What is the alternative to alternative music?

Are you a situationist?

A reductionist?

A minimalist?

Would you rather make the news or tweet about the newsmakers?

Having been down this road before – dusty, tired, thirsty – Besseptby broke into a run.

She remembered when she was put in charge of PR for the Worldwide Mercenary Military, WWMM.

A week later, WWMM announced it had dissolved all political-based military units, mainly ones associated with national/state governments.

Her boss had speculated they’d send out an announcement along the lines of “Join or Die.”

Instead, their press release covered the mundane tasks of WWMM holding negotiations with governments that had not yet contracted out their military security to WWMM, detailing the countries that had long since turned over their military budgets to WWMM but maintained an image with their people that their government was still in charge of sovereign protection (at least in theory).

Besseptby had no interest in taking over her boss’ job, although he implied she’d be up for promotion after he retired in a couple of years.

Instead, she wanted to save up enough money to buy back her parents’ farm, which they had lost 100 years ago during the Great Cyclical Recession of the 2010s.

Besseptby hoped her children would find the same enjoyment she felt in the arduous but simple jobs of managing a farm without computer technology.

Farms were so rare these days, especially after WWMM’s parent company, Terraform Corp, had moved to outlaw private ownership of the means of automated food production, with only a few granted waivers – farms that could not sustain a family by manual means.

Besseptby just wanted a place to call her own, with nonnutritional trees and weeds she could teach her children to harvest for their decorative value.

A place of peace and meditation.

Thanks to WWMM’s generous investment benefits.

A few years of WWMM annual profitsharing bonuses and she could bid them adieu after buying the farm.

At least, that was her plan, until…