Installment 13 of our featured novel “Relentless” is here! If you’ve missed the earlier installments and would like to join our readership, be sure to check out the novel’s home page HERE.

We are publishing the novel in small installments, so it takes only minutes to keep up with the story. Many years ago, we were fans of Stephen King’s installment-based publishing of “The Green Mile” over many months, so we are following in that vein as a feature on Moteventure.

Header Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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New to the novel? If you’ve missed our first posts of “Relentless”, you can find them here!

RELENTLESS – D.S. FACTOR

Chapter Five

With photo identification clipped to her blouse, Caroline Kramer strolled purposely through security within the MedAmerica One complex. A large translucent number 4 cast a nearly unperceivable shadow at her feet as she made her way to the nearby bank of elevators. MA1 colleagues milled about and conversed on numerous topics ranging from climate change to the upcoming Super Bowl to the latest turn of events on “Yellowstone”.

Positioning her eyes in line with the ocular reader, a red light on the security station briefly changed to green and two glass panels slid silently open, allowing Caroline access to the elevator car. Doors opened and closed and the lift quickly ascended, slowing as it approached the twenty-sixth floor.

Ambling casually down the floor’s main artery, Caroline’s eyes were once more scanned against a security panel before entering the boardroom. Siri cheerfully announced to the room her arrival. Simultaneously, a seemingly “floating in air” monitor displayed her name and digital likeness as one of the meeting attendees along with a high-level agenda for discussion.

The boardroom décor was a mish mash of competing styles and designs, furnished with “Mad Men”/1960s inspired dark woods and neon oranges (minus the cigarette smoke and Don Draper), while also fitted with futuristic technology from the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and IBM.

On the walls hung expensive paintings from the day’s contemporaries, most notably several works by German artist Neo Rauch. Rauch’s canvases instilled in the observer recollections that evaporated before the mind was able to successfully retrieve their meaning. Having been raised in communist East Germany by his grandparents following a tragic rail accident that killed his parents while he was yet an infant, Rauch incorporated an eerie sense of foreboding, darkness and object surrealism within the framework of what appears to be a typical, normal situation.

Finding her seat beneath a chaotic graffiti piece by the late Jean-Michel Basuiat, Caroline took a sip from the latte that had been placed before her and tried unsuccessfully to ease the growing pain in her skull.

Glancing up, Caroline watched a number of colleagues enter the boardroom and take their places as their digital counterparts flashed on the screen. Once they were seated, Maxwell Thrasher wheeled himself into place at the head of the table. Pressing several buttons on his customized wheelchair, wheels were locked into place and the screen changed to display a full agenda.

“Good morning, everyone,” Thompson crowed in an artificially sing-song voice. “We have a full agenda and so we’ll need to all quiet down and we’ll be ready to begin momentarily.”

Wow, it feels as if I’ve suddenly returned to grade school, Caroline thought to herself.

The first few bulleted agenda lines were merely housekeeping items on current managerial projects that had been recently approved or resolved. It wasn’t until they approached the discussion of MARQ that the fireworks began.

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