Shadowrunners

Shadowrunners are deniable assets used by corporations and similar powers to achieve goals that can't be done in the public eye. Runners are generally considered to be criminals, but the work they do doesn't always exist outside of the law. Although the public generally holds the perception of runners being leather jacket-wearing street thugs hired to commit violent crimes, runners come from a wide variety of backgrounds and do a wide variety of jobs; the only thing that makes someone a shadowrunner is whether they do work as a deniable asset.

Perception

Purpose

Shadowrunners are hired by corporations and similarly politically empowered group to take on jobs that would either cause ire with the public or which are legally dubious or worse. Due to rulings by the Corporate Court, most corporations have to operate under the radar when dealing with each other. Jobs handed to shadowrunners can be a wide range, from protection jobs to wetwork to thievery to espionage.

Social Status

Shadowrunners hold an interesting place in the public eye. By definition, most shadowrunners need to operate outside of the public eye, so few actual runners are known by the public. The actions taken by runners, however, often end up on the news and are usually detrimental to major powers with strong influence on public perception. So runners are often treated as bogeymen, street thugs that cause nothing but problems when discussed in more formal settings. 
At the same time, however, runners are often portrayed in sensationalized media like Bull the Ork Decker, shows that became especially popular during the '30s. As such, runners are also generally seen as powerful underdogs. In total, runners generally get the public perception that cowboys did in the late 90s; the general public has an attraction to the idea of shadowrunners as dangerous but ineteresting characters, but actual discussion of runners tends not to look upon them favourably.

History

Big companies have always used outside assets to achieve goals that fall outside the rule of law, but a dedicated profession to these types of jobs didn't get established until the 2020s. When corporations first gained extraterritoriality following the Shiawase Decision, most corporations relied on their own in-house security details and armed forces to do their work. The early corporate wars between BMW and Keruba (and later the war betwen Keruba and ORO) were almost entirely fought by professional soldiers on the payroll of their respective company. Since national laws applied less and less to corporate operation, they had less and less need to work outside of the public eye. 
This changed with the formation of the Corporate Court in 2010. The Corporate Court was formed to mediate between megacorporations, so one of their earliest decrees was to disallow open conflict between corporations. The Court ruled that any corporation that does damage to the property of another corporation would be responsible for compensation. As such, corporations suddenly had a need for agents that could work for the company without being tied back to the company; after all, if the Court can't prove that a corporation committed a crime, they couldn't charge the corporation. 
Even then, the use of shadowrunners didn't become commonplace until 2023, when the Court gained enough influence and traction to actually enforce its decrees. In the decade prior, many smaller corporations still operated with their in-house armies, unafraid of what the Court ruled. A series of assassinations put the fear of the Court in the hearts of these smaller corporations, both giving runners jobs and increasing Court influence. By the mid-20s, most corporations used shadowrunners, allowing the practice to become sustainable in the long-term. 
The profession still didn't become a well known concept to the public until the early 30s, when trid shows like Bull the Ork Decker became popular. These shows painted runners in a favorable light, as vigilantes of a rough corporate world. Since they tended to veer towards fantastical depections of runners, more misleading than educational, corporations leaned into this newfound attraction towards runners. If the average citizen had misplaced ideas of what a shadowrunner was like, they would be less likely to be able to identify one, which made the profession all the more effective. 
The silver screen also caused a shift in shadowrunning circles still felt to this day. Newer runners tend to have grown up with trid shows depicting shadowrunning as a glorious and adventerous profession, which in turn leads to more flamboyant and over-the-top shadowrunners in the business. This has caused a split in the community in recent years between older, more subtle runners who have grown up in the industry when it was out of the public eye and newer runners who see the job as the chance to use public favor to cause long-lasting changes to the world.

Alternative Names

Runners, Street Samurai

Type

Illicit

Legality

The question of legality in regards to shadowrunners is a complicated one. Most nation-states still have laws that would heavily restrict the actions of a runner were they to be actively enforced. That said, few nation-states in the modern age have the resources to actually enforce those laws, so while the profession isn't legal there aren't often cops who will arrest a runner. 
That said, the Corporate Court does have laws regarding the actions taken by runners, generally in regards to how runners are tied to corporations. Should a job partaken by a group of runners be tied to the hiring corporation, both the coropration and the runners could find themselves under heavy legal repercussions. So the general rule of thumb for runners is that getting caught with lesser charges (like weapon ownership, theft, or in some cases even murder) is more desirable than being tied to corporate activity, as the latter is much more likely to have repercussions that will actually stick to the runner.