From Season 1, Episode 4
A quick riff of music plays as a white screen with yellow and black striped letters says DANGER ZONE! It then splits to reveal the young presenter within a factory.
"Welcome back from the break! Today we are on-site at a real factory to delve deeper into some of the advantages that Nova lead efforts have had for the everyday world! Let's give a shout-out to our benefactors at Hightower Industries for letting us inside to see all this amazing stuff! Oh! Remember with all this heavy machinery it's not safe in there so goggles down everyone." he announced lowering his trademark goggles into place.
"This behind me is one of the keys to it all: a eufiber spooler. As you may remember from before the break Anibal "Tejido" Buendia was the inventor of eufiber. He was looking for a new thread to make a super strong superhero uniform. His power might have artificially created the plant. Despite its origin, it grows well on its own. Once harvested and spun into threads eufiber is the material that keeps giving.
Not only is it strong and able to retain and store a bit of the quantum energy from Nova wearing it. Eufiber can hold and conduct other energies as well. This machine behind us feeds down this way," Danger says with a wave.
The young boy walks past workers monitoring a machine spinning and organizing hair-thin thread. It pulls them into even thinner lines that are being run off on a series of pulleys deeper into the plant.
"Braided into cable eufiber can be treated to change them into a crazy efficient electrical cable. It can also be a data cable with greater than fiber optic density.
"Coiled around an electro-crystal core it becomes a battery. This power storage killed off the need for carbon-based energy generation in vehicles. Paired with Nova-designed hyperfusion generators clean efficient power was made readily available.
"That isn't where this is going. Here we go through these doors."
Going through a set of double doors the thin barely visible strands are looped and spun around dark-colored cylinders. The spinning motion happens so fast as to be a blur. The object is only clear when the cables are first threaded on or cut so the freshly wound object can be placed into a rotating frame.
"These eufiber spools are turned into powerful electromagnets. They are being installed into this framework which is part of a Z-pinch fusion accelerator. Unlike the tokamak reactors made down the hall, these puppies are thrusters that give space probes their acceleration. In cooperation with the Daedalus League, these sleek engines will continue the efforts to map the outer solar system."
"Already the mapping efforts have found good sources of cheaply extractable deuterium and tritium. They can be used in fusion power plants. Experts expect a 'hydrogen rush' into space to make use of these inexpensive sources of fuel. Let's hope without the claim jumpers and gunfights of the old west!"
"But if you think these little engines are neat..." waves for the camera to follow as he walks off the screen. A cut picks up with them moving into a massive space where he pulls his goggles back into his hairline. The camera pans to reveal the wall he's near is a towering piece of machinery
"This is the Icarus One test device. This bad boy is going to launch via a Nova-created wormhole. It's too massive to get into space any other way. Once out there it will fire up and make several test orbits around the Sun itself."
"Some people think it's bad luck to have named it so," a voice calls out.
Genuine surprise crosses the host's face as he turns. The camera then struggled to pan as fast as the boy runs while half yelling half squealing a name. "Marcus!"
A very tall, very dark-skinned man in a navy suit beaming an enormous grin finds himself practically tackled by the excited young boy. He returns the embrace with a friendly return hug and a pat on the back.
"Justin, buddy, it's been too long," the deep melodious voice of the tall man said.
"Oh! Everyone THIS is Marcus Hightower himself! CEO and majority shareholder of Hightower Industries! He's also one of the most remarkable scientific minds of our time!"
"Oh, come on now. I only help people to work together down the right paths. It's our teams here at Hightower that do the real work and you have been part of that team."
"Compared to what everyone else has done, my part is small. They made all of that work with technology anyone can build. I just used my powers to make a computer to help run it," the young boy explains to the camera.
"Nonsense, without a brain the body is useless and the Icarus might have the best propulsion we've ever made. What we hope is the first working Bussard scoop that will allow it to gather gas from the sun for its own refueling. It might have the most incredible plasma-repelling energy shield. Which will keep it safe from the stellar plasma as it makes its pass. Without your computer to make it work? It would be a hunk of sculpture. That is why here on camera I want you to install that CPU Justin. That's why I surprised you today."
"Really!"
"Really! Here they are with the computer core you made."
A man in a hard hat and lab coat with a metal box walks into the camera and unclasps the box revealing a baseball-sized sphere of cloudy gray crystal. Justin reverently picks it up and stares into it.
"Wow... This is awesome... I'll race you to the top!" he exclaims, taking off the camera jerks as the cameraman reacts to the unexpected dash and seeks to keep up. Off-camera Hightowers' booming peels of laughter follow them.