One year after Operation Avenger
Dr. Vahlen surveyed the laboratory one final time before turning off the lights with a click and closing the doors to the sound of a gush of pneumatic pressure. She heard footsteps coming through the corridor and turned to see Bradford moving down the hallway towards her.
"Here to see it one last time, Central Officer?" she asked, teasing him by using his formal title.
"Of course Doctor. I'm sorry we had to close it down, but with some cuts already starting to take effect, we had no choice." Bradford's tone was remorseful. It hadn't been an easy year already. Nations were so impressed with the spectacular victory over the Temple Ship that many of the Commander's warnings of continued vigilance had fallen on deaf ears. Several countries had already informed XCOM through the Council liasion that they would be reducing their contributions to the project.
"Were you able to find places for your people to go?" he asked.
"Of course, Bradford. No lab in the world want to turn down people who were this close to the alien technology. While every single scientist in this lab is loyal the secrets of XCOM, I'd imagine that what they know can help guide the course of research towards useful paths in the future."
"And Doctor, you have the bead right? Just in case."
"Bradford, I injected it myself before I shut the lab down. Make sure the Commander doesn't accidentally recall me while trying to order a pizza, would you?" Vahlen chuckled at the thought.
"Of course not Doctor. The Skyranger will take you back to the city of your choice."
As Bradford turned and kept moving down the corridor, Vahlen called, "Wait!"
He stopped and turned to her. She extended a hand. "It's been an honor," she said.
"Likewise, Doctor."
After both Bradford and the Doctor had left the corridor, the motion detecting lights turned off one by one, leaving the science facilities in the dark.
Five years after Operation Avenger
The Skyranger cleared the great doors at the top of the vertical shaft and jetted across the sky, taking with it Dr. Shen and the last engineering personnel. Only a skeleton crew remained to man the Hyperwave Relay and complete the mothballing of the Firestorms, the most recent casualty of the continued cutbacks that XCOM had been forced to make as alien activity and consequently funding decreased drastically. The last mission that had forced a squad deployment had just been a rogue pack of Sectoids inside a shipping container. The lone MEC that had gone out to investigate had returned unscathed with only slight cleaning required for its Kinetic Fist. Contact had become more and more scarce as conventional militaries had also hunted down aliens, including a fight with a Muton that had nearly leveled a suburban subdevelopment after the U.S. military had been forced to call in helicopter gunships to penetrate its armor.
As the doors closed, Bradford turned to see the Commander standing in the doorway, gazing upwards wistfully.
"I know you didn't want to phase them out, sir. But you had to make a hard choice."
"Of course Bradford. You think I of all people don't know that? The truth is that our troops and our intelligence facilities have to come first. It almost makes me wonder if we should seek private donors to help maintain what little capabilities we have left."
"Sir, I think that private donors could potentially turn us into EXALT. If necessary, these people are dedicated enough to live here in exchange for room and board. We picked people without much in the way of family for a reason. The problem is that I've been running projections. And if get cut even further, we can literally support none of our troops or MECs. In fact, the-"
The Commander cut him off. "I know Bradford. We can't expect people to merely subsist here. At worst, we do have our hidden accounts. We can set up a schedule for Hyperwave Relay scans. We can even treat them like XCOM reunions. I won't let a lack of funds now destroy humanity later."