Awakening Book One of the Trust Series - By J. E. Swift Page 0,10

of the car in an attempt to get more comfortable. “Yes.”

“Until about the early 1920’s, the number of Actuals stayed fairly consistent. There were never more than about one thousand in any given time in the world. It seemed to be a gene that was largely dormant. In the following ten years however, the number of Actuals close to doubled. The Descendants consulted with the Council-”

Caitlyn held up her hand. She was confused with all the new terminology being thrown at her. “Wait. Council?”

Garrett shook his head. “Sorry. In the Trust, there are three essential different levels. The first is your everyday Actual. The second is the Council. These are respected members of the Trust and they make most of the decisions regarding the Trust. They are our governing unit essentially, and there are several different Councils around the world for geographical purposes. Then there is the Descendant Tribunal. The Descendants as I mentioned, are the originating families. The majority of them are Council members or involved in some way with the Council as well. But if there is a consensus among the designated Head of Household for each Descendant family, then they override what the Council approves. The Tribunals decision is always the final word. At least, that was the way it used to be.”

“Used to?”

Garrett smiled slightly. “I’ll get to all of that in a minute. So in the 1930’s, the numbers almost doubled. They were faced with a situation they had never encountered before. After much deliberation, the Council and the Tribunal decided that we needed to remain a secret for now. The world was in chaos with Hitler and World War II brewing. Adding in the existence of the Actual population would only have divided the world further and made the world more volatile. So the Trust took a large initiative and spread across the world in search of Potentials. It was at this time that they began to assign a mentor to the Potentials when they awoke. They took them in, trained them, and made sure they were of the same mind-set to keep this secret under wraps at all costs. This was largely a success with few exceptions. Each and every person was required to pass the Threshold.”

Before Caitlyn could speak, Garrett held up a finger indicating that he knew what she was going to ask. “The Threshold is our oldest tradition and is sacred. The Threshold is a test of your strength, your abilities, your fears, and your will. Once you pass that, you are officially accepted within the Trust and your evaluation within the Trust is complete. Until then, you are one of us, but still an outsider.”

“What if they don’t pass?”

Garrett shook his head. “It’s not exactly like that. Not everyone has the same capability, but it is a test of yourself, your character. It is not something you can exactly fail, but the Trust can determine that you are not ready to join the Trust yet and will ask that the mentoring process continue. That itself is rare. Your mentor is the person who determines when you are ready to take the test, not anyone else. Some people complete this within a year, others take longer.”

Caitlyn couldn’t help but hope that she fell in the prior category, not the later. She pushed her hair away from her face as a warm breeze blew by. “So, there are approximately two thousand people in the world right now that are Actuals?”

He laughed. “A little more than that. Over the following years, the numbers have been increasing by a little less than one thousand every decade. We are currently at approximately ten thousand Actuals.”

She whistled low. “Wow.”

“Yep.”

“How were you able to keep all of this a secret?” Everything was captured on Smartphones, security cameras, and other emerging technology.

“It has not been easy, and lately, with all the differences in how we should proceed as a group going forward, we have become more divided, which has made it difficult to keep it a secret.”

“Are you referring to the factions?”

Garrett turned his head and she could tell by his face that he was pleased that she was paying attention. “Yes, I am referring to the factions. Around nineteen sixty-one, various people in the Council and the Tribunal began having severe disagreements. There were several members that felt that the Trust should go public, that we should not be in hiding anymore. They fought for years internally about this, until a young man whose family was