Growing up in Rosemont, just outside of Chicago, Michelle Balters had led a very normal life, until the age of thirteen. At the age of thirteen, Michelle Balters began to develop migraine headaches that would leave her nearly incapacitated from the pain that they brought on. Michelle endured the headaches for an excruciating two years before the cause of the headaches was discovered.
At the age of fifteen, Michelle Balters discovered that she was a mutant, who had been born with the ability to route an energy pulse through a person’s optic nerves and through their nervous system, which resulted in incapacitating those who were affected.
It was shortly after discovering she was a mutant that Michelle realized how unhappy her family had been with her because of her mutant powers; so she ran away from home and eventually came to be in Denver. While in Denver she came across a paid research for ‘young people with special talents.’
Answering the advertisement, she came to Strong Industries, located just outside of Denver city limits. At Strong Industries, she met Adam-X. Though the two had become romantically involved, she fled from Strong Industries and eventually came across X-Force. She told them that the owner of Strong Industries, Martin Strong had intended to discover the genetic DNA helix which caused mutations and be rid of it forever. Neurotap leads X-Force and X-Treme back to Strong Industries, where they learn that her fleeing initially had been a set up to lure more mutants to Strong Industries. Michelle reveals that Martin Henry Strong had promised to cure her of her mutant power if she had lured more mutants to him.
Furious by the betrayal, X-Treme takes down Neurotap and tells Cable to take down Martin Strong. X-Treme finishes off Martin Strong, and manages to defeat him.
Despite Strong’s defeat, Neurotap continued to work with him, having no other avenue to pursue. She would eventually contact X-Force once again, and gain the assistance of both Shatterstar and Rictor.
Neurotap remains one of the select few that has retained her powers after the events of M-Day.
