Madame 16’s story is one filled with tragedy. Forced out of her home at a young age, Jessica was beaten frequently and starved by her corporate captors until she showed compliance. The scientists responsible for her testing and training would often use psychological on the child, threatening her family with torture and death if she didn’t comply. The team believed Jessica could grow up to be a powerful Controller they would weaponize. She did eventually manifest her powers in adolescence, with her amplitude numbers completely off the charts of any known metric. Along with 22 other children, Jessica was the 16th who became a part of a brutal testing phase intended to weed out and kill the weakest among the Controllers. Jessica partnered with another student of far less power, who had limited telepathy and mind alteration capabilities. Through this connection, Jessica learned how the scientists were able to keep the test subjects like her without powers. Jessica, with the goading of her new partner, uprooted the entire facility itself, slamming it down repeatedly until the contents inside, including the scientifc team, lab workers, custodians, visitors, and other students, were annihilated by the destruction of the building.

Through the years, Jessica’s escaped into the Frontiers and began to gather the strength of various warring marauding tribes. The tribes came from nine different districts in the Frontiers, and soon came to call themselves “The Nine” after their nine leaders. During this time, Jessica’s long-time companion kept poisoning her mind, filling her with doubts, anxieties, and turmoil about her powers and her role in the gang. A power struggle carried on for several years, with Jessica being threatened to have to relive her constant abuse as a young girl over and over if she didn’t comply. Tormented by her past, her inability to help her family to a new life, and nothing but a wake of death and destruction wherever she went, her long-time companion, who rebranded herself as “The Liaison” took control of The Nine and set Madame 16 out as her personal pawn, even though Jessica’s Controller abilities were near god-like in scope and power.