So, Brandon Head MK 2.0 is finally getting somewhere. This time, he didn't come to in a forest - when he regained a semblance of senses, the metal-man found himself on the floor of a small house on the fringes of a large town, being dissected by a man in a lab coat. Or so Brandon thought. The NEXT time he woke up, most of his painful, cumbersome and completely disfunctional scrapmetal bionics had been removed and the wounds cleanly stitched back together.
Brandon has hazy recollections of fiddling with security terminals in a very deep, dark place - a laboratory of some sort - while his companion in the lab coat urged him on. Brandon could easily communicate with the security computers, but lab coat man - who later identified himself as Woodrow Roy - could not, and needed the cyborg's help to escape the lab.
Once the two of them reached a dark, cold forest, Roy told Brandon he knew of a place that was still somewhat safe - for now. He seemed afraid of the cyborg for some reason, but once again needed a bodyguard to reach his destination, so the two of them ended up on the outskirts of Athens. Not exactly a safe place, but when the curtains are drawn, the zombies stay out. Mostly. And because Brandon's faulty bionics kept overloading and generating noise, Roy agreed to remove as many of them as he could. Somehow, he seemed to know exactly what they were, and how they could be deactivated, though he kept an anxious eye on the cyborg the whole time. It's as if he's afraid Brandon will remember something... and kill him for it.
A good half dozen annoying, useless and cumbersome bionics remain. But the ones that turned Brandon into a walking time bomb with a pre-determined death sentence are gone.
So, the two of them never truly became 'friends' and Roy never agreed to travel with Brandon. But when the cyborg volunteered to search nearby buildings for supplies at night, Roy seemed happy enough to agree.
At first, the lack of clothing was the biggest challenge Brandon has been facing. The cold bites deeper than the zombies, and the ones he couldn't avoid ripped what little clothing he had right off him. The first couple runs involved grabbing sheets and down-filled blankets from nearby houses and carrying them back so at least the bed would be warm. The house is surrounded by pizza parlors, grocery stores and butcher's shops, so food isn't an issue for now. But Brandon has a feeling he and Roy can't stay in that place much longer. The zombie hordes, led by mysterious and frightening 'masters', keep growing and shuffling within close proximity of the house. There's an office tower to the northeast, a bit apart from the rest of the city. Maybe it will make a good new base?
Brandon has secured some basic clothing by now, and learned how to make a makeshift satchel to carry stuff in. Huzzah, the days of having 0 inventory space, and wielding every little thing that had to be moved are over!