Zhenya Makarova was born in Yekaterinburg, Russia on October 14, 2029, a scant four years after the end of the Fourth Corporate War. Her family was originally loyal to the Soviet Union but broke away in the face of it's increasing corporate control, both of her parents and her elder brother Red Army operatives before signing on with SovOil.

The family was solidly middle-class, living in a series of decent apartments across Russia and the other constituent republics and getting food that was adequate in both quantity and quality. Zhenya received a decent education and had the means to make something of herself, perhaps a middle manager for SovOil or crossing the border to become an accountant for Kang Tao. Hell, with her height she could have played basketball

However, she never took to the idea of a desk job. Zhenya grew up fighting with other children and running from local law enforcement when she and her friends were caught scrawling tags over public property. While not quite antisocial she was uninterested in playing it safe. It was obvious that she was an adrenaline junkie, fueled by excitement more than anything else.

By the time she was in her mid-teens she had a number of infractions on her record, mostly disorderly conduct for brawling and a couple cases of joyriding.

Had it not been for her parents track records of service to SovOil Zhenya would simply another been another gopnik, hanging out on street corners while trying to prove herself as the baddest motherfucker around. Instead she was signed up to serve like the rest of her family, given basic security training before being given a gun and told to defend corporate interests from the same riffraff she had been hanging out with.

While she was hardly thrilled at the prospect of wearing a uniform or taking orders the power that SovOil gave her was intoxicating. She had a license to kick ass, not just allowed but expected to bust the head of anyone who even looked at company property funny. Most of her paycheck was spent on down payments for black-market cyberwear and fueling her addiction to syn-coke with the occasional hospital visit for injuries sustained in back alley brawls. There was a learning curve for the first couple of years, a few citations for excessive force and reckless endangerment, but eventually some pencil pusher managing the personnel roster had a brilliant idea:

Why risk collateral damage and waste a perfectly good goon when she could be reassigned to the middle of nowhere?

With the USSR's old enemy America having splintered into NUSA and the rise of corporate power over the Politiboro most of the conflict in Russia was internal. Besides the usual gangland warfare the various nations of Neo-Sov often had border clashes, to say nothing of the more organized crews making a living off of attacking SovOil storage depots. Zhenya was sent to Siberia to deal with those vultures, the wide open wasteland the perfect sort of enviroment for someone like her.

That was her life for the next three decades. Trying to stay warm inside desolate SovOil outposts, serving as gunner on AV patrols to clear out bandit camps and laying waste to anything she was told to. Inbetween the months on the job were the weeks long stretches of downtime, most of which was spent partying or running her own rackets on the side. SovOil didn't care if its guards were selling confiscated contraband or shaking down villages for protection money, as long as they did their jobs.

By her forties Zen had straightened out, more or less. She had figured out how to toe the line when required but found herself growing bored. The syn-coke habit had been replaced by painkillers and sedatives, the running gun battles with would be thieves in the shadow of the Urals all blurring into one. Siberia was growing old, a change was needed.

The opportunity came when her EV was shot down by some booster with a stolen rocket launcher. The low power of the degraded warhead hadn't been enough to blow the vehicle apart and Zen survived the crash thanks to the aggressive amount of cyberware she had installed. With the rest of the crew dead she simply trekked back to base, grabbed her stuff and slipped free.

Her father had passed a decade ago and she hadn't spoken to her mother or brother in years. Zen found it easy to leave her old life behind, crossing the border into Poland and then onto Germany. The formerly United States was chosen as her final destination purely on basis of distance. She wanted to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible and with the help of smugglers she managed to do just that.

Eurodollars were not officially exchanged in the Neo=Soviet Union and much of what Zen had earned from her side hustles was spent on making it to NUSA. She needed a job, and what with having spent her whole life as a professional gunslinger, had little in the way of marketable skills. But she had arrived in the early stages of the Unification Wars, NUSA moving to finally bring the Free States back under its thumb. Militech, the real power behind NUS of A, needed more bodies and was willing to bring on a foreigner who wanted to be thrown into the meat grinder.

Zhenya fought at Ridgecrest in what would be the bloodiest battle of the Unification War before marching north for the coming assault on Night City (noting the irony of her home country sending support to the soon-to-be-besieged city), only to be sorely disappointed when the arrival of an Arasaka supercarrier forced the Militech/NUSA force to retreat.

