Free The Humans by Matt Haig

‘very clever’. The book was 1,253 pages long.
    A door opened downstairs. I heard the soft sound of metal keys being rested on a wooden chest. She came up to see me. That was the first thing she did.
    ‘How are you?’ she asked.
    ‘I’ve been looking at your book. About the Dark Ages.’
    She laughed.
    ‘What are you laughing at?’
    ‘Oh, it’s that or cry.’
    ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘do you know where Daniel Russell lives?’
    ‘Of course I do. We’ve been to his house for dinner.’
    ‘Where does he live?’
    ‘In Babraham. He’s got a whopping place. Can you seriously not remember? It’s like not remembering a visit to Nero’s palace.’
    ‘Yes. I can, I can. It’s just that there are things which are still a bit hazy. I think it’s the pills. That was a blank, so that’s why I asked. That’s all. So,
I’m good friends with him?’
    ‘No. You hate him. You can’t stand him. Though deep hostility is your default setting with other academics these days, Ari excepted.’
    ‘Ari?’
    She sighed. ‘Your best friend.’
    ‘Oh, Ari. Yes. Of course. Ari. My ears are a bit blocked. I didn’t hear you properly.’
    ‘But with Daniel,’ she said, speaking a little louder, ‘if I dare say it, the hatred is just the manifestation of an inferiority complex on your part. But superficially, you
get on with him. You’ve even sought his guidance a few times, with your prime number stuff.’
    ‘Right. Okay. My prime number stuff. Yes. And where am I with that? Where was I? When I last spoke to you, before?’ I felt the urge to ask it outright. ‘Had I proved the
Riemann hypothesis?’
    ‘No. You hadn’t. At least, not that I knew. But you should probably check that out, because if you have we’ll be a million pounds richer.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Dollars, actually, isn’t it?’
    ‘I—’
    ‘The Millennium Prize, or whatever it is. Proof of the Riemann hypothesis is the largest remaining puzzle that hasn’t been solved. There is an institute in Massachusetts, the other
Cambridge, the Clay Institute . . . You know this stuff backwards, Andrew. You mumble this stuff in your sleep.’
    ‘Absolutely. Backwards and forwards. All the ways. I just need a little reminding that is all.’
    ‘Well, it’s a very wealthy institute. They obviously have a lot of money because they’ve already given about ten million dollars away to other mathematicians. Apart from that
last guy.’
    ‘Last guy?’
    ‘The Russian. Grigori something. The one who turned it down for solving the Whatever-it-was Conjecture.’
    ‘But a million dollars is a lot of money, isn’t it?’
    ‘It is. It’s a nice amount.’
    ‘So why did he turn it down?’
    ‘How do I know? I don’t know. You told me he was a recluse who lives with his mother. There are people in this world who have motives that extend beyond the financial,
Andrew.’
    This was genuinely news to me. ‘Are there?’
    ‘Yes. There are. Because, you know, there’s this new groundbreaking and controversial theory that money can’t buy you happiness.’
    ‘Oh,’ I said.
    She laughed again. She was trying to be funny, I think, so I laughed, too.
    ‘So, no one has solved the Riemann hypothesis?’
    ‘What? Since yesterday?’
    ‘Since, well, ever?’
    ‘No. No one has solved it. There was a false alarm, a few years back. Someone from France. But no. The money is still there.’
    ‘So, that is why he . . . why I . . . this is what motivates me, money?’
    She was now arranging socks on the bed, in pairs. It was a terrible system she had developed. ‘Not just that,’ she went on. ‘Glory is what motivates you. Ego. You want your
name everywhere. Andrew Martin. Andrew Martin. Andrew Martin. You want to be on every Wikipedia page going. You want to be an Einstein. The trouble is, Andrew, you’re still two years
old.’
    This confused me. ‘I am? How is that possible?’
    ‘Your mother never gave you the love you needed. You will for ever be sucking