Shortly after the rooftop meeting, the three unusual heroes set up operations in the most desperate section of Hell's Kitchen.

Tandy walks among the bums and the urchins. She knows many of them by name or at least by sight, as they know her as well. She wears a white coat, making herr easier to spot and perhaps consciously a more likely target. She keeps her enchanted dagger hidden beneath her coat.

Her companion (who Mary learns on the way down is named Tyrone Johnson) takes a position in an alleyway, then fades from Mary's heightened senses.

After agreeing that Roxxon could wait, Mary had been surprisingly supportive of Tandy's offer to be bait. The Devil's only real concern was that Tandy might be a little too tempting, and if the kidnappers had half a brain between them they would leave her alone. Still, it was worth a try, and Mary didn't stop listening to the rest of the city just because her focus was here.

Most of the buildings in Hell's Kitchen were multi-story and packed close together. The same alley that Cloak hid down Mary could easily jump across when moving along the rooftops. So she had elected to stay high. Besides, it was human nature to not look up. She was almost as hidden up there as Tyrone was below.

A portly bald man in a blue overcoat and fedora stops to slip a dollar to the paper boy.

"I've got your package, Mister Uatu!"

The boy strains to lift a huge parcel of newspapers, pulp comics, and a carton of cigarettes. The man reaches down to help him.

"Don't strain yourself, Stan! Just keep eating your cereal! You'll be big and strong soon!"

Just then a black van wheels up.

"Another delivery?" Asks Stan.

Several men in black clothing and ski masks jump out with tommy guns.

"YOU'RE the package, kid!"

Stan tries to hide behind Mr. Uatu, who holds up his hands.

"Now listen fellas! There's no need to..."

One of the thugs slams the butt of his rifle into his jaw, and he falls to one knee.

"Stay out of this, Lardo!" The thug grabs Stan by the arm. He nods calmly back to his customer, resolved to his unknown fate.

"I don't have a choice, do I..?" Uatu mutters.

In a flash the thugs pile into the van and the door slam close, and the unmarked van peels around the corner.

I guess we're doing this the hard way...

Mary was disappointed, but not surprised. If Tandy was snatched they could have easily converged and be together whenever they got to their destination. But with someone else getting picked up the PI was going to have to bail on her clients to pursue. She had no way to notify either of them of what was happening, so she was on her own.

Though she couldn't make out the words at this distance, she was moving before the thugs called the kid the package. And by the time the van sped off she was close. For the next few moments they would be easy to track, the engine of a fully loaded van driving very fast made a lot of noise. It was when they thought they had gone far enough that they could slow down and try to blend in that the tracking could get tricky. But if she was lucky she could narrow their destination down to a single set of buildings or city block.

Tandy rushes down the street and starts helping Mr. Uatu to his feet.

"Are you alright Sir? Can you tell me what happened?"

"Unnh..thank you Miss.." He rubs his bruised jaw and stares at the round scar on her face for a moment, but says nothing of it.

"Some masked goons jumped out of a van with tommies and snatched the paperboy! They peeled down a block and took a right...

"What did the van look like?

There wasn't a billboard for Roxxon Pavillion wasn't on the wall a moment before, but Uatu points to it.

"Just like that!' He points to the black van at the bottom delivering food crates in the picture. "Same color, just without the logo. No plates either. Vehicles just for use on-site don't need them. Logo mighta been painted over..."

"Of course...yes..thank you...please call the police!"

She starts runnning down the street.

"Whatever you do, you and your friends have to SAVE THAT KID! The TIMELINE...I mean...you don't have much TIME! GO!"

Mr. Uatu pulls up the high collar on his coat to shield him from cold wind. He secures the parcel under his arm as he lights a cigarette with the zippo in his right hand. He turns towards the alley. "That was close..."

He suddenly finds himself staring Cloak in the face.

"WHO ARE YOU? How did you...?"

Uatu's zippo begins to glow with an unearthly color.

"YOU...SAW...NOTHING. Save...the boy!"

"I...saw...nothing. I must save...the boy."

Uatu passes Cloak as the teen rushes into the street and vanishes in a cloud of absolute darkness.

"Dammit! That's gonna take a ton of paperwork to clean up..."

The Watcher vanishes into thin air.

Tyrone at once forgot the strange man with the lighter, and followed Tandy. He already felt the strange hunger rising in him. Not like any hunger he had ever felt before. Certainly he had felt the lack of food sowing away on trains from New Orleans to New York city.

Only Tandy's dagger seems to sate the endless void that existed within his body now. Ether that, or shoving some mook into his cloak and never seeing them again. Tyrone was not sure how he felt about that. Everyone he had stuffed into the cloak so far had been some sort of goon who deserved precisely what he got. Granted he was not sure if he would have felt that way before being trapped in the cloak himself...

Tyrone unfolded and seem to rise out of a shadow behind Tandy even as she ran with her glowing dagger held out before her. She did not seem to react to his sudden appearance, treating it as if it happened all the time. Which to be fair did, but Tyrone did not understand why she was not scared of his monstrous darkness.

He sure was.