The war was ended with the Arvin Accords and Zhenya was unceremoniously booted from Militech, her maverick attitude and worrying love of cyberwear no longer tolerated without a conflict to let her get killed in.

The remainder of her Sov cash was long gone and her salary from Militech had blown on drugs and joytoys in a series of post-war celebrations. Zen was dead broke with no friends or family to rely on, lacking even a superior officer willing to vouch for her. What she did have was an arsenal of heavy weaponry, way too much chrome and the directions to a town she had intended on painting red anyway.

Night City didn't judge. It took her in like it did every other lunatic merc, a neon playground for her to ply her trade. With her connections far and few between Zen was at the bottom of the pile, an overqualified hired gun for those unbothered by things getting loud. Any decent paying job she found required more discretion she was capable or cared to give and there were always expenses. Food, meds to patch herself up with after jobs, new cyberware, various sedatives to counteract the increasing odds of completely losing it due to that cyberware, so many things to buy and not enough eddies to buy them with.

But Zhenya didn't mind being homeless. She had a car to sleep in and a dog to hang out with, that was about as much as she needed. More importantly, she was free. No bosses yelling orders, no parents to try and impress with her service, she worked when she wanted for who she wanted.

She could be whoever she wanted, even if the person she wanted to be was just a more infamous version of who she already was. She found people willing to work with her, running ops for a shifty ground-floor Fixer and serving as a shooter for a wheelman by the name of 3D.

Jake Tao- A low-tier fixer, perfect for a low-tier solo. Johnny likes to spin himself as being bigger than he is and Zen nods politely despite knowing full well he's not going to find her a job different than the usual "burn rival stash spot here, shoot a too-curious bennie there." He's useful not because he offers good gigs, he's useful because he offers lots of them. It's the one advantage of working with bottom of the bin clients, plenty of poor people want other poor people dead.

3D- An actually competent fixer, even if he has poor taste. Zen likes to work for 3D because he offers her gigs that actually paid well...or at least he did before he was ran out of his mansion. She tries to throw him a bone now and again in the aftermath of the bordello raid but there's only such much she can do when she's already skipping meals to afford more ammo. He's a a good buddy and a great driver but a very bad source for fashion advice.

Uncle Sam- Zen's pet, personal therapist, diary and pillow. He's named after the patron saint of her adopted country and he's just the bestest boy in the whole world, yes he is! A stray blast of buckshot took out an eye and a leg but Zen managed to rush him over to a ripperdoc in time to save his life.

Mark. 31 Heavy Machinegun- Eighty-two pounds of high-powered weaponry, firing .50 BMG from a backpack-mounted feed system. The Mk. 31 is unwieldy even for those all borg'ed up but its ability to chew through cover, light vehicles and most definitely people make it worth keeping around. Fires a variety of rounds, all of which will absolutely ruin someone's day.

Militech Crusher- The Crusher's small size makes it convenient for use indoors while its eight-gauge payload and twelve-round magazine make it deadly. It's Zhenya's go-to when the situation warrants some semblance of subtlety.

RT-46 Burya- Zhenya's sidearm from her SovOil days and one of the few tech-weapons she cares for. Low-capacity and most certainly not low profile but makes up for these deficits with its sheer power. If it doesn't drop dead after getting shot by a railgun Zen probably shouldn't have shot at it in the first place.

"Rezat" Officer's Sword- Her father's official parade sidearm from his days as an officer in the greatly diminished Red Army, it was given a very unofficial nickname when she inherited it. The titanium blade is sharp, durable, and lightweight while the decorative grip contains pressure sensitive circuitry. A squeeze of her hand sends a current of around eight thousand volts up the blade.

Even if she can't pierce their skin that much juice can inhibit a chromed up opponent just fine.

Agent- Zhenya's cell phone, computer, personal assistant and main source of entertainment outside of murder, all in one convenient package.
Galena GA32t- A used model of an already cheap sports car, given to Zen as payment for a gig. Since she has no permanent home it pulls double duty as her bedroom and transportation.
Heavy Armorjack- In the form of an armorweave trench coat with metal plates inserted at strategic points and a laminate armor vest underneath. It won't help much if she gets shot in the legs or the head but its far better than nothing.
Everything Else- Spare ammo, spare magazines, the few hundred eddies Zhenya has left, changes of clothes, a couple blankets and the various drugs she takes. Generally strewn about the floor and trunk of her car.