Thanks to Hydra Doctor—Schiller's presence—Nick had gained far more room to maneuver in his fight against Hydra.
The two of them, one the overall head of Hydra's Americas division and the other the head of Hydra's New York State division—while other undercover agents entered the tiger's den to seize the tiger cubs, these two had danced right inside the tiger's den.
This gave Nick a much broader approach to dealing with Hydra. At first, it had been half confrontation and half exploitation, but later on, he simply started press-ganging them wholesale.
At least for now, 99% of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Central Universe were Hydra. The remaining 1% were Natasha and Coulson. Even Hill had been transferred by him to S.W.O.R.D.
But just as Adam had discovered while fixing the code last time, this entire bug-ridden S.H.I.E.L.D. somehow kept running on bugs. And to the public, who knew nothing of the truth, Nick Fury was doing far better than Pierce ever had.
When Pierce had been in charge, he knew he was Hydra, so he inevitably felt guilty. And to protect Hydra's interests, he delayed S.H.I.E.L.D.'s work whenever possible. When he could not delay it, he did his best to sell out S.H.I.E.L.D.'s interests to Hydra.
But after Nick took office, he gave all the benefits to Hydra, making Hydra throw itself into the work for those staggering profits, day and night, pouring out blood and sweat. Then, once Hydra had received the benefits, he found ways to launder them out of Hydra's internal channels into his own little treasury before pouring them back into S.H.I.E.L.D., forming a perfect closed loop.
As a result, the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. operation ran more than ten times faster. Pierce had stolen good meat while slaughtering the cow to feed Hydra. Nick simply put