let's say sunshine for everyone

@"Sky"

Yesterday must have looked like a ghost by the lake, shaded from the sun by the plentiful trees that grew almost right up to the water's edge at some points. Earth nature was always so nice, especially compared to the artificial biomes that were made for study on his home ship. He could only assume his home planet had some pretty things to see from what information he'd been loaded with, but it didn't look a thing like earth.

What possibly made it worse was that he just liked to watch. He liked to watch the geese swimming in circles and the faint ripples on the surface of the water as fish peeped out to eat flies. He watched the humans that jogged by or hung around as the weather cooled down, and he watched the dogs that played fetch with their companions.

Yesterday remained as still as a statue, a pale ghost in the background.

But the day had wound down, becoming quieter as the afternoon dragged on and the sun heated up the air, and fewer people came to the park. He began to seek other things... Which soon came in the form of movement out of the corner of his eye.

A boy sat down under a tree, book in hand. It was a classic picture, he imagined. Human culture had deeply ingrained the image into the public psyche, he found, which was odd for an activity so mundane. He wasn't sitting too far off either, allowing Yesterday to get a good look at him as creepy as that sounded.

He looked to be the opposite of him in every way. How curious. Things that piqued his curiousity usually warranted a more in-depth probing, so he approached him.

"Hello there." His voice was monotone, flat, devoid of any emotion. Even his race remained static, expression not moving an inch. "What are you reading?"

@"Sky"

Emotions didn't come naturally to him, though he was already fairly talented at reading the subtle changes in peoples faces. It was kind of like identifying a shape or pattern that signified something else; the same went with body language. All in all, it was rather easy if you had the same kind of camera gear and motion detection functions as Yesterday did.

Unfortunately, the lack of emotion and facial expressions often left him looking like a mannequin, something that he undoubtedly resembled right now. His voice was more like a drone than actual speech, which undoubtedly caused people to become cautious. The boy didn't look like he was very open to his approach. Was it odd to ask people what they were reading?

Another thing that seemed to immediately strike Yesterday was the boy's appearances. His makers had created him with human beauty in mind and yet he was the opposite of this boy. Did that mean the boy was an ugly human? Was that why he was alone and reading, instead of with other humans? Yesterday obviously hadn't been exposed to much to different races, just species.

He wanted to ask, of course, so he plopped down on the grass in front of him.

"On The Beach, by Nevil Shute." He repeated in his same drone of a voice. Considering he was a robot, he was always connected and he immediately looked it up. Post apocalyptic? Nuclear war? How interesting. Why did humans like reading about their own destruction so much?

Yesterday tilted his head slightly, though his expression remained the same. "I have heard of it. People seem to like reading a lot about the potential ruin of their world."

@"Sky"

If Yesterday had a tail, he'd be wagging it as he was handed the book. The cover was just paper and it looked a little ragged around the edges, which probably meant it was from the library and had been read or neglected quite a few times to get into that state. It didn't matter to him, though.

"Huh, how interesting." He said, opening the book to the first page. That's when he began to scan it; he flipped through the pages, his eyes moving back and forth over the black ink. Page after page in the span of just a couple of seconds; he read inhumanly fast because the way he processed and stored information was much different than a human's.

Yesterday was a robot. All he needed to do was scan the pages.

He was about halfway through, about two or three minutes having passed, when he spoke again. "This is awfully bleak."

@"Sky"

Like some sort of machine...

If Yesterday's muscles actually worked the way a human's did, he would've smiled.

Instead, his face remained as emotionless and stoic as ever as he started to flip through the second half, spending about a second on each page. The book was quite sad, perhaps a bit forlorn at the fact that humanity would be its own destruction. He couldn't exactly say it sounded illogical, but...

"I do read this fast." A little white lie. It was sort of reading, but more logging the shapes into his memory than anything else to be recalled when convenient.

"I do." The answers to the boy's questions were simple, and he liked that. "I have read through much of the library already. A pity that few seem to spend time there anymore."

@"Sky"

Yesterday looked up at Neil again and saw the strained little smile on his face. His facial recognition systems mapped it out and fed the information back to him; the boy was becoming wary or nervous, perhaps unsure of what to do with his own lack of expression. Humans did read a lot of body language while Yesterday lacked it almost entirely.

Oh, yes, powers. Hm... "I guess it could be considered a power." Cryptic and just as confusing as every single other answer he gave.

"Hello, Neil." At that point, Yesterday smiled a little. Of course it looked fake, like he just switched masks from neutral to vaguely amused. He had to put a conscious effort into changing his expression; he didn't have the same range as humans did or the innate ability to do it.

"My name is Yesterday."