Home Alone 2: Lost in New York meets a homeless woman tending to pigeons at Central Park, which frightens him. Kevin goes to the Plaza Hotel, where he uses Peter's credit card to check in. Meanwhile, the "Wet Bandits", Harry and Marv, have traveled to New York City after escaping during a prison riot and now call themselves the "Sticky Bandits". On Christmas Eve, Kevin visits a toy store where he meets its philanthropic owner, Mr. E.F. Duncan. Kevin learns that the proceeds from the store's Christmas sales will be donated to a children's hospital, and provides a donation. As a token of appreciation, Mr. Duncan offers
City at the End of Time books include characters who dream of cities in the far future (the Kalpa, and the Last Redoubt in "The Night Land") which are surrounded by encroaching chaos. The Kalpa also draws on Arthur C. Clarke's future city, Diaspar in his 1956 novel, "The City and the Stars". Influences of other past works on "City at the End of Time" include H. P. Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow Out of Time" (1936), in which people exchange personalities in dreams across time, and Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" (1930), in which the last of humanity in the deep future mentally contact people