Although the Confidential Operations Division dealt in intelligence, it maintained public outposts on both the East Coast and the West Coast, along with businesses of its own.
Its routine work involved exchanging intelligence and maintaining contact with other companies and the State Government, as well as conducting a range of operations and providing technical support in the Convergence Zone.
In the Central City east of the Great Rift Valley, which lay within the East Coast's sphere of influence, the Action Department operated more openly. The Strategic Affairs Department did the same in the west. Both sides understood the arrangement without saying so.
Places like these were therefore quite easy to find.
They were usually located within the Central City, however.
Like Great Shun, the Federation allowed companies and organizations to maintain a certain amount of private armed force. Official agencies such as the Confidential Operations Division had comprehensive security and defensive forces, and few people had either the strength or the nerve to cause trouble there.
Puppet paid none of that any mind. A Central City generally had only one Fighter stationed there, and since the Federation's Convergence Zone faced no threat like Great Shun's Old Imperial Household, even the Convergence Zone usually had no Fighters present.
That gave him the confidence to go straight after these public outposts.
The Mercenary Group rented three armored security vehicles and waited outside the city.
Puppet entered the Central City ahead of them. The moment he crossed into the city's bounds, however, its large Domain Field organism detected the presence of a high-energy Bio-Field. It reacted at once, reporting to the Municipal Center that an unregistered Fighter had intruded.
The report immediately put everyone on alert. A Fighter's destructive power was common knowledge, and the Municipal Center promptly sent a telegram to the