"Alright then, let's talk about you. Are you finally planning to reform S.H.I.E.L.D., this leaky old ship of yours?"
"'Leaky' isn't quite accurate," Nick shook his head, apparently, he had a keen understanding of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s situation.
"Remember when you admitted most of the elite Hydra agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. to the sanatorium, and then sold them to Mephisto?" Nick asked.
"Of course. Their compensation should have covered your budget shortfall for the next quarter," Shiller replied.
"And it also provided you with a new sanatorium facility," Nick added, both men exchanged glances, understanding each other's intentions.
Sometimes, they didn't intentionally play the role of the Riddler, but some things just didn't need to be spelled out. They both knew that the process and results of the collaboration were superb. Looking back on their successful partnership history was a way to broach the topic of future cooperation.
"But with all the workers gone, what happens to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s work?" Nick posed a critical question, saying, "Before, that group worked the hardest, they were willing to work overtime, without bonuses, no complaints when transferred, and even accepted when I lowered their insurance coefficient. My god, are there any better employees than that?"
"No," Shiller shook his head. Nick spread his hands and said, "Honestly, if I hadn't been in desperate need of money, I would have hated to sell them."
"You can't regret it now. These people may have already been sent to hell by Mephisto to hold economics lectures. If you ask for them back, he won't give them to you."
"I don't plan on getting them back. After all, even though they were tireless, they would definitely go crazy if they found out I sold them."
"So you plan to..."
Nick laughed, rubbed his hands together, and said to Shiller, "Aren't you the person in charge of Hydra's Americas? How about more?"
"You..." Shiller paused, taken aback. He stared at the smile on Nick's face, "You mean that I should send more Hydra agents to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. as unpaid labour?"
"Unpaid labour?!" Nick raised his voice, "Even though I don't pay their salaries, I can pay you, right? Hiring them for 10 years with a one-time payment will be much faster than your earnings as a psychiatrist in S.H.I.E.L.D., right?"
For the first time, Shiller was rendered speechless. In the realm of moral boundaries, he always considered himself unafraid, but today, Nick had indeed pushed his limits.
Nick thought he had some reservations, so he started to persuade:
"Look, if I hire normal agents, there's a 50% chance they're Hydra, a 49% chance they're KGB disguised as Hydra, and the remaining 1% might be CIA or military fools..."
"Hiring them, though I don't have to pay much, or provide insurance, and can exploit them freely, I start paying another price in the form of intelligence."
"I have to come up with a lot of seemingly important work for them so that they feel they've acquired a lot of intelligence in order to work for me willingly. This wastes a lot of my time and energy to create various sudden incidents and significant events."
"Hold on, you don't have your own people. How do you stage these events?"
"Some are done by reliable agents like Natasha, and the rest of the time, I just put them against each other."
"Have an agent from New Jersey investigate someone and then have an agent from Delaware protect that same person. One side investigating, the other counter-investigating. This way, everyone has work, everyone can get intelligence, and everyone tirelessly works for me. Isn't everyone happy?"
Shiller pressed his lips together, he suddenly realized that he seemed to have fallen into the vicious cycle of pride and prejudice. He believed that he could command Marvel with his moral bottom line. Today proved that there were always higher powers.
Before gaining a deep understanding of Nick Fury, Shiller was unsure whether the occurrence of S.H.I.E.L.D. turning into Serpent S.H.I.E.L.D., as portrayed in comics, was due to Nick's incompetence or something else.
When Shiller first encountered Nick Fury, he confirmed that Nick was no ordinary man. Nick was not what he appeared to be on the surface. He wasn't oblivious to Hydra's situation. But Shiller still couldn't determine whether Nick had a contingency plan to cope with the situation.
It wasn't until the establishment of the Luminous Alliance that Shiller realized, in fact, Nick knew everything about S.H.I.E.L.D.
And it wasn't until now that Shiller discovered, things were more outrageous than he imagined. The entire S.H.I.E.L.D wasn't the real entity. It was just something Nick set up to scam funding. There were barely any SHIELD agents. All of them were spies who infiltrated under this pretense.
S.H.I.E.L.D was ostensibly a secret organization. But in reality, every country in the world knew about it. This situation was not because Nick did not understand secrecy, but because he deliberately made it so.
Everyone knew such a mysterious organization existed, and they believed there must be countless secrets within it, so they found ways to infiltrate spies in there.
The ultimate goal of the spies was not the poor pay Nick gave them or any benefits, overtime pays, their final target was the intelligence.
But in reality, even the intelligence was the result of Nick's left hand fooling his right, using the opacity of information among agents in different regions and the mutual wariness among various spies, he created a bunch of unnecessary work, making everyone obtain a heap of seemingly useful but apparently useless intelligence.
"So, all this was a trap you set up?"
"What do you mean by a trap! What do you mean by trap!" Nick retorted emphatically: "Even if the ultimate goal of these spies is to obtain intelligence, they've done their work, haven't they?"
Nick took a deep breath and started to explain in more detail:
"Of the massive workload of S.H.I.E.L.D., 90% consists of unnecessary work that I made up, while the remaining 10% consists of necessary tasks. Of the large number of agents in S.H.I.E.L.D., 99% are various kinds of spies."
"When these two statistics converge, it means that even if 90% of the spies complete 90% of the useless work, in the end, 9% of the spies will complete 10% of necessary tasks."
"But in reality, these spies are very competent, extremely enthusiastic about their work, and the 9% of the spies completing the 10% necessary work often get more than what is required done with high efficiency."
"And the remaining 90% of spies carrying out the remaining 90% of unnecessary tasks, that allows me to get 2000% of the funding from the Congress. It's a perfect cycle, isn't it?"
Shiller genuinely started clapping. He asked, "How long did it take you to turn S.H.I.E.L.D into this?"
"I had this plan ever since I joined S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Then why did you create the Superhero Squad?"
"Oh, that. It's this way," Nick replied, as if he had only just remembered, "if I can create 120% unnecessary work, then I can hire 30% more spies, which would get me more funding... "
"Think about it, a team composed of superheroes, needs people to organize, maintain, provide logistical support, and even requires psychologists like you to constantly monitor their mental health."
"The workload of S.H.I.E.L.D. has increased by 30% out of nowhere, that's unprecedented progress!" Nick exclaimed, his fist raised.
"And jobs like these, that seem very mysterious and give them the chance to come into contact with superheroes, will certainly attract spies who would die to join, which allows me to expand recruitment..."
"Aren't you afraid they might actually cause any problems?" Shiller asked.
"Of course I am afraid. That's why they are only in charge of logistical support. Look at these superheroes, do any of them look like they need logistical support?"
"Stark's Mecha never stays at the S.H.I.E.L.D base. The only thing Captain America needs to maintain is his shield. Daredevil Matt's weapon is his walking cane. Spider-Man Peter, giving him a full set of Captain America figures wouldn't be enough, right? Just add a commemorative T-shirt."
"Aren't you afraid someone might influence them ideologically... oh wait, I'm the psychologist at S.H.I.E.L.D." Shiller covered his forehead.
Then, he reached out his hand, and slowly gave Nick Fury a thumbs-up.