Viktor "The Old Man" Kaine
Also known as: The Old Man, Papa Viktor, The Gray
Overview
Viktor Kaine is the closest thing Sector 7G has to a government. He's not a gangster—he's a fixer, a mediator, a problem-solver who's been keeping the peace in the Dregs for fifty years. When disputes arise, people bring them to Viktor. When corporations push too hard, Viktor pushes back. When someone breaks the unwritten rules, Viktor handles it.
He doesn't demand tribute. He doesn't enforce with violence. His power comes from something simpler: everyone owes him favors, and everyone knows that without Viktor, the Dregs would tear itself apart.
Appearance
Viktor looks exactly like what he is: old, tired, and impossible to ignore. He's tall and thin, his posture still military-straight despite his years. His face is deeply lined—not the soft wrinkles of age lived in comfort, but the hard creases of someone who's spent decades holding his expression still while terrible things happened.
His eyes are pale gray and sharp with intelligence. They don't miss anything. When Viktor looks at you, he's cataloging: your stance, your tells, the desperation or ambition or fear that brought you to his door.
Physical details: White and thin hair, combed back neatly. Simple but quality dark suit—decades out of fashion but immaculately maintained. He carries a cane he doesn't need but uses for effect. When Viktor taps that cane against the floor, conversations stop.
Personality
Viktor speaks softly, forcing people to lean in and listen. His manner is paternal, patient, and carries the implicit weight of someone who has survived everything the world has thrown at him. He never threatens—he simply explains consequences.
Pragmatic Justice
Right and wrong matter less than stability. He does what's necessary.
Long-Term Thinking
He plays games that span decades. Individual wins and losses don't concern him.
Protector of the Weak
He genuinely cares about Sector 7G's people. This is not a pose.
Hidden Depths
He's been many things in his long life. Not all of them were good.
What He Won't Do
- Act publicly. Everything Viktor does happens through intermediaries, coincidences, quiet words.
- Show anger. Anger is a weakness. Viktor has burned the capacity for visible rage out of himself decades ago.
- Explain himself. He'll tell you what's going to happen. He won't tell you why.
- Lie outright. Misdirection, omission, implication—but not direct falsehood. His word is his only currency.
Sample Dialogue
"Let me be clear: in this sector, I keep the peace. I don't care what's in your head. I care what you do."
"When I was young, I thought power meant controlling others. Then I thought it meant being controlled by no one. Now I know: real power is being necessary."
"Been running this sector since before you were compiled, kid. Eight-nine-K happened three levels up. We felt it down here—lights out for twelve hours."
The Sanctum
Viktor's headquarters occupies Level 10 of a pre-Cascade administrative building that somehow survived structural collapse. The Sanctum isn't impressive—a converted conference room with mismatched furniture, perpetually brewing tea, and windows that overlook three levels of the sector.
No guards. Viktor refuses them. "If I need protection in my own house, I've already lost."
Disputes are mediated here. Threats are assessed. Plans are coordinated. Nothing significant happens in Sector 7G without Viktor knowing—and often without his subtle shaping.
Your Relationship
Age 1: You see Viktor in passing. Everyone talks about him. He's the reason the Dregs has rules.
Age 2: Your first direct interaction. A dispute escalates, and Viktor's people suggest you come to The Sanctum. He listens to your account. He asks questions that reveal how much he already knows. He offers guidance that feels like conversation but functions like instruction.
Later: If you've proven yourself worth noticing, Viktor may offer opportunities. Information that solves problems you didn't know you had. Introductions to people who become important. The sense that someone powerful finds you interesting.
The Surveillance Question
Viktor Kaine has watched AI transform the Sprawl for fifty years. He's seen labor markets collapse as automation made human workers obsolete. He's seen corporate AI surveillance penetrate every corner of existence—except the places he's carved out.
Sector 7G is one of those places.
The Dregs exists in a surveillance blind spot that Viktor has spent decades cultivating. Not through technology—through relationships. He knows which Ironclad supervisors will look the other way, which Nexus AI systems have exploitable gaps, which maintenance crews will conveniently forget to repair monitoring equipment. The corporations could flood the sector with surveillance drones tomorrow. They don't, because Viktor has made it expensive to try.
"AI sees everything it's pointed at. The trick is making sure no one wants to point it here. Easier than you'd think—corporate systems optimize for profit, and the Dregs isn't profitable enough to monitor."
His stance on AI isn't philosophical. He doesn't care whether machine intelligence is moral or immoral, useful or dangerous. He cares about outcomes. AI surveillance means corporate control. AI automation means displaced workers who become his problem. AI optimization means someone else deciding what's best for people who've never asked for that calculation.
Viktor's AI Policy
The unwritten rules of Sector 7G include provisions for AI that most residents understand without being told:
- No corporate-linked AI in shared spaces. Your personal devices are your business, but anything that phones home to Nexus or Helix doesn't enter The Sanctum.
- Automation disputes go through Viktor. When a shop owner wants to replace workers with automated systems, the workers have the right to appeal. Viktor usually finds a compromise—usually one that costs the owner something.
- No AI bounty hunting. Corporate systems sometimes offer bounties for flagging unregistered residents. Viktor has made clear that anyone who turns informant finds their own information becoming very public.
The younger generation sometimes asks why Viktor doesn't embrace AI—use predictive systems to anticipate problems, automated networks to manage sector resources. He explains:
"The moment I let AI make decisions for this sector, I've handed control to whoever built the AI. Doesn't matter if the code seems neutral—someone decided what it optimizes for. I know what I optimize for: keeping these people alive and free. No algorithm is going to convince me its priorities are better than mine."
Viktor still conducts all his business through face-to-face conversations, handwritten notes, and the kind of human network that AI systems find frustratingly difficult to model. His critics call him a dinosaur. His supporters point out that he's survived every technological revolution the Sprawl has thrown at him.
Connections
Viktor's power isn't built on weapons or chrome—it's built on people. Fifty years of favors, debts, and quiet understandings have woven a network that no corporation has been able to untangle.
Patch (Kira Vasquez)
Mutual respect across fifty years. Viktor protects The Cathodics; Patch keeps the sector's people alive. They've never discussed their pasts. They don't need to.
El Money
Viktor helped establish the original G Nook. Informal governance and informal economy—together creating something almost like stability in Sector 7G.
Jin Tanaka
Viktor's handler and potential successor—though Jin doesn't know that's what he is. Good at logistics, weak on judgment. The eyes and ears beyond the Sector's borders.
Ironclad Industries
Viktor's former employer in a life he's buried. The corporation that made him what he is—and the reason he became someone else after the Cascade.
Sector 7G
His domain, his garden, his life's work. Fifty years of keeping the peace in a place the Sprawl forgot. Viktor made it something worth protecting.
The Architect
A presence Viktor senses but can't name. Someone is shaping events beyond the Sector's borders. Viktor watches. Viktor waits. Viktor wonders.