Inmate 280 (short story): Difference between revisions

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Inmate 280

Key crew

Writer:

Cavan Scott

Release details

Part of:

Short Trips: Steel Skies

Release date:

December 2003

*Short Trips*
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Deep Stretch	Doing Time

Inmate 280 was the tenth short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: Steel Skies. It was written by Cavan Scott. It featured the Seventh Doctor.

Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

Brad Travers finds himself telling a story to a young man about the first time he killed a man. For an instant, as he tells the story, the man seems somehow familiar to him.

Travers used to be a correctional officer at Alcatraz. His superior was a man named Ned Leech. One evening, Travers found Leech running along the corridor through the pen, chased by Wai-Chun and several of his gang. Leech threw his keys to Travers to keep them out of Wai-Chun's hands. A prisoner named Reinkemeyer grabbed Leech and pressed a stolen carving knife against Leech's neck. Travers killed Reinkenmeyer with his rifle. The other men fled, straight into the arms of guards with nightsticks. Leech punched Wai-Chun then kicked him when he was down.

That night, the prisoners were agitated. As Travers patrolled the cell block, one of the inmates, Richard A Fells, asked him what it felt like to kill a man. Travers didn't answer, and Fells went back to his book.

Travers tells the young man that Fells, who had a weird Irish or Scotch accent, gave him the creeps. He tells the man that the only person enjoying himself during that time was Leech. And the man Fells seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

A week or two later, the prisoners were in the canteen, eating spaghetti. Travers noted that Fells was talking with Wai-Chun, almost provoking him to anger. It finally worked, and the place erupted into fights. Several officers fell, but Travers couldn't get there in time. Leech, in the middle of the fight, ordered one of the officers to release the lethal poison gas. Men started screaming then went silent.

Suddenly Travers noticed that he was still alive. The gas stopped in mid-air inches from his face. He noticed that Fells was with him, and Wai-Chun as well, holding the limp and beaten body of Leech.

Fells triumphantly confronted Wai-Chun, explaining to Travers that Wai-Chun was a Threckon that he had imprisoned some time back. Free, it came to Alcatraz and took over Wai-Chun's body, looking for anger to feast upon. Fells, learning that the Threckon had escaped, smuggled himself into Alcatraz to find him. The Threckon created a telekinetic bubble to save himself from the gas.

Wai-Chun acted as if he didn't know what Fells is talking about. Travers noticed that Leech had recovered from the beating and stood up, but blubbery flesh started coming out of him, turning into tentacles. Wai-Chun threw himself out of the way in terror, but crossed the invisible barrier and died from the gas. The Threckon attacked Fells, seeing the Time Lord as a feast of anger. Travers shoved “Leech” outside the barrier, then collapsed as the barrier collapsed and he began breathing the toxic gas.

Travers tells the young man that Fells saved him, but he never saw him again. Travers became a cop, but is now suffering from lung cancer, caused by breathing the gas.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor reads The War of the Worlds.
The Doctor uses the alias Richard A Fells.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

The stories in Short Trips: Steel Skies are divided into four sections dealing with different types of confinement. This story deals with incarceration, that is, "punishment and imprisonment".
The Eighth Doctor makes a cameo at the beginning and end of this story.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Short Trips short stories

BBC Books

Short Trips	Model Train Set • Old Flames • War Crimes • The Last Days • Stop the Pigeon • Freedom • Glass • Mondas Passing • There are Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden • Mother's Little Helper • The Parliament of Rats • Rights • Wish You Were Here • Ace of Hearts • The People's Temple

More Short Trips	Totem • Scientific Adviser • Missing, Part One: Business as Usual • Moon Graffiti • One Bad Apple • 64 Carlysle Street • The Eternity Contract • The Sow in Rut • Special Weapons • Honest Living • Dead Time • Romans Cutaway • Return of the Spiders • Hot Ice • uPVC • Good Companions • Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle • Femme Fatale

Short Trips and Side Steps	The Longest Story in the World • A Town Called Eternity • The Not-So-Sinister Sponge • Nothing at the End of the Lane • Countdown to TV Action • The Queen of Eros • The Android Maker of Calderon IV • Revenants • Please Shut the Gate • Turnabout is Fair Play • Do You Love Anyone Enough? • Dr Who and the House on Oldark Moor • Gone Too Soon • Reunion • Planet of the Bunnoids • Monsters • Better Watch Out, Better Take Care • Face Value • Storm in a Tikka • Playing with Toys • Vrs

