Prologue
Toriad y Dydd- The Break of Day
A/N: Just for a change of pace, the chapter titles for this fic will most likely be in Welsh w/ English translations. Oh, and I believe that an "Io" in Welsh is usually pronounced as "Yo." Also, please pardon any spelling mistakes you may find by way of the Welsh stuff. Sorry for the short chapter…you know how these things are.
Disclaimer: What a complete and utter waste of time since none of us owns anything on here except the millions of different plots and the clever ways we get our favourite characters into trouble.
Joe Hardy remembered from his British history classes one person in particular. His name had been Iolo Goch, a Welsh bard; and about 1390 Common Era he'd written a poem to rebel Owain Glyn Dwr, saying "mi a wn dy ach; I know your lineage." Obviously, Joe thought with some sarcasm, whoever ran The Village was as familiar with the Hardys as Iolo Goch had been with Owain Glyn Dwr, because it seemed that everywhere Joe tried to trod, he was always being barred, by either the Network agents he and his brother Frank had worked with in the past, or by The Village itself. Just the other morning he'd attempted to see if there was any escape from The Village, but had been brought back—literally—by Rover, the Village Guardian. Nice name for a guard dog in the shape of a weather balloon, he thought dryly.
The current Number 2, a small, thin woman of about sixty years with short black hair had informed the brothers that Nancy was safe and sound. However, Joe didn't trust that knowledge. Neither did Frank.
"They just work you up to a state of familiarity and general safety here," he'd warned Joe the first day the younger Hardy was there. "Then they pounce. Again, watch out for Iola's copy. Her number's 49."
That tight feeling between the shoulders you always get when you feel you're being watched hadn't gone since discovering Network operatives at Frank and Nancy's. Joe flexed his shoulder muscles in an effort to remove it as he and Frank walked up to a secluded, forested area of The Village where Frank and one of his brother's acquaintances, a man known as Number 6, often went for exercise or general woodcrafts.
Joe had finally gotten used to the number badge's weight on his shirt. "You're new here," Number 6 had remarked in a slight British accent. "I should have known that once they captured the famous Frank Hardy you would not be far behind."
Now they were meeting Number 6 at the secluded glen, edging past the moving statues with flashing eyes in a vain attempt to avoid prying cameras. Soon, Joe thought. Soon they would figure out a way to escape. Soon…
