Maria Mercurial

Type: Human

Occupation: Retired Novastar

Affliation: Aztechnology (ex-indentured employee)

Awakened: No

Notes: Possess deltaware cyberware. Was trained as a bodyguard, but has no memory of this training.

Friends/Family: Armando Hernandez (Husband/Manager)

Background:

Five years ago, Marie was bodyguard, secretary, and mistress to Reynaldo Texamachach, a senior exec at Aztechnology. He loaded her skull with sealed memory and bought her a major skin job, real cutting-edge state-of-the-art cybertech. Texamachach also addicted her to dreamchips. That is BTLs (BetterThan-Life), illegal simsense chips. With Maria hooked on custom chips that only he could provide. Texamachach figured to keep her obedient to his every whim.

In 2045 during a trip to Seattle Maria rebelled, killed Texamachach and escaped into the Barrens. Still hooked on dreamchipping she fed her habit by working as a prostitute. One night a music promoter named Armando Hernandez heard her sing. So impressed was he that he got her out of the Barrens, put her into a clinic to kick the BTL habit and then began to promote his discovery on the rocker circuit. Ever since the agony of dreamchip withdrawal Maria has almost no memory of her life before Hernandez found her and she goes through personality changes that are almost psychotic. Indeed, her personality shifts in and out of three personas: The Amazon, the Schoolmistress and the Innocent.

Lacking any recall of her former name or identity the beautiful singer kept the handle that she had used as a "working girl" in the Barrens. Almost immediately Marla Mercurial rocketed to stardom. Her first single, "Who Weeps for the Children?" was number one on the charts for two months in 2048, before her second single “Take It To Mister" replaced It. When she released her second album, "Puta" in 2049, and followed that up with a 28-city tour that played to packed houses all the way. She became a true novastar.

With all this flash and fame, the Aztechnology executive knew Maria's whereabouts, but the risks of messing with such a big name star outweighed any desire to avenge Texamachach. As someone once said, revenge doesn’t show on the bottom line. In 2048, the execs acquired copies of Maria's medical records from the detox clinic that indicated she had lost her memory. Because she could no longer reveal anything damaging to Aztechnology, the corps had no reason to look for trouble. That at least was their policy until recently, when they learned that Marla held the key to a very sticky situation, indeed.

Perfekto Polymers is an Aztechnology subsidiary involved with plastics manufacturing. In 2045, Maria's boss, Texamachach, was sent to Seattle to deal with problems at a local Perfekto plant. It seems that the bright lad who was running the place had decided to cut costs by violating Seattle's dumping laws. Rather than pay for recycling industrial wastes or transporting them back to designated dump sites in the UCAS, far from the NAN territories, he had been secretly dumping the wastes into a large hidden underground tank.

As everyone knows, Seattle law comes down heavier on dumpers than it does on murderers. The Treaty of Denver is sudden death on industrial pollution in Native American Nation territory or areas bordering NAN turf.

Of course, the Perfekto exec figured that no one would find out about his little scheme. And no one did until the local cell of Greenwar, an eco terrorist policlub, made a run on Perfekto Polymers' mainframe. Among other goodies, they came up with a secret report on the amount of nuyen the plant was saving because of the waste dumping scam. Greenwar intended to release the data to the news-nets which would surely have led to meganuyen fines and clean-up costs for Perfekto Polymers. Worse, if the neighbouring NAN councils got hot enough about Perfekto's "poisoning the land" they could bring pressure to deprive the company of its license to operate in the Seattle region. Besides the embarrassment to Aztechnology, all this publicity could have hosed up some delicate trade negotiations the megacorp was then conducting with the Seattle City Council.

Fortunately for Perfekto's bottom line, the drekheads in charge of Greenwar had the urge to gloat. They left a nasty note in the CEO's computer mailbox telling him that they were going to stick it to the big bad corp. In a panic, the head of Perfekto yelped for help from his bosses at Aztechnology, and they sent in Texamachach to fix things up. Finding no tidy solution to the problem, Texamachach ordered a total cover-up. He closed down the plant, shattering the economy of the surrounding neighbourhood and transforming the area into a hopeless slum almost overnight. The overly creative plant manager was dispatched back to Mexico City for a "special managerial briefing" but has never been heard from since. By strange coincidence several night-shift technicians who had run the waste disposal system met fatal accidents. An Aztechnology shadowteam was called in and the local Greenwar cell was wiped out.

All references to the waste disposal site were secretly purged from Perfekto's records. Texamachach, as usual, stored his final report in the sealed memory of his very private secretary, where it would be safe until they got back to corporate headquarters. This report contained the only record of the waste tank's whereabouts. Unfortunately for Texamachach, his secretary chose that night to blow his brains all over his suite in the Aztechnology pyramid, then fled into the slums of the city. Though Maria has been carrying the secret data around in her head ever since, she is totally unaware of it.

Over the past year, a firm called New Horizons Development has been secretly acquiring property in the abandoned zone surrounding the former Perfekto Polymers plant. A neighbouring area of the city is about to undergo major economic growth as part of another corporate expansion: office space, industrial housing, the whole works. New Horizons, armed with inside information about this plan, intends to gain control of this slum real estate and renovate it for housing. When the price goes up, they will make out like bandits, selling condos to the suits working in the new offices and factories.

