Item from remembrance-of-earths-past by
The PDC's intelligence and special-operations arm under Thomas Wade — the agency that ran the Staircase Program, vetted Swordholder candidates, and operated the only fully classified counter-ETO and counter-Sophon programs of the Crisis Era.
The PIA is Wade's empire. He recruited it from a dozen national services and gave it the only operational mandate the PDC dared not write down. Cheng Xin was his deputy. Mikhail Vadimov was his subordinate, until he became his rival. The PIA designed the Staircase capsule, ran the Yun Tianming volunteer search, and conducted the internal investigation that led to Wade's eventual prosecution. After Wade is imprisoned the PIA quietly continues, much diminished, into the Deterrence Era.
A nondescript office complex on Long Island, three buildings of mirrored glass behind a perimeter no one comments on. Inside: open-plan analyst floors, secure SCIFs in the basement, a single conference room with no windows where Wade conducts his Swordholder interviews.