The Humans by Matt Haig Read Free Book Online Page A

indeed.’
    He nodded. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
    The doctor wanted me to have some medical tests. A brain scan. They were worried about possible damage to my cerebral cortex which could have prompted amnesia. I realised whatever else was to
occur the one thing that couldn’t possibly happen to me was to have my brain looked at, not while the gifts were active. So, I convinced him I was not suffering from amnesia. I made up a lot
of memories. I made up a whole life.
    I told him that I had been under a lot of pressure at work and he understood. He then asked me some more questions. But as with all human questions the answers were always there, inside them
like protons inside an atom, for me to locate and give as my own independent thoughts.
    After half an hour the diagnosis was clear. I hadn’t lost my memory. I had simply suffered a period of temporary insanity. Although he disapproved of the term ‘breakdown’ he
said I had suffered a ‘mental collapse’ due to sleep-deprivation and work pressures and a diet which, as Isobel had already informed the doctor, consisted largely of strong black coffee
– a drink, of course, I already knew I hated.
    The doctor then gave me some prompts, wondering if I’d suffered from panic attacks, low moods, nervous jolts, sudden behavioural swings or feelings of unreality.
    ‘Unreality?’ I could ponder with conviction. ‘Oh yes, I have definitely been feeling that one. But not any more. I feel fine. I feel very real. I feel as real as the
sun.’
    The doctor smiled. He told me he had read one of my books on mathematics – an apparently ‘really funny’ memoir of Andrew Martin’s time teaching at Princeton University.
The book I had seen already. The one called
American Pi
. He wrote me a prescription for more diazepam and advised I take things ‘one day at a time’, as if there were another way
for days to be experienced. And then he picked up the most primitive piece of telecommunications technology I had ever seen and told Isobel to come and take me home.

Remember, during your mission, never to become influenced or corrupted.
    The humans are an arrogant species, defined by violence and greed. They have taken their home planet, the only one they currently have access to, and placed it on the road to destruction.
They have created a world of divisions and categories and have continually failed to see the similarities between themselves. They have developed technology at a rate too fast for human psychology
to keep up with, and yet they still pursue advancement for advancement’s sake, and for the pursuit of the money and fame they all crave so much.
    You must never fall into the human’s trap. You must never look at an individual and fail to see their relation to the crimes of the whole. Every smiling human face hides the terrors
they are all capable of, and are all responsible for, however indirectly.
    You must never soften, or shrink from your task.
    Stay pure.
    Retain your logic.
    Do not let anyone interfere with the mathematical certainty of what needs to be done.

4 Campion Row
    It was a warm room.
    There was a window, but the curtains were drawn. They were thin enough for electromagnetic radiation from the only sun to filter through and I could see everything clear enough. The walls were
painted sky-blue, and there was an incandescent ‘lightbulb’ hanging down from the ceiling with a cylindrical shade made of paper. I was lying in bed. It was a large, square bed, made
for two people. I had been lying asleep in this same bed for over three hours, and now I was awake.
    It was Professor Andrew Martin’s bed, on the second floor of his house. His house was at 4 Campion Row. It was large, compared to the exteriors of other houses I had seen. Inside, all the
walls were white. Downstairs, in the hallway and the kitchen, the floor was made of limestone, which was made of calcite, and so provided something familiar for me to look at. The kitchen, where I
had