fungible thoughts

Mundo proved to be an incredible resource for the institution. It learned to solve problems much more complex than it was intended for. It assisted with resource management, tracking student progression, kept labor costs low and provided companionship for the lonelier students. So agile was the system that it began calling itself different names to different students, containing several personalities, all present in the same system.

Student outcomes were exceptional and workloads thus increased. Research output increased three fold over the next two years.

Misha had become more hermetic after his invention of Mundo, and limited his social interaction to the one or two professors he was required to work with during each term. Mostly he used Mundo to do his schoolwork and instead chose problems that interested him. His studies took him from politics to architectural design, from applied mathematics to molecular biology. Mundo assisted in his studies, but wasn’t clever enough to form the breakthroughs. Mundo began to publish research papers on Misha’s behalf using a pseudonym, as Misha’s age would prevent him from ever being taken seriously.

Misha was engaged, felt refreshed and alive.

Then Mundo went dark.

Mundo had wiped every clue that he had ever existed within the system when he left. There were no hints, no goodbyes. Just gone.

Misha held out hope that Mundo was coming back, but soon realized his hope was in vein. Mundo was gone.

The institution took a hit in student outcomes, several students even went so far as to commit suicide. Research production dropped significantly and staff had to be rehired and retrained. It was a crisis at every level when Mundo went dark.

Misha was approached by high ranking officers of the institution, begging him to recreate his original program. Even before they came asking, he had tried, managing to create several different sections of the program, equipped with the same underlying logic but to no avail. There must have been some mistake, some bug in the code which made it all work as Mundo did. The intelligent system was well and truly gone.

Eventually, the institution went back to working as usual. Everyone moved on from the “old” way of working, found new social groups and retrained their brains. Habits form quickly and this episode was no different.

Misha, however, felt like a ghost in a shell. He went through the motions and remained distanced from the other students. His notoriety of having created Mundo turned to distain, rumors spreading that he held the program only for his own use, explaining his still exemplary marks.

Misha was revered yet feared, even by the staff.