Political Poison

General Summary

Background

During his sterling career as a lawyer for environmental causes. Arthur Vogel has proved uncannily adept at predicting trouble from certain eco-terrorist groups--especially when his legal opponents refuse to accept Vogel's offers to settle cases out of court. In fact. Vogel's "predictions" have nothing to do with prescience or even luck. For years he has operated what amounts to a protection racket. using the threat of eco-terrorism to extract lucrative settlements from his opponents. This scheme has allowed Vogel to build a reputation as a hotshot lawyer able to make the biggest and baddest corporations back down and has led several radical environmental groups to see him as an "undercover champion" of the rights of the Earth.

During one such negotiation several years ago. Vogel sent a cell of TerraFirst! saboteurs to a Hawkshorne Chemical plant in Seattle to disable the plant and end its production of a certain toxic chemical. Somehow Hawkshorne learned about the raid. and its corporate security forces ambushed the saboteurs. The TerraFirst! team destroyed the plant. but all of them and many Hawkshorne security personnel died in a massive explosion. Hawkshorne settled with Vogel out of court. agreeing to pull the chemical off the market. Instead of destroying it. however. they stockpiled the remaining inventory. Vogel considered the case a victory despite the fate of the TerraFirst! cell.

Unknown to Vogel-or anyone else-one member of the TerraFirst! team survived. Alan Riv. a young and idealistic shaman with a powerful hatred for those he called "despoilers of Mother Earth ." survived the explosion but was horribly burned from exposure to the toxic chemicals at the site . Cut off from help and fearing that the authorities would hunt him down. Riv fled into the sewer tunnels. In the dank catacombs beneath the metroplex. sick and in terrible pain. the young shaman underwent a psychological transformation that twisted his magical talents toward a toxic path. He became obsessed with revenge against everyone responsible for his friends' deaths and his own disfigurement. including Arthur Vogel. As he slowly recovered his strength. he became more and more powerful. Soon he began to gather followers from the other outcasts and misfits living underground . Through his years of slow and agonizing recovery. one thing sustained him: his plans for revenge against those who had brought this fate upon him.

Riv recently learned of the stockpiled chemical at the abandoned Hawkshorne plant and arranged for the theft of a sizable sample. He finds it fitting that Arthur Vogel should be ruined, possibly killed, by the very same chemical that Riv 's TerraFirst! team attempted to stop Hawkshorne from producing and that Vogel fought to have legally banned and destroyed. He plans to use the potent toxin during a political rally for Vogel in the metroplex. The poison will kill almost everyone in attendance. possibly including Vogel. The investigation of the incident will inevitably expose Vogel's involvement in the whole affair. Should Vogel survive the rally. his political career will swiftly succumb to the burgeoning Hawkshorne scandal.

Highlights

Lancer is at death's door when the runners arrived. The canister she was hired to steal from Hawkshorne Chemical poisoned her when it was damaged by gunfire. She is healed by Squid.
Lancer's apartment is attacked by another runner team hired by Hawthorne to steal the canister back. The shadowrunners kill two of their attackers and interrogate their street samurai Red Lana before letting her go, albeit with one arm.
On their way to the meet, the runners are attacked by the 405 Hellhounds on the road.
The runners crash and fight the Hellhounds on foot. Grendel rips the throat out of their pack leader. Saberhide.
The meet is at an abandoned Hawkshorne Chemical plant. The Johnson is nowhere to be found, but he left behind his shamanistic ritual room of fetishes, animal bones and ritual circles.
The runners discover that the Johnson will be at the Kingdome tomorrow for Democratic Candidate Arthur Vogel's speech. They decide to look for him there.
The Johnson manifests and astral form to the runners at the event. He guides them to meet him as they sneak their way past the Lone Star Security detail who are preoccupied with the crowds.
The Johnson, Alan Riv, seems unhinged. He monologues about how Vogel used him and left him to die after hiring him for an Eco-terrorist attack.
The runners figure out he's planning to poison Vogel and the entire coliseum. They get close to Riv to try to stop him.
They trick him into continue his monologue while broadcasting his voice over the speaker system. Hoping to expose Vogel and ruin Riv's plan, they instead cause a panic below.
A battle ensues between the runners and Riv. O'Dundin and Mina work to deactivate his bomb while Vola and Jenobli battled with Riv's four toxic elementals. Dex blitzed Riv with his own astral monstrosity.
The radiation elemental superheated itself below the roof, trying to bring the whole place down. While it was stopped, several chunks of rubble and steel rafters crashed into the crowd below. Vola was thrown from the rafters but was caught by Jenobli's telekinesis.
While riding his smog elemental, the acid elemental was destroyed above him and rained its burning viscera upon the toxic shaman, melting him with the very thing he feared most.
The runners were fired upon by Lone Star, but made their escape.
Vogel tracked down the runners with the help of his Eagle Shaman running mate and the fact that the entire scene was televised. He thanked them for saving his life, but was conflicted since Riv's monologue effectively ended Vogel's political ambitions. He paid the runners half of what Riv had offered as well as promising a favor at a later date.