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Class: characters
Name: Runners
Brief: Runners are messengers employed for inter-corporation deliveries in cases where sensitive information is to be exchanged.
Detailed: Corporations have nothing more precious in their possession than the hard-earned information they have gained or produced. From simple financial statements to technical documents to property deeds, information is the key to everything in the modern corporate world. Occasions often come up in business where that information must be exchanged with another business. Clearly that information must be protected, and thereby sent in the safest medium possible. At one time it was felt that sending this information along via electronic passageways was the safest and most reliable manner to accomplish this transfer, but the constant march of technology actually managed to make electronic transmission less secure as the hacking community’s decryption algorithms began to outpace even the best encryption procedures. Wireless connections and even light-wave transfers were easily intercepted, and the physical limitations of wired connections coupled with the bulky nature of megacorp documents made electronic transmission quite unpopular and more than a little tedious. This made room for a whole new occupation to arise: the runners.
Runners are a sort of extension of the courier profession in that runners deliver packages between corporations or individuals and corporations. In some rare cases individuals will hire a courier to deliver to another individual, but it is often easier for the person to deliver it themselves. Runners typically carry packages consisting of information discs with extremely valuable proprietary data on them. The more expensive and more reliable couriers don’t need to have a physical disk on their person, as they can download the information into their body through a distributed data storage system, those the physical modifications to enable this are incredibly expensive. The modifications tend to leave the runner permanently altered in regards to their world outlook, but such is the price of becoming a walking hard drive. It should be noted that runners who carry their information internally in such a way cannot have it stolen if their bodies are damaged to a point that their natural electrical current is interrupted, by death or other means. Methods that would increase the amount of current, such as tazers or shock prods will not damage or destroy the information however.
Those who would be runners often do not remain in the profession for longer than two to three years, and those that do remain tend to be masters of the streets. Because of the high values of the information they carry, runners are often the target of muggings and other assaults. Those who choose this career know from the outset that stealth and a good weapon are their only friends, but even with considerable stealth abilities there are groups that actively track and hunt them. The finest runners are masters of not being seen. They can blend seamlessly into a crowd, navigate the various sublayers like they had lived there their entire lives, and some have even been known to take to the rooftops in order to make their deliveries without being caught. Tales abound of these shadow-dwellers having color-shift clothing and even implants that allow them to alter their skin pigmentation in a matter of minutes. All-in-all, many will try the career on for a bit, and many will die or retire early. Those that have the natural gifts to do it however, will make a killing, and have stories to tell for several lifetimes.