Melissa is an aberration. In the future, humans are humans, no matter how they try to alter their bodies. But they have also created an entirely new breed of people: anthros. Uplifted, made humanoid, given greater than human faculties, they are animals no longer. If not precisely enslaved, they are created by the Corpos to serve functions, and it is "expected" that they will work for their creators. While given some rights, they have had a fundamental one taken away: each and every anthro is sterile, unable to reproduce with each other or any other breed. At least, so it was thought until one had a child with a human. Smooth human features mix with those of a housecat, her limbs become furred and clawed from the knees and elbows, and a feline tail sways behind her. Melissa Morris is officially a nondesignated anthro: a 0.

The girl never learned who exactly her father is, only that he was an anthro cat. Fearing for the family's safety as the girl is living proof of a Corpo failure, Melissa's mother retreated into the darker corners of the Sprawl where the less well-off anthros and other lower-class citizens lived, and she tried to give her daughter the best upbringing that she could in these circumstances. Unfortunately, she didn't understand these reasons at the time, and was often sneaking out or running away from home to hang around the community of hackers and petty thieves. At first she thought nothing of it, but one day at a still very young age Melissa, or "Merris" as she started calling herself, came home to find her mother dead of an overdose. The thought that she may have been somehow responsible haunts her to this day.

Though she affects a carefree, humorous manner, she's got a lot of past to run from. Her mother is not the only stain on her conscience, deserved or not. Despite the good influences she gets from a few parental substitutes, she now lives off the streets and takes freelance jobs hacking, running contraband, and whatever other small crimes need doing for cash or a place to rest for the night. Several times before she's attempted to team up with a group of friends, but both times ended disastrously. Is she too overconfident? Is she a target who only lives because the Corpos want her to? Whatever it is, it keeps her up at night, which may contribute to the bizarre but very effective methods of hacking she prefers. She might seem to have nine lives, but she doesn't want to get too close to those who don't...