The woman stumbled along the road, just about able to see where she was going. She had a name, once. A job. Friends. All that was gone now. All she had was the walk…

People had seen her about town. Her black robed form was hard to miss, her face so far back in the hood you couldn’t even see it. Every single part of her body was covered; she wore gloves, and long stockings covered what could be seen of her legs. She wore flats, to make it easier to walk; one bit of rare mercy from her ‘captors’.

If you listened really closely, which few rarely did, you could hear her quietly crying.

She was programmed to walk until she dropped. Her captors wanted her to send a message about interfering with their operations, and she had certainly done that. As a prominent police detective, she had closed down quite a few of them.

They had come for her one night; killing her husband right next to her and taking her daughter off gagged and chained in front of her, while holding her down. Then they had knocked her out.

They had then proceeded to ‘erase’ her. All the records of her at the precinct, gone. All records of her online, gone. Her husband was now a man living alone; he had no children and wasn’t married; the house was now in his name only.

The nanobots released into the air conditioning at the precinct made sure all records were gone, as well as erasing all physical memories of her, even in the minds of her co-workers. At the same time, the ‘legend’ of the black robed woman was introduced, a woman that had crossed the ‘mob’ and paid the ultimate price…

Lastly, they showed the woman the mask that she would be wearing for the rest of her life, and the robes. The mask was completely featureless; like a shop window dummy, a blank face that she would show to the world. She squirmed and struggled, but they fastened it on to her and it welded itself to her skin, never coming off. It blended itself in so well that you would have thought she never had a face…

She found out that she could see through the mask, but only dimly. Enough to stop bumping into objects, but not enough to read or recognise people. The long opera style gloves were then fitted. These held her hands as claws, making it impossible to write and almost impossible to hold anything. She whimpered, staring at her hands, trying to force them to bend, as they fitted her robes onto her.

Then, once she was fully dressed, they put a headset on her and programmed her. Continuous walking, with no breaks. Also, she was not allowed to leave the city. She had to walk where people would see her, even at night. After all, you can’t send a message to nobody…

Back at the precinct, one woman came back to work after a long illness.

“Where’s Janie? I haven’t seen her today”.

“Who?”

“You know, Janie Grant.”, the woman said. “Your partner.”

“I’ve never had a partner”, the man said. “I’m still waiting to be assigned one.”

Puzzled, the woman asked around. No-one had heard of Janie, and there was nothing on the computers about her. Her ‘old’ desk had always been empty.

“Guys, there’s another one”, one of the officers said. “There’s another black robed woman walking about.”

“What is this fad? I seem to remember it was something to do with the mob…?”

Jill checked on the computer. Yes, an entry was there about a black robed woman. The last one had died of exhaustion and was never identified due to a mask over her face and her fingerprints being removed. Now, there was another one…

“We need to find her while she’s still alive”, Jill said. “We might be able to help her…”

“There’s no point”, the other officer said. “There’s no way of getting her outfit off her, except after death, which is how we found out the last one hadn’t any fingerprints. If you try to stop her, her compulsion to walk is so strong she’ll fight you.”

“I’ve got to try”, said Jill.

Jill spent all morning trying to locate the woman, totally unaware she was searching for her friend.

She finally located her walking down a side street near the library. She tried to stop her to start with, but the woman just stepped round her and carried on. Jill then made the mistake of putting her hand on the other woman’s shoulder…

When she picked herself up off of the pavement, dazed, the woman was gone. How had she taken her down like that? It was like she was police trained…

Jill put two and two together.

“Oh, my god…”

She realised that the black robed figure was her friend, Janie. What had someone done to her? Why was she the only person that remembered her?

Frantically, she tried to find Janie again. She had to help her!

Eventually, she caught up with her on the main street near the shops.

“I’ll apologise later”, she thought.

She just belted Janie as hard as she could…

Janie collapsed in a heap, her legs still twitching, trying to walk…

Jill knew she had to stop Janie running away, so she fitted her with two sets of handcuffs, wrists and ankles. She then carted her off to hospital in her car…

At the hospital, Jill’s badge was enough to get them seen straight in; luckily, it was a quiet night.

“You’ll need to sedate her before I remove the handcuffs”, said Jill. “She can be violent; she’s under some kind of compulsion to walk and keep walking, whatever happens. She’s knocked me out, once, already.”

The nurse injected Janie with a strong sedative.

“That should keep her out for an hour or two”, she said. “Now we can see what’s going on.”

Jill and the nurse both gasped as they pushed Janie’s hood back…

Her featureless face stared back at them.

“I can’t find a seam…!”, the nurse wailed. “How have they done this to her…?”

Eventually, closer inspection revealed that the mask was of a very slightly different colour to Janie’s normal skin, and the edge could just be seen. It would have been completely missed under normal inspection. Gingerly, the nurse pressed a scalpel against the join…

To her amazement, the join split. The nurse gently worked her way round the mask, then started working her way in.

Half an hour of solid work later, Janie’s face stared back at them.

Jill then said she remembered the gloves and the rest of the ‘uniform’ had come off of the previous victim after she died; probably to help the mob send a message. The pair then took the risk of stopping and restarting Janie’s heart…

The robes thought she had died; they let Jill and the nurse remove them.

A naked Janie was now lying on the bed…

At this point, they noticed that her legs had stopped twitching as well.

Janie opened her eyes, then realised she could see properly. She groaned, weakly.

“Jill, is that you? Where am I?”

“In hospital, sweetie. You’re ok. Who did this to you?”

“Manzano and his crew. I got too close”, Janie replied…

Janie’s testimony as a member of the public (as no-one remembered her being a police officer) was enough to put Frank Manzano behind bars for a long time. He was also charged with the murder of the previous black robed woman, who had been a witness to a shooting.

Janie was in court as he was sentenced…