There is yet another little cafe near the freighters. Valletta, like many old European cities, has a superabundance of little cafes.

Well, she can order things and write in a little notebook and hope the monkey isn't doing anything incredibly concerning outside.

Would he do something incredibly concerning. When has he ever.

Anita overhears someone talking.

“I’ll be glad when we get out of here. I mean, I’m glad for the money and to be back in Nectar, but the bloke who runs that factory creeps me out. Nice to be in and out.” He seems to be a sailor, judging by his nautical tattoos, and sitting with several other sailors.

She makes a note and tries to see whether she can catch anything else they're saying.

"Lukas is richer than Croesus, though. They all are," says his friend.

"You think we're making money? The people who make the shit are getting richer than we are, even. So they protect the secret of the recipe carefully. What do you think all those guns are for?"

The first guy nods vigorously. "That's why we're not allowed in the warehouse. They don't want to give anyone a hint of how it's made."

"I don't care about the conspiracies," the third guy says. "All I care about is the money. I’m going to trade some of my cut for a nice, fat supply of the juice. Costs a fortune to get it in Roma.”

“You just watch," says the first guy. "Sooner or later the police will identify and outlaw this stuff. We’re just lucky they haven’t already, grey markets are great for business.”

It's very inconvenient how you don't get to be a criminal by being an honest person who cares about the welfare of other people. There are so many possible plans here that start with contacting her boyfriend and seeing whether they can leverage his connections to learn more, and all of them so far are terrible plans, because all of them run the risk of him caring far more about whatever money there is to be made in it than about some complicated global conspiracy that may or may not have terrible effects far enough down the line.

She'll probably just have to keep listening until they leave and then solve her problems herself somehow. Solving problems herself is TERRIBLE.

They begin to compare Malta with other places they're going. There is a strong debate about whether Malta is nicer than Marseilles, with one person loyally supporting Piraeus, Greece instead.

And presumably bringing the drug with them everywhere they go. Lovely. She jots the places down in case they turn out to be useful.

Eventually they stand up and leave.

Well, clearly the freighters are for exporting the stuff. ...What are the offices and factories for, though, does she just own them because they also bring in money, or are they somehow related to the core scheme?

Maybe she should head out to one of the factories and see if there's anything to be learned there. She doesn't know much about factories but maybe she'll get lucky.

awww magnificence wanted to take pictures of boats. he will take a picture of a boat before they go and THEN catch up with anita.

it might not be a very good picture.

As she approaches the factory, an old woman in a black shawl glares at her with an evil eye, then, abruptly, laughs Anita out of her thoughts.

The factory just sort of feels degrading. It's a dark, dank building that is depressing even to look at, much less to enter. Some of the people leaving look listless and lethargic; others look frightened, even hunted.

Is this really different from a normal factory though. Admittedly they've gotten better in recent years, at least in some places. Maybe not in Malta.

Probably she should be suspicious anyway, given the givens. Anybody having conversations she can attempt to listen in on?

Are there WINDOWS. if there are WINDOWS he can look INSIDE.

One of the listless people looks up, spots a monkey, and then decides they don't care enough to do anything about this.

good for them. he's gonna peek in the windows and see what is HAPPENING. on the face of it this building looks WAY less interesting than a boat, but MAYBE there is something interesting happening here ANYWAY.

He hears someone yelling something in human at the other human! The other human leaves nearly in tears.

Probably they are yelling about how exciting sports are. Magnificence knows many humans yell about how exciting sports are. Humans like it when people move balls into locations.

oh that is TRUE. magnificence has seen the humans get VERY upset and excited about the sports.

is this a place that has to do with sports? or perhaps sports is a topic UNRELATED to the place in question. humans do talk about sports in MANY locations.

hm. it is hard to tell from here, but this window opens. maybe he can tell from INSIDE the building. ...although there are people in this room and maybe they will notice him immediately and that might make it hard to tell what they were doing before. maybe he will look for ANOTHER window first and THEN see if he can find a place to enter the building SNEAKILY.

someone came into this room and FOUND a monkey!!!!!

WHOOPS!

they are SO sad. they are not even a LITTLE bit charmed by the monkey.

they pick up the monkey and take him outside.

are they sad and not mad??? usually people who are not charmed by monkeys are mad about them.

they are SAD, or possibly they have NO EMOTIONS AT ALL.

WEIRD. anyway he will try again from a different window because this is a BIG building and he does not think that one person can possibly be guarding all the windows.