Viper Kade

Viper Kade was eight when Cerberus purchased her contract from state care, flagged for reflexes three standard deviations above the mean. For fourteen years she was their weapon. Her handler Alexei Volkov taught her that precision is mercy, that a clean kill is the only kindness left. At twenty-two she refused a termination order on a child and went dark within forty-eight hours, taking one encrypted ledger containing every child Cerberus recruited in the last decade. Alexei died because he let her escape. She has survived four years as a freelancer in Blackwire District, chemically dependent on stabilizers and carrying his weight in every choice she makes.