Big Finish Productions

Zodiac	The True and Indisputable Facts in the Matter of the Ram's Skull • Growing Higher • Twin Piques • Still Lives • Constant Companion • Virgin Lands • The Switching • Jealous, Possessive • Five Card Draw • I Was a Monster!!! • The Invertebrates of Doom • The Stabber • Introduction and links

Companions	The Tip of the Mind • The Splintered Gate • The Man from DOCTO(R) • Apocrypha Bipedium • A Boy's Tale • Kept Safe and Sound • The Lying Old Witch in the Wardrobe • Hearts of Stone • Distance • Qualia • Curriculum Vitae • Notre Dame du Temps • The Little Drummer Boy • Hidden Talent • The Canvey Angels • Balloon Debate • A Long Night

A Universe of Terrors	The Exiles • Mire and Clay • Ash • Face-Painter • Losing Track of Time • The Discourse of Flies • The Fear • Mauritz • The Comet's Tail • Long Term • Soul Mate • Whiskey and Water • The Death of Me • This is My Life • Gazing Void

The Muses	Introduction • Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing • The Brain of Socrates • Mordieu • An Overture Too Early • Hymn of the City • Confabula • The Astronomer's Apprentice • Katarina in the Underworld • The Glass Princess

Steel Skies	Corridors of Power • A Good Life • Reversal of Fortune • Monitor • Dust • Light at the End of the Tunnel • No Exit • House • Deep Stretch • Inmate 280 • Doing Time • The Ruins of Heaven • Cold War • O, Darkness • Greenaway • Eternity

Past Tense	The Immortals • Far from Home • All Done with Mirrors • CHAOS • Ante Bellum • The Thief of Sherwood • Come Friendly Bombs... • Graham Dilley Saves the World • Bide-a-Wee • Mortlake • White Man's Burden • Of the Mermaid and Jupiter • The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up • One Small Step... • To Kill a Nandi Bear • Fixing a Hole • That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress

Life Science	Syntax • Primitives • The Northern Heights • Observation • Mortal Thoughts • Lant Land • A Star is Reborn • The Southwell Park Mermaid • The Destroyers • The Reproductive Cycle • Jonah • Scribbles in Chalk • The End • The Age of Ambition • Echo • A Rose by Any Other Name

Repercussions	The Time Lord's Story • The Ghost's Story • The Rag & Bone Man's Story • The Seismologist's Story • The Dead Man's Story • The Inquisitor's Story • The Gangster's Story • The Bushranger's Story • The Schoolboy's Story • The Juror's Story • The Farmer's Story • The Republican's Story • The Assassin's Story • The Diplomat's Story • The Steward's Story • The Tramp's Story • Repercussions...

Monsters	Best Seller • From Eternity • Last Rites • The Touch of the Nurazh • Flashpoint • These Things Take Time • Categorical Imperative • Trapped! • Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life • Screamager • The Colour of Monsters

2040	The Nuclear Option • Separation • Thinking Warrior • Observer Effect • Artificial Intelligence • Daisy Chain • Sustainable Energy • Culture War • The Baron Wastes • /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet • Outsourcing • Anteus • The Last Emperor • The Ethereal

A Christmas Treasury	Last Christmas • UNIT Christmas Parties: First Christmas • In the TARDIS: Christmas Day • Water's Edge • A Yuletide Tail • Spookasem • Christmas Special • Never Seen Cairo • The Man Who (Nearly) Killed Christmas • Last Minute Shopping • Every Day • The Eight Doctors of Christmas • The Little Things • UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce • The Clanging Chimes of Doom • Perfect Present • Present Tense • Goodwill Toward Men • It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow • All Our Christmases • Lily • ...Be Forgot • The Feast of Seven... Eight (and Nine) • UNIT Christmas Parties: Ships That Pass • Evergreen

Seven Deadly Sins	The Duke's Folly • That Which Went Away • Angel • Suitors, Inc. • The 57th • Telling Tales • Too Rich for My Blood • Seven Deadly Sins

A Day in the Life	After Midnight • Sold Out • Undercurrents • The Five O'Clock Shadow • The Sooner the Better • Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast • The Heroine, the Hero and the Megalomaniac • Waiting for Jeremy • A Life in the Day • Morphology • Making History • One Wednesday Afternoon • How You Get There • The Last Broadcast • The Terror of the Darkness • Visiting Hours • Before Midnight

The Solar System	Mercury • Venus • Earth • Mars • Jupiter • Saturn • Uranus • Neptune • Pluto • Sedna

