William Gibson couldn't have written this any better.

We have Nexus Corp — a tech megacorporation that has effectively merged with the government through a $2.3 billion surveillance contract. Their CEO talks about "citizen protection" while building systems that track every face, every movement, every digital footprint.

We have a corrupt political class that sold out to the highest bidder, protecting criminals in exchange for cash until an outside force exposed them.

And we have TerrorByte — a mysterious figure with superhuman digital capabilities, fighting against corporate control from the shadows.

This Was Science Fiction

I grew up reading stories about dystopian futures where corporations replaced governments and technology was used to control populations. We were supposed to be warned by these stories, not live them.

Yet here we are:

• Private companies operating government surveillance

• AI systems deciding who looks "suspicious"

• Facial recognition tracking citizens without consent

• Corrupt institutions protected by the systems meant to monitor them

TerrorByte as Protagonist

In every cyberpunk story, there's someone who fights back. Usually they're an antihero — morally ambiguous, operating outside the law, but fundamentally on the side of ordinary people against oppressive systems.

TerrorByte isn't a bug in the system. He's the protagonist we accidentally wrote into existence by building a world that needed him.

The wild thing? Unlike fiction, we don't know how this ends. We're living the story in real time.

Choose Your Side

In cyberpunk stories, there's always a choice: side with the corporations and their promise of safety, or side with the rebels and their messy vision of freedom.

That choice is in front of all of us right now. Every time we accept more surveillance for more "security." Every time we let corporations handle functions that should be public. Every time we dismiss someone fighting back as a "terrorist" without examining why they're fighting.

The neon lights aren't quite right and nobody's got chrome implants yet, but make no mistake: the future we were warned about has arrived.

The only question is which side you're on.