"You know what gets my goat? People who beat around the bush...," Shiller said as he held Pikachu with both hands, putting it on the table and stared at it. "...and rats."
"Ahem...," Pikachu put his short hand up to his mouth, feigning a cough just like a human, and said, "You better watch your manners. I'm the only one who can sort out your mess right now."
"Oh, really?" Shiller stood up, walked over to the office bookshelf. His eyes were scanning the books back and forth, "Let me see where I put my recipes. Please, God, let there be one for braised rat..."
"Do you know how rough you look right now?" Pikachu wasn't scared at all. He shook his lightning bolt-shaped tail, and then put one hand against the wall, the other on his hip, "Poor planner, stuck with such a dumb plan and now look at the state you're in. How long have you been pulling these all-nighters? Four days? Or is it five?"
Saying that, Pikachu walked back to the table, opened his hand towards Shiller and continued, "Didn't you consider that when you formulated this plan to play with Hydra, they would latch on to you?"
Shiller inhaled deeply, seemingly suppressing his rage at being mocked. After a while, he sighed in resignation, "I knew it would be a hassle, but I didn't expect it to be this much of a hassle."
Indeed, up until now, Shiller had been working 18 hours each day for five consecutive days. This doesn't even include the times he was woken up by a phone call in the middle of his sleep.
As we all know, Hydra is a spy organization. Both Stark and Steve were correct, anyone who goes to sleep at 9 pm cannot engage in spying or being an agent. The spy guiding the spies is also a spy. Shiller, who had infiltrated Hydra, was close to burning out.
Shiller didn't come empty-handed. He assumed Pierce's identity and took over the team that Pierce had left behind at S.H.I.E.L.D. Like anyone leading a new team, initially, there were a lot of problems to deal with.
In this world, all unlucky ducks leading newly assigned work groups share the same fate. The predecessor always tends to stir up troubles, leaves a bunch of bugs unattended, and a lot of unfinished work behind. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been replaced.
Though Pierce was meticulous, since he retired from S.H.I.E.L.D. to take a position at the World Security Council, he had been remotely controlling S.H.I.E.L.D., a task that wasn't very efficient. Consequently, a lot of work was left undone. In order to get useful information from these tasks, Shiller had no choice but to work overtime to organize these damn tasks.
However, this was not the most lethal part. If it had been an ordinary state of Hydra, Shiller would not have had so much work. But now, the Hydra leaders chased by Stark and Steve have all gone silent, with only Shiller's channel open. Even the smallest problem would result in a phone call to him.
People he knew, strangers, things under his jurisdiction, things not under his jurisdiction. Things he could solve, things he couldn't solve. In any situation needing a 'Doctor', he was always the best choice.
What was even more lethal was that Shiller didn't anticipate this situation initially. Therefore, he only wanted to get things done quickly. So, he cleared up the mess that Pierce left behind, executed the preservation plan briskly, and even took the opportunity to reorganize several Hydra leaders' forces by putting them in Arkham Sanatorium.
This kind of work efficiency in Hydra was not common. In fact, it was exceptional.
Don't forget, although Pierce was one of Hydra's leaders, he also had superiors. When the deeper-seated Hydra leaders saw this, they thought they've found a sales superstar. So why not load him up with more responsibilities?
Therefore, one clear morning, when Shiller received a mysterious phone call, asking him to take full responsibility for all affairs in New York State, his overtime horror began.
Could he ignore some matters? Well, theoretically, yes. But Shiller had a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. When he saw the employee work forms in a mess, he couldn't help but straighten it out. When he saw the security of the base was full of holes like a sieve, he couldn't help but redesign it...
With all these tasks piling up, Shiller had been working overtime for five or six days straight. And it seems like there's no end in sight.
In these days, what Shiller has been repeating most is, "Where is Iron Man? What is Iron Man doing?!" and "Check on Captain America's status!"
If you guys don't wrap this up quickly, I might end up saving Hydra from its peril.
This situation not only affected Shiller's rest and work hours. In fact, this was the least of the impacts since Shiller took over Hydra. The ones who were truly turned upside down were Stark and Steve.
After they teamed up, they started tracing the security base. While this didn't stop their other efforts to fight Hydra, they felt the difficulty level of the whole game skyrocketed and of course, so did their blood pressure.
Shiller's strategy was simple but highly effective. He finally made Hydra, an organization that was bloated and only a name, truly elusive.