A man stood on a beer bench and murdered a song.
Caelwyn watched him with the expression of someone witnessing a minor crime against civilisation.
“He doesn’t know the words.”
Stacy took a sip of beer.
“He knows the loud ones.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Tonight it probably is.”
Around them, thousands of people were eating, drinking, laughing and singing badly.
A waiter squeezed through the aisle carrying far too many Maß at once.
Two strangers had their arms around each other’s shoulders.
A woman had somehow managed to spill beer into her own handbag and was laughing too hard to fix the problem.
Nobody was working.
Nobody was being productive.
Nobody was improving themselves.
Caelwyn looked around.
“This is what civilisation was invented to prevent.”
Stacy smiled.
“No.”
“No?”
“I think this might be one of the things civilisation was invented to make possible.”
Caelwyn raised an eyebrow.
“Getting drunk?”
“Having enough safety to do something useless.”
That made him look at her properly.
Outside the beer tent, Delta Green agents were working.
A courier had disappeared.
Something recovered outside Augsburg had not remained where it had been contained.
A man carrying documents under the identity of someone dead since 1987 had entered the Wiesn.
Most of the people around them knew none of that.
They were not supposed to.
Caelwyn glanced towards the tent entrance.
“They’re vulnerable.”
“Because they’re drunk?”
“No.”
“Because they’re in a crowd?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because they think this is all there is.”
Stacy’s expression changed.
That was the real difference.
The people around them could afford to treat impossible things as impossible.
A Delta Green agent could not.
That did not mean every strange reflection was Unnatural.
It did not mean every old story was secretly true.
It did not mean paranoia had become wisdom.
Evidence still mattered.
Maybe more than ever.
Stacy leaned closer.
“That’s why you don’t get to turn every drunk tourist into a cultist.”
“I know.”
“A reflection is still probably just a reflection.”
“I know.”
“A strange noise is still probably a strange noise.”
“I know.”
“But if the evidence points somewhere impossible…”
Caelwyn finished it for her.
“…we don’t get to dismiss it because we dislike the answer.”
She nodded.
His phone vibrated.
Caelwyn read the message once.
Then again.
Stacy watched him.
“Well?”
“Contained.”
That was all.
No applause.
No announcement.
No cheering.
The band kept playing.
Somebody lost a hat.
Someone spilled another beer.
The Ferris wheel kept turning outside.
Exactly as it should.
Stacy raised her glass.
“To nothing happening.”
Caelwyn almost smiled.
“That may be the most Delta Green toast I’ve ever heard.”
They drank.
For a moment, they just listened to the noise around them.
Then Stacy looked across the tent.
“You know what I think?”
“I’m about to.”
“We’re not really protecting the party.”
“No?”
“And maybe not even ignorance.”
“Then what?”
She pointed with her glass.
At the bad singing.
At the spilled beer.
At the people wasting money on food they didn’t need.
At strangers taking photographs together.
At an evening accomplishing absolutely nothing.
“Their right to waste an evening.”
Caelwyn looked at her.
“That sounds remarkably trivial.”
“It is.”
She raised her glass again.
“That’s why it matters.”
AND WHAT DO YOU THINK?
If the Unnatural is real, is simply keeping humanity alive enough?
Or is Delta Green also protecting something far more ordinary — the right to be foolish, loud, wasteful, joyful and completely unaware for one harmless evening?
And if that kind of trivial normality is what has to be protected, how much would you be willing to sacrifice to keep it possible?
Different views are welcome. Disagreement is welcome.
Spam, trolling and disrespect are not.