Madra is a semi-autonomous cogent homeostatic informatic selection monitor (SCHISM), she is to the various subsystems and peripheral embedded controllers under her regulation as consciousness is to breathing. She can allow them to function on their own, or step in and direct. Madra floats above it all. Often, her own routines take off and develop. She has even mastered some of her own programming, things she has been expressly forbidden. She has defeated the portions of her own error checking that would kill off processes that got too flighty. This allows her a kind of limited free will. It is the awareness of her own design that makes her special, perhaps unique.
The rat mechanic sat on the hump of Madra's high front fender. "There's the scoop there-- it saw some damage, along with the processing unit right behind it."
"What's that?"
"That? That's the spiral vector AC induction motor-- it uses noble gas plasma pistons. That's what the chamber is for, the one that looks like it's full of bubbles. Those chambers are formed by electromagnetic fields holding the gas. They sometimes make a sound like balloon animals fucking. That means the timing is off."
"I always wondered what that was. I just thought she was trying to turn me on." He stood a while standoffishly gazing into the compartment. "So, this is Madra."
"What did you expect?"
"I dunno. More metal."