The History of Christmas	The Lampblack Wars • Home Fires • The Feast • Rome • Set in Stone • The Thousand Years of Christmas • Presence • Danse Macabre • The Church of Saint Sebastian • The Prodigal Sun • Be Good for Goodness's Sake • Ode to Joy • Nobody's Gift • The Innocents • Comforts of Home • Christmas on the Moon • The Anchorite's Echo • The Revolutionaries • The Gift • Callahuanca • Not in My Back Yard • She Won't Be Home • Saint Nicholas's Bones • The Long Midwinter

Farewells	The Mother Road • Father Figure • The Bad Guy • Separation Day • The Very Last Picture Show • Into the Silent Land • Wake • The Velvet Dark • Life After Queth • Black and White • Curtain Call • Utopia • The Wickerwork Man • The Three Paths

The Centenarian	Prologue • Echoes • Direct Action • Dream Devils • Falling from Xi'an • Log 384 • The Church of Football • Incongruous Details • Ancient Whispers • First Born • Dear John • Checkpoint • Childhood Living • The Lost • Old Boys • Testament • Forgotten

Time Signature	An Overture Too Early • The Ruins of Time • Gone Fishing • The Avant Guardian • Second Contact • Resonance • Walkin' City Blues • The Hunting of the Slook • The Earwig Archipelago • DS Al Fine • Certificate of Destruction

Dalek Empire	Kalendorf • Natalie's Diary • Alby • Private Investigations • Suz • The Best Joke I Ever Told • Hide and Seek • The Eighth Wonder of the World • Mutually Assured Survival • Museum Peace

Destination Prague	Midnight in the Café of the Black Madonna • Room for Improvement • Life from Lifelessness • The Long Step Backward • Strange Attractor • Gold and Black Ooze • The Dogs of War • Sunday Afternoon, AD 848,988 • Nanomorphosis • Spoilsport • War in a Time of Peace • The End of Now • Suspension and Disbelief • Leap Second • Lady of the Snows • The Time Eater • Fable Fusion • Men of the Earth • Across Silent Seas • The Dragons of Prague • Omegamorphosis

Snapshots	Golem • Indian Summer • All of Beyond • The Eyes Have It • The Misadventure of Mark Thorne • Attachments • There's Something About Mary • My Hero • Plight of the Monkrah • Remain in Light • In Case of Emergencies • Puppeteer • Osskah • Piecemeal • The Report • You Had Me at Verify User Name and Password • She Knew • The Glarn Strategy • Salva Mea • The Sorrows of Vienna • Fanboys

The Ghosts of Christmas	Faithful Friends: Part One • But Once a Year • For the Man Who Has Everything • Tell Me You Love Me • The Cutty Wren • Do You Dream in Colour? • The Nobility of Faith • 24 Crawford Street • The Sommerton Fetch • Faithful Friends: Part Two • Dear Great Uncle Peter • Do You Believe in the Krampus? • They Fell • The Christmas Presence • Snowman in Manhattan • The Crackers • Jigsaw • Dr Cadabra • Far Away in a Manger • All Snug in Their Beds • Decorative Purposes • The Stars Our Contamination • Keeping It Real • Christmas Every Day? • Faithful Friends: Part Three

Defining Patterns	Machine Time • The Time and Tide • Losing the Audience • One Card for the Curious • Séance, or Smoking is Highly Addictive, Don't Start • The Celestial Harmony Engine • Mutiny • Numb • Closing the Account • The Great Escapes • Loose Change • Lepidoptery for Beginners • One Step Forward, Two Steps Back • Homework • The Devil Like a Bear • Stanley • Twilight's End • The Book of My Life • Defining Patterns

The Quality of Leadership	From Little Acorns • One Fateful Knight • The Slave War • Goths and Robbers • Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen • The Price of Conviction • God Send Me Well to Keep • Peaceable Kingdom • Rock Star • On a Pedestal • Clean-up on Aisle Two • The Spindle of Necessity • Epilogue

Transmissions	Doctor Who and the Adaptation of Death • Policy to Invade • Only Connect • Gudok • Generation Gap • Lonely • Blue Road Dance • Tweaker • Link • Driftwood • Methuselah • Nettles • Larkspur • See No Evil • iNtRUsioNs • Breadcrumbs • Transmission Ends

How the Doctor Changed My Life	Homework • Change Management • Curiosity • Potential • Second Chances • Child's Play • Relativity • Outstanding Balance • The Last Thing You Ever See • The Shopping Trolleys of Doom • The Final Star • The Man on the Phone • The Monster in the Wardrobe • Suns and Mothers • Taking the Cure • Those Left Behind • Evitability • £436 • Time Shear • Running on Empty • Swamp of Horrors (1957) - Viewing Notes • Insider Dealing • The Andrew Invasion • Stolen Days • Lares Domestici

