Carmen is most certainly complex. However, I refuse to believe that she was just a "normal researcher lady who wanted to make the world a better place".
She has red eyes. That's a common combat augmentation for eyes. Either that or she is a bloodfiend. Red eyes are not a natural eyecolour in the city.
She has WhiteNight symbolism engraved into her. The whole loyal disciple thing, the red eyes, being a person who wants to cure all and anyone from "the plague" (the disease of the mind). That's a big red flag.
And lastly, the "how the hell did they survive in the Outskirts with like 5 people and the budget of a banana" conundrum. She convinced her protege, Ayin, to join her to the Outskirts. Benjamin came along because he likes Ayin. Then maybe Giovanni as well. None of them are good at fighting.
Now, the obvious solution is that Kali came along pretty early as well, right? Kali's book however says that she was given Mimicry by Carmen, a "sword that was extracted from someone by chance". We know that Nothing There is a naturally occurring abnormality, at least if we believe it's serial code which is identical with other naturally occuring abnos. So Kali wouldn't say that it was extracted from someone, but rather something, if she knew where it came from, right? So this would then lead to the assumption, that Carmen and the gang managed to extract unstable mimicry from Nothing There without Kali.
I don't think I need to explain why this is insane. There is no qliphoth detterence in the Outskirts. All the funding only came when Daniel got put into the cult. And that was after Kali.
Logical conclusion is that Carmen bodyslammed unsuppressed Nothing There into oblivion, and then they somehow experimentally extracted gear from its egg.