Chapter 7: Price of Sacrifice Isn't Nice

Barar marries Dr. Xiao Ginowskei, his high school sweetheart who grew up to be hot and also a famous scientist. We’ll have to check with Eric to see how old they are, but I’m guessing both Barar and Xiao are now hundreds of years old. They have three kids (I think): Two daughters, Doxa and Xinxin, and a son, Dunapi. Whether these children will ever be mentioned again after this chapter remains to be seen.

Barar invents the G Wave Engine, which is a preliminary to the Mysterion Drive. I think the Mysterion Drive was in Time To Turn Back, but I’ll be damned if I remember what it does. 

Around this time the King of Plenarius tells Barar and Xiao that he has cancer and only has a few weeks to live. Xiao tells him that she thinks she can help, and after a week or so she successfully cures the king’s cancer. When Barar asks her how she did it, she replies “Actually I have cancer, so I came up with a cure for myself, but I figured that the king needed it more than me, so I gave it to him instead.” Barar asks Xiao if she can make another cure to save herself and she replies “No… it will take a really long time to make another cure and I’ll be dead in a few months. I’m fine with it though.”

Barar, however, is not fine with it, so he comes up with a plan. For whatever reason it is a Top Secret Plan, so he does not share the plan with this wife. Step one: Drug the shit out of Xiao so she doesn’t wake up. Step two: Carry her to the time travel machine pad while she’s asleep and send her back to the past. Step three: Figure out a cure while she is in the past. Step four: When the cure is done, send her back to the present and heal her. 

In other news, it turns out that Barar’s invention, the G Wave Engine, is what caused his wife’s cancer. Even though Plenarian society is incredibly advanced and Barar spends a good portion of each chapter of this book bragging about how great their technology is, apparently he wasn’t aware that radiation causes cancer. Barar immediately turns off the G Wave Engine, but it’s too late for all of the scientists, those poor fuckers. Hundreds of Barar’s coworkers now have cancer, and they are dropping like flies. Although for some reason Barar himself does not have cancer, and he probably spent more time than anyone basking in the G Wave Engine’s deadly gamma rays.

Ten years pass (for those who are counting), and Barar has finally invented a cure. He realizes that Xiao’s biologically-based cure was stupid and never would have never worked (even though it did work, because it cured the king?), and the only way to cure cancer is to build super cool nanomachines “that could do any task.” Apparently the only task that the machines cannot do is stop the aging process. “Sickness, disease, and even deformities could be healed.” 

Barar brings Xiao back to the present and instantly cures her. It is the first time he has smiled in years. Will Barar smile again in the course of this book? Maybe, but I’m SKEPTICal.