Re: So why would anyone become a shadowrunner, anyway?

You've all given me excellent things to think about.

As I ponder it more:

OK, he's released from KE, but even though he did nothing, he still 
is 'tainted' by the association.

LS thus won't hire him.

So he falls back on his education, and leverages that and his 
experience to become a staffer in a 'field office' set up by the UCAS 
Senate Committee on the Judiciary, monitoring the provision of law 
enforcement (and the nagging issue of separatist sentiment) in the far-
flung state of the UCAS; Basically, the Committee's staff had spent so 
much time dealing with Seattle issues in the wake of the Arc Shutdown, 
the Mob War, Crash 2.0, etc. that it'd been decided to set up a tiny 
office to facilitate, say, visits by Committee members or staff from 
DC. He's an office drone, tasked with briefing visitors on conditions, 
etc, etc.

It's deeply boring, but it's work.

Eventually, however, one of his officemates comes to him with an 
offer. How about he picks up some easy yen by helping them clean up a 
local gang that had been bothering the officemate's mom?

Adrenaline rush, some warm-and-fuzzies for the hooding, and their day 
jobs give them the pull to convince the Star (who, given the targets, 
wasn't going to care much anyhow) to forget they'd heard about it. 
Maybe they'd get extra face-time with a Congressman next time they 
came knocking or something.

And that's how it starts.