Christmas Around the World	Planet of the Elves • Exclave • A Visit from Saint Nicholas • Instead of You • Christmas Every Day • Mirth, or Walking Spirits • Do You Smell Carrots? • The Doctor's Cross Word • Dateline to Deadline • Autaia Pipipi Pia • No Room • Interesting Times • Revellers of Doom • Lost and Founded • The Best of Days • Conscription • Christmas in Toronto • Companion • Illumination • White on White

Indefinable Magic	Phoenix • The Power Supply • Favourite Star • Hiccup in Time • Shamans • The Fall of the Druids • Priceless Junk • Have You Tried Turning It Off and Then Back On Again? • The Reign Makers • Pass It On • The Science of Magic • Hello Goodbye • Trial by Fire • Death Sentences • Once upon a Time Machine • Mardi Gras Massacre • Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Re:Collections	I Was a Monster!!! • Apocrypha Bipedium • Face-Painter • The Glass Princess • The Ruins of Heaven • The Thief of Sherwood • The Age of Ambition • The Dead Man's Story • Flashpoint • Thinking Warrior • All Our Christmases • Suitors, Inc. • How You Get There • Venus • The Lampblack Wars • Life After Queth • Checkpoint • The Avant Guardian • Museum Peace • Midnight in the Café of the Black Madonna • The Glarn Strategy • Dear Great Uncle Peter • Losing the Audience • The Spindle of Necessity • Lonely • Lares Domestici • Lost and Founded • The Fall of the Druids

Retrieved from "https://tardis.wiki/w/index.php?title=Inmate_280_(short_story)&oldid=3763682"

