoff. Doom knew much about her, about her past and he had not told her for his own reasons but now she was starting to find out.. The truth was coming out at last, and Xina wondered if the timing was right. Then she gasped as she watched the two of them sit bolt upright, as they recovered from their jaunt.

"Well?" she said, as she unstrapped them.

"We know where it is," said Balsamo. "It's not going to be easy to get to."

"Where?" asked Xina.

"They call it the Negative Zone," said Sarah. "A world of antimatter particles."

"Where else to keep an indestructible book?" said a voice and they turned to see Doom standing there. "Very clever indeed."

"You know of the Negative Zone?" asked Cagliostro.

"Reed Richards discovered it long ago. There are very few ways of getting there. One was a portal in the Four Freedoms Plaza, which was destroyed in the floods. The other was the nega bands."

"The nega bands?" asked Xina.

"Created by an alien race called the Kree, they were a powerful weapon, powered by psionic energy."

"There's not much of that," said Cagliostro. "We are sorcerers, not psions."

"True," said Doom. "However Sarah has the potential."

"Me?" she said. "I am the Moon Knight, I have no psychic powers."

"But you have the potential," said Doom, and he created a portal. "We must return to the Domicile. There we will find the nega bands and retrieve the Darkhold from the Negative Zone."

It was a command and not a request and they followed Doom, as he strode through the corridors of the home of the former Watcher and he headed for the place where they had been. Doom stayed silent, thinking he had promised never to use the items here but time was running out, and before he could give the nega bands to Sarah, he felt it.

"It begins," said Cagliostro. "Will they be able to hold him off?"

"They must," said Doom. "The X-Men are resourceful and they need only hold the Harbinger a short while. We must hurry." He placed the bands on Sarah's wrists. "Focus your mind on them," he said. "They alone will protect you in the Negative Zone. My magics will protect me."

Sarah had no Mar-Vell to guide her as Rick Jones had, and Doom was on the verge of speaking the truth, that the heir to the bloodline of Eric Magnus Lensherr, the mutant called Magneto stood before them, the daughter of Luna Maximoff. Magnus had the psionic potential, and so did the family, even if Sarah was not a mutant like her grandfather and great grandfather.

"Trust me," he said to her gently, his eyes looking in to hers and she nodded.

"What do I do?" she asked as Doom cast a spell.

"Strike the bands together," he said and she did so and there was a flash of light and then both of them were gone, leaving Xina and Cagliostro alone in the Domicile.

"There is nothing we can do now," said Balsamo to the young woman. "Doom will return."

"What do we do?"

"We watch the battle we were too late to prevent and prepare to join it," he said. "Let us watch the X-Men fight, and hope that they do have power enough to hold back the Harbinger of Set!"