Things you may need to know about Gus

[thanksrainman]

Milli-Canon

His first year in the bar was rather rocky, as he struggled to fit in and abide by the rules. He’d grow stir crazy quite easily, and generally start fights or do something stupid (once even getting stabbed as result).

About half-way through his second year in the bar, he met Sameth, who rather bluntly informed Gus that the reason he was at Milliways to begin with was because he was dead. This news was not received very well, and begun a destructive cycle of drink, depression, and crime. While still trying to cope with this new reality, Gus met Jordan Kennedy, a young evil genius. Despite a huge age gap, the two hit things off fairly quickly.

Gus didn’t keep many friends in bar during this time. By this point, he’d learned enough of how the bar worked to be comfortable showing his true colours, as it were, and had become a bit more honest about who he is (which is a sociopathic convicted felon with federal warrants for fraud, extortion, ID theft, parole violation, and possibly murder – though, he tended to forget about the last one, because the idea that he might have actually killed someone was scary, even for him).

During a trip to Jordan Kennedy’s world, Gus showed her what his particular line of work entails. Posing on a street corner with a clip board, he convinced five different people to write him a cheque for $2000, all over the span of about 15 minutes. What he didn’t tell her is that this particular con is the only one he’s ever been able to pull off consistently. After this, the two of them set up a false-billing scam, whereupon they set up a fake debt consolidation business, taking mortgage and credit card payments for themselves. The scheme collapsed before it ever really got off the ground.

While in the midst of setting up the scheme with Jordan, Gus accidentally travelled into Ellen Park’s world. The experience was traumatic, and from all points of view, was the cause of a developing anxiety disorder. He also began to experience terrible pain in his hands and chest, but no one was ever able to offer an explanation. Eventually, both the panic attacks and random pain began to taper off, although they never did go away completely. They did, however, present themselves at the worst possible moments for Gus. He blamed the whole thing on Ellen, and after a fairly explosive row by Bar, the two dropped out of communication with one another.

Shortly after, he and Jordan had a massive falling out. When Jordan began to develop feelings for him, and told him as much in her own way, Gus rejected the very idea, and chose that moment to pick a fight, instead. After that, she took him back to the Bar, and hasn’t spoken to him, since.

About two days after Christmas, 09 (Millitime), Gus came down with the IMDb flu, which had been going round the bar. Because of his severe sleep deprivation caused by his panic attacks, the flu hit him especially hard. He was found running around up in the rafters, believing himself to be Lt. Cmdr. Scott, and was convinced that he was in the engine room of the Starship Enterprise. When Guppy Sandhu took him to the infirmary to get him to rest, Gus became defensive, believing Guppy to be some sort of alien invader, and shoved him across the room, causing him to hit his head on a trolley. Justified by the attack, Guppy then sedated Gus, though he didn’t leave the infirmary until several hours later, opting to stay and watch over his friend. Sometime in the night, after Guppy had fallen asleep, Gus escaped from the infirmary, and finding his door back in the Bar, left suddenly, ostensibly disappearing from the grounds completely.

Out of Milliways

Unlike almost everyone else, Gus did not emerge through a door on the other side. Stepping through the door in Milliways, he woke up from a coma in his world, to find that it had only been nine weeks since trying to blackmail the reverend, rather than the two years that he’d thought it had been.

The next two or three weeks he spent in hospital were a particularly tough time for him. While the staff all seemed rather pleasant around him, he was always certain that it was just a matter of minutes before a police officer came in to formally arrest him. But, as the time went on, and no police officers came, Gus only grew more confused. He didn’t dare ask what had actually happened the night he was shot, for fear of implicating himself, so he went on with his new life of physical therapy and having to re-learn how to hold a pencil.

The day he was discharged (still no police), Charlie’s wife stopped by the hospital, and upon giving him an envelope stuffed full of cash, told him that everything had been “taken care of,” and to get the hell out of Oregon and never come back. She didn’t stick around long enough for Gus to ask any questions. Taking the cash, he did as he was told, however, and surprised to learn that his fake identity was still holding up, made his way to Portland, whereupon he took the first flight back to Manhattan, where he knew he could easily disappear for a while.

After he’d been in Manhattan a few weeks, Milliways caught back up with him, hiding in the laundry room on the ground floor of the building he lives in. Returning to Milliways was nothing short of traumatic for Gus, all things considered.

Appearance and Other Small (yet significant) Details

Gus now walks with a considerable limp on his right and has lost quite a bit of weight. He wears his hair longer than is probably acceptable for a man his age, to cover a scar on the back of his head, and has lost his porn star tache in favour of the sort of stubble that comes with not having the coordination to hold a razor. Also, the scar that used to be on his hand from when he was stabbed in the bar is now gone, replaced by three bullet wounds; one on his right thigh, and two more on his chest. He’s very self-conscious about these, for obvious reasons, which is why you’ll never find him without a shirt or in shorts.

