Mip

Mip, an acronym for McAllister Industries Prototype 47126-A, is Mitch’s pet and companion.  A wolverine, a solitary carnivore of the genus gulo hylaeus, Mip was taken from the wild and subjected to numerous experiments by McAllister Industries, the huge multinational conglomerate responsible for Mitch’s own creation.  Wolverines are naturally aggressive hunters, each weighing some forty pounds on average and capable of fighting off a bear in its natural environment, and McAllister altered Mip genetically to make him even more dangerous than his kin.

Massing over sixty pounds, Mip’s bones, claws and teeth have been strengthened with a plasti-ceramic alloy similar to that used for Mitch’s endoskeleton.  In addition, his muscle structure has been re-engineered and his healing capabilities radically improved by the introduction of nanobytes, tiny machines built on the molecular scale, into his bloodstream and bone tissue.  Finally, his senses have been greatly enhanced and the growth of new tissue stimulated in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that holds the instinctive aggression response.  All this requires a great deal of energy, and thus Mip’s metabolism has been speeded up to the point that he can, and does, eat half his own body weight in meat every day.  Wolverines in the wild can fight off a bear; Mip can reduce it to tatters of bloody flesh before it knew what had hit it. 

In appearance, Mip is a large, muscular wolverine, an animal resembling a cross between a small bear and a weasel.  He has coarse brown fur, with two broad pale streaks running down his back all the way to the tip of his long, bushy tail.  Including the tail he is some four feet in total length.

His general attitude is one of intense aggression coupled with permanent hunger, making him ferocious and savage even around those he knows well.  The only exceptions are Mitch, Becky Martin and Penny.  He seems to acknowledge Mitch as his master, and Becky is close to his master and therefore also treated with grudging respect.  Inexplicably, when with Penny (but only Penny) Mip becomes cuddly, purring and totally docile.  Afterwards he never seems entirely sure why his reaction has changed so completely, and tends to take out his confusion on the next poor sap to get near him.

He lives in a large titanium cage in Mitch's private office in the Hotel Gothique, but his master regularly takes him for long walks out in the country (preferably areas devoid of human habitation, just in case).