Plot question - Seattle, home game. Options

[Tautologen]

Hello all! First post here. Recently started running a Shadowrun game as a GM, we're about 4 sessions in and having a great time. Wondered if any of you creative minds could give me a hand with the plot! I´m from Sweden so my English is a bit rough. Here goes:

The runners accidentally got their hands on a com-link, which turned out to be of great value to Mitishuma, Ares and Brackhaven investments. They eventually cracked the link; it contained a huge amount of anonymously written notes, screenshots from newspapers filled with annotations and huge flowcharts connecting articles, subject and crops. Think of it as the room of a crazy investigator where the walls are filled with pictures, newspapers, post-it notes and red threads running like a spider web over the walls connecting the items. The subject of the texts and screenshots had to do with the “Waterfront Project” in the Barrens, Touristville (think the Wire, condo:s for rich people, take cheap land and make it valuable by building things for rich people on it.) The idea to construct condos along the west bank of Touristville is public knowledge.

Also on the comlink, and not public knowledge there were vague mentions of a new kind of super-drug, which, it was alluded to, was harvested from angels. The drug was, according to the link, being produced and distributed through one single individual, a self-styled “Mayor of touristville”, Mr Eric Fontaine. If the link is to be trusted, Eric exclusively peddles the drug to certain corp executives in different corps.

Eric is a local politician that leads a council that consists of influential Barren residents, all of them active in Touristville (the only part of the Barren that counts). The Council doesn't have any formal influence, but you need them on your side if you're attempting a large infrastructural project like the waterfront. Between them they control the local businesses, criminal elements, influential figures, garbage disposers, etc, a mix of the maffia and a union.

Eventually, they sell the comlink to Mitishuma (although only one runner knows who they sell it to, if that matters). The content of the link paints a pretty clear picture, but it's not proof. It´s mostly memos written by the anonymous owner of the link and new-articles covered with notes. The runners realize that the corps not only need the approval of the Council to get the job, they are also to some extent beholden to him, or at least some individuals that buy the drug are.

Mitishuma (and others, but the runners are forced into accepting Mitishumas offer) contacts the runners and offer them money if they can find irrefutable evidence linking Eric to the drug. The reason for this is that if they do, suddenly they hold the puppeteer's strings. The runners manage to piece together a rough location for the “laboratory”, somewhere deep in outskirts to barren. By now, they are very close and will in all likelihood find the laboratory next session. It's well hidden and well guarded, and inside there´s an underground complex in which several awakened children are held captive. They´re being tapped for spinal fluid under through a very painful and disturbing process that mix both technology and blood magic. Anyhow, what the runners do with the laboratory matters greatly when it comes to what will happen to the Barrens. They're explicitly told to only gather proof, but in all likelihood they´ll shut the lab down, after which they might either sell the proof or just release the information to the people, showing them what a bad person Mr. Eric is.

My question though: why the hell to the corps want the Waterfront project so badly? I guess just cash is good enough, but I wouldd really like it to be something more sinister and long-term behind it. Whatever happens this plotline will close down for a while and the runners will start doing the season 4 missions, so it can be something very dramatic that the runners currently have no way in hell of doing anything about. They don't even have to get an idea about the larger picture or the end-game of the Waterfront Project. It´s just for me to plan around.