>His head injury has left him with lasting damage, particularly affecting his hand-eye coordination. He’s still sharp as he ever was, but has never been able to re-learn to tie his shoes, and zips and buttons give him a particularly hard time as well. He’s now left-handed (when he used to be right), and has lost almost all ability to use a computer, owing to the same issues that keep him from tying his shoes and buttoning his clothes. Talking to him may also reveal that he has some long-term memory issues.

However, he doesn’t outwardly display any signs that anything’s wrong. His speech is clear, and aside from his limp, his movement is still fairly steady (aside from the aforementioned issues).

The version of the “truth” that he knows, which he only managed to get from newspapers after returning to the Bar, is that Josie and Charlie had done all the killing and stealing, and planned to run away together, after trying to set Gus up to take the fall. This was a fabrication and cover-up made up by Penelope, who (claiming Gus to be a family friend) felt she deserved to keep the money after all the ordeal. She knew that if Gus went down, he would start pointing fingers. He does not actually know the total body count for that night, but he doesn’t necessarily believe the papers.

At this point, Gus has given up on his life of crime. He tells himself that he’s given it up because he can barely walk, and has trouble breathing sometimes, but in truth, he’s sort of lost that spark. Those that knew him before he left the bar would notice a slight change in his behaviour. While he still doesn’t care about anybody else, he doesn’t seek out to actively harm anybody (or their wallets). Any more, he’s just any other old, washed-up ex-con, just trying to lead a normal life.

Despite his initial reaction at returning to Milliways, it’s the one place that he knows is (mostly) safe. A new fear that he’s developed is that he’s going to get caught for everything he’s done (because those federal warrants? Still in effect), which is why he’s living under an assumed name. He’s a bit more honest about these things than he was before leaving the bar, taking comfort in the “No Business” and “No Violence” rules. He doesn’t tell the story about the ex-wife any more, and no longer claims to be from Las Vegas. His accent is American Great Lakes region, and there are times when he finds himself almost wanting to go back to Indiana. Only, there’s something far more scary than any police officer or federal agent back in Indiana; his mother.





Name: Gus Dickinson (Possibly a fake name)
Home town: Las Vegas (almost certainly a lie)

Gus has been arrested at least once, for a half-arsed Ponzi Scheme.

He often claims to have an ex-wife (Stephanie) and a young daughter (Thais). Depending on his mood, who he's talking to, or his situation, Thais either has issues with her eye pressure, causing her to go blind, or he owes alimony to Stephanie in excess of $300,000. None of this is, in fact, true, and the photograph he keeps in his wallet is actually cut out from an advert from a magazine.

Gus is skilled in sleight of hand (pick-pocketing), cold reading, can be one hell of a smooth-talker, knows his way around early 21st century computer technology, and seems to be able to blend himself into any situation.

Lived for an undetermined time in central Oregon. There, he worked in a call centre, where he met Charlie (Likely he had Charlie targeted as a patsy from the beginning).

While in Oregon, he had a brief relationship with Josie, a young waitress. They had a truncated one-night-stand, that ended with Gus learning that she was only 17.

He's not a violent man. He mentions to Charlie that the reason he does what he does is because it's "a completely non-violent enterprise." The one time he is seen to have a gun, he's deeply uncomfortable and despite multiple threats, completely fails to ever fire it.

Gus is bound to Milliways. He, Charlie, and Josie got together to blackmail a reverend, and it would have worked, if not for every single detail going horribly wrong. He was shot by a bent FBI agent that followed the lot to a rail station, where they intended to dump the body of a dead police officer and a stolen car. He's presumed dead at the end of the film.



Real name: Douglas Mitchell
Home town: Jasper, Indiana
Age (2006): 41

Gus never finished high school. At age 14, he began skipping classes and stealing wallets. At 15, he stopped going all together, and at 17, left home.

At 20, he was arrested on his first felony charge of cheque fraud (forgery) in Manhattan. It was also in Manhattan where he learned how to verbally manipulate people, in the form of not selling time shares.

Upon his release, he made his way to Nevada, where he learned how to play poker. He wasn't very good at poker, so he learned how to cheat at poker by adapting skills he learned from picking pockets.

He's quite skilled in sleight of hand. It's something he learned for cheating at poker and stealing wallets, but he knows some magic tricks as well. They're good practise.

He stayed in Vegas for about a decade, moving from cards to getting involved in scams, everything from corporate to private citizens. At 35, he was arrested for his half-arsed Ponzi Scheme and spent five years in Jean (a town about 20 minutes outside of Las Vegas that exists solely as somewhere to place a prison). He served five years of a ten-year sentence before being released. He wasn't out 24 hours before stealing someone's wallet outside the Hard Rock Hotel and using the contents therein to leave the state under the radar, only to find himself stranded in rural Oregon for a just over a year.

At this point, it's believed by those in the bar that Gus is actually dead.

Gus is no longer in the Bar. Whilst hallucinating from the IMDb Flu, he escaped from the infirmary and left the Bar for the first time since arriving.

For all intents and purposes, Gus appears to have gotten away with his crimes in Oregon. With a certain degree of insider assistance, he managed to escape under the radar, at the cost of missing out on necessary out-patient treatment. On the upside, he did get some of the money.