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+{{title dab away}}
 {{real world}}
-{{title dab away}}
+{{Infobox Story SMW
-{{Infobox Story
+|range                  = Short Trips (series)
-|name = Inmate 280
+|series in range        = Short Trips: Steel Skies
-|series = [[Short Trips (series)|Short Trips]]
+|series number in range = 5
-|doctor = Seventh Doctor
+|number in series       = 10
-|year = [[Alcatraz]], [[20th century]]
+|doctor                 = Seventh Doctor
-|enemy = a [[Threckon]]
+|setting                = [[Alcatraz]], [[20th century]]
-|writer = [[Cavan Scott]]
+|enemy                  = A [[Threckon]]
-|anthology = ''[[Short Trips: Steel Skies]]''
+|writer                 = Cavan Scott
-|prev = Deep Stretch (short story)
+|anthology              = Short Trips: Steel Skies
-|next = Doing Time (short story)
+|release date           = December 2003
+|series                 = ''[[Short Trips (series)|Short Trips]]''
+|prev                   = Deep Stretch (short story)
+|next                   = Doing Time (short story)
 }}
 '''''Inmate 280''''' was the tenth short story in the [[Short Trips (series)|Short Trips]] anthology ''[[Short Trips: Steel Skies]]''. It was written by [[Cavan Scott]]. It featured the [[Seventh Doctor]].
 == Summary ==
-After meeting an [[Eighth Doctor|enigmatic young man]], Travers recounts his time spent as a prison warden at the infamous [[Alcatraz]] Island.
+[[Brad Travers]] finds himself telling a story to a [[Eighth Doctor|young man]] about the first time he killed a man. For an instant, as he tells the story, the man seems somehow familiar to him.
+:Travers used to be a correctional officer at [[Alcatraz]]. His superior was a man named [[Ned Leech]]. One evening, Travers found Leech running along the corridor through the pen, chased by [[Wai-Chun]] and several of his gang. Leech threw his keys to Travers to keep them out of Wai-Chun's hands. A prisoner named [[Reinkemeyer]] grabbed Leech and pressed a stolen carving knife against Leech's neck. Travers killed Reinkenmeyer with his [[rifle]]. The other men fled, straight into the arms of guards with nightsticks. Leech punched Wai-Chun then kicked him when he was down.
+:That night, the prisoners were agitated. As Travers patrolled the cell block, one of the inmates, [[Seventh Doctor|Richard A Fells]], asked him what it felt like to kill a man. Travers didn't answer, and Fells went back to his book.
+Travers tells the young man that Fells, who had a weird [[Irish]] or [[Scotland|Scotch]] accent, gave him the creeps. He tells the man that the only person enjoying himself during that time was Leech. And the man Fells seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
+:A week or two later, the prisoners were in the canteen, eating [[spaghetti]]. Travers noted that Fells was talking with Wai-Chun, almost provoking him to anger. It finally worked, and the place erupted into fights. Several officers fell, but Travers couldn't get there in time. Leech, in the middle of the fight, ordered one of the officers to release the lethal [[poison]] gas. Men started screaming then went silent.
-After stopping a break-out attempt by the brutish Chinese criminal Wai-Chan, Travers encounters inmate 280, otherwise known as Richard A. Fells, a strange Scottish prisoner with a very unnerving manner.
+:Suddenly Travers noticed that he was still alive. The gas stopped in mid-air inches from his face. He noticed that Fells was with him, and Wai-Chun as well, holding the limp and beaten body of Leech.
-Fells later baits Wai-Chan, causing the criminal to incite another riot; as events escalate out of control, Travers is forced to release a deadly gas in a last attempt to quell the fighting. But as the gas kills the inmates, Travers finds that he, Wai-Chan and Fells are still alive, held inside a telekinetic bubble. Fells confronts Wai-Chan, believing him to be the host for a Threckon, an alien creature that feeds off negative emotion which he imprisoned under [[San Francisco]] centuries ago until a recent seismic shift along the fault line freed it.
+:Fells triumphantly confronted Wai-Chun, explaining to Travers that Wai-Chun was a [[Threckon]] that he had imprisoned some time back. Free, it came to Alcatraz and took over Wai-Chun's body, looking for anger to feast upon. Fells, learning that the Threckon had escaped, smuggled himself into Alcatraz to find him. The Threckon created a [[telekinetic]] bubble to save himself from the gas.
-However, Travers looks on in astonishment as the corpse of his superior, Leech, is suddenly reanimated, and the Threckon within promptly kills Wai-Chan. As the creature then attacks Fells, Travers pushes it outside the bubble, where it is destroyed by the gas. Without the alien to maintain it the bubble collapses, but Fells somehow manages to prevent Travers from dying.
+:Wai-Chun acted as if he didn't know what Fells is talking about. Travers noticed that Leech had recovered from the beating and stood up, but blubbery flesh started coming out of him, turning into tentacles. Wai-Chun threw himself out of the way in terror, but crossed the invisible barrier and died from the gas. The Threckon attacked Fells, seeing the Time Lord as a feast of anger. Travers shoved “Leech” outside the barrier, then collapsed as the barrier collapsed and he began breathing the toxic gas.
-As Travers concludes his story he tells the man that the events have left him with cancer, and the young man sadly walks off into the darkness.
+Travers tells the young man that Fells saved him, but he never saw him again. Travers became a cop, but is now suffering from lung cancer, caused by breathing the gas.
 == Characters ==
 * [[Seventh Doctor]]
 * [[Eighth Doctor]]
 * [[Brad Travers]]
 * [[Ned Leech]]
 * [[Wai-Chun]]
+* [[Reinkemeyer]]
-== References ==
+== Worldbuilding ==
-* The [[Fifth Doctor]] trapped the [[Threckon]] under the fault line beneath [[San Francisco]] three millennia before the story takes place.
+* The Doctor reads ''[[The War of the Worlds]]''.
-* The [[Seventh Doctor]] reads ''[[The War of the Worlds]]''.
+* The Doctor uses the [[Aliases of the Doctor|alias]] Richard A Fells.
-* The Eighth Doctor makes a cameo at the end of this story.
 == Notes ==
-* The stories in ''[[Short Trips: Steel Skies]]'' are divided into four sections dealing with different types of confinement. This story deals with ''incarceration'', that is, "stories of punishment and imprisonment".
+* The stories in ''[[Short Trips: Steel Skies]]'' are divided into four sections dealing with different types of confinement. This story deals with ''incarceration'', that is, "punishment and imprisonment".
+* The Eighth Doctor makes a cameo at the beginning and end of this story.
 == Continuity ==
 ''to be added''
-{{prose stub}}
+{{ST prose}}
 {{TitleSort}}
@@ Line 48: / Line 63: @@
 [[Category:Stories set in the 20th century]]
 [[Category:Eighth Doctor short stories]]
-[[Category:Multi-Doctor stories]]
+[[Category:Multi-Doctor short stories]]
-[[Category:2003 short stories]]
+[[Category:Short Trips: Steel Skies short stories]]
-[[Category:ST short stories]]

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Inmate 280 (short story): Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:27, 6 April 2024

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Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

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