When New Horizons began clearing and construction last month, Perfekto Polymers got very nervous. If the construction crews accidentally breached the waste-disposal tank, the resulting spill could turn the area into a poison desert. Perfekto decided to notify New Horizons that millions of litres of hideously toxic industrial wastes were buried somewhere in their development. New Horizons stopped all construction. Then Perfekto management got a report from their shadowrunners that scared the drek out of them. It seemed that New Horizons Development was, in fact owned by the Shigedagumi, a powerful Seattle yakuza syndicate.

It was at about this time that New Horizons presented Perfekto Polymers with an ultimatum. Either tell them the location of the waste site and pay the cost of cleaning it up or they would leak word to the media. With the media baying for Perfekto's blood, New Horizons would be able to sue with a good chance of getting anything they asked for from the courts. In addition, New Horizons representatives suggested that certain elements of their upper management were calling for stronger measures. Obviously, the Shigeda were royally ticked off. People who irritate yakuza gangs have very short life spans.

Perfekto's management was in panic mode, and sent a frantic appeal to the higher-ups at Aztechnology. It was then that the mega-corp discovered that Texamachach had stored his only copy of the data In Maria's sealed memory before his untimely death at her hands. Aztechnology flew a troubleshooting team to Seattle. The Shigeda have assigned Sumiko Hotoda, one of their best mages, as liaison to the team. Hotoda and Morgan devised a plan to kidnap Maria without implicating Aztechnology or the ''Shigeda-gumi. ''Instead, they intended to let her manager, Armando Hernandez, take the fall.

Meanwhile, Shigeda loan sharks are holding 500,000¥ worth of past-due notes from some big-name talent agent Max Foley. Shigeda enforcers were about to close his account-permanently, when the top yaks realized that Foley is a long-time business rival of Armando Hernandez. This fits perfectly into the plan. The Shigeda told Foley that he will get control of Maria's career so that he can sign over part of her earnings to the gang syndicate to pay off his debt. He eagerly agreed to the Yakuza plan (as though he had any choice in the matter).

Hotoda arranged for Maria to see faked evidence linking Hernandez to the Shigeda's traffic in dreamchips. Horrified that someone she trusts is pushing BTL, which she now hated with a passion, Maria impulsively dumped Hernandez and signed on with Foley. This set the stage for part two of the plan. Hotoda arranged for Maria and Foley to receive threats, apparently from Hernandez, warning that if Maria stuck with Foley, both her career and her life would be in danger. Foley was panic -stricken, believed the threats were real and that his arrangement with the Shigeda was at risk.

Sumiko Hotoda told him that the Shigeda had done enough; it was up to him to deal with the situation. Foley decided to hire a team of street punk wannabe shadowrunners to protect both Maria and his own butt. Of course, he also kept Hotoda informed of the situation, and she, in turn, keeps me up to date. This suits Hotoda and Morgan just fine. Now they just need to kidnap Maria and frame Hernandez for the deed. After extracting the Perfekto data from her sealed memory, they could kill her and Hernandez, planting the bodies with evidence that will convince investigators that Hernandez murdered his former star, and then committed suicide. A tragic loss to the music world.

The Team, consisting of Walker, Fade, Felix and Steppen Wolf were hired on as body guards by Foley. After protecting Maria from a hit by street samurai, the team kept Maria safe at her penthouse. Unfortunately, they were tracked down, and Maria was forced to flee for her life with her would-be protectors. Foley was also killed in the confrontation. Her team began investigating Hernandez and quickly determined his innocence. Hernandez, no informed on the danger the missing Maria was in, quickly hired two additional bodyguards, Chang and Shadowhawk. The team moved Maria from hotel to hotel, keeping her mystically masked to protect her safety and identity. As a major celebrity now in hiding, the media began to ask? “Where is Maria?”

With the larger team, they quickly tracked down the creator of Maria’s deltaware. Discovering more about Maria’s past from the files kept by cyberdoc, the team identified that Maria’s enemies were after the data contained in her head. Unfortunately, they could not gain the data without risking Maria’s sanity and very life. Keeping Maria safe in a Hotel, protecting by a powerful water spirit summoned by Fade, the team headed out to gain more information.

Disaster struck again, as a Western Dragon besieged her hotel. Saved by the Water Spirit, Maria was taken to Fade’s own apartment complex. When the team returned, they convinced her that the data contained in her head was the key to her very survival. Taking Maria to the Renraku Arcology, the team secured Maria in a executive apartment and then Shadowhawk performed the necessary tasks to pull the data out of her head and replace it with her own music.

Maria went with the team as they had their final meeting with Morgan, the lead opposing shadowrunner. Maria was surprised with Morgan, and his allied dragon friend, Perianwyr, both turned out to be major fans. After signing some autographs, Maria felt a great sense of relief to be finally free of her past.

Shortly after, Maria and Hernandez reconciled and were married. Maria has since retired from the music industry, though she made a brief appearance at Fade’s début at Underworld 93.