“I have an idea I’d like to try before I cast back out into space,” Gondo said, “I’d like to drop in on our friends at the Astral Engineering Core and see what they’re up to.” He had a mischievous look in his eyes.

  “A little old-fashioned espionage?” Ignasius said.

  “Exactly!” Gondo replied.

  There were rules in the Caster Code that dictated when and how spying was appropriate, usually only during formal wars. This was mostly to stop rowdy teenage Casters at the Academy from dropping into their crush’s bedrooms late at night, or to preview the answers to an upcoming test. Regardless the penalties were severe.

  As a renegade Caster outside of the Solar Psychic Academy's purview, and in a bit of a war himself, Gondo was happy to bend the rules.

  He took a moment to observe his new Casting Table. It was of a more compact design than the one in the Safe House lab, much like the model Calcio had used in his apartment. The Caster would lie down into an ergonomic mold and all the fluids would be dispersed through needles in the table itself. Much more practical for the limited room of a spaceship.

  “I’d still like you to attempt to create something simple with your mind, just to see if you can,” Lowell said.

  “I’ll also be attempting a new form of parallel communication that we’ve derived from your contact with the Newcomer. It should allow us to converse with you while you are Casting.”

  “Incredible! That’s never been done before,” Gondo said, amazed.

  “Another groundbreaking discovery from our experimentation,” Lowell replied, looking proud.

  “Alright,” Gondo said, “Let’s see what Krueger and his brood have been cooking up...”

  ...

  Gondo had already gone through his mediations and had been administered a dose of Trinalyte. Instead of casting himself halfway across the universe he simply allowed himself to drift upwards and out of his body. This type of out of body experience was easy to initiate for someone as well trained as Gondo.

  He could see his dozing form, buried under his crown, and he could see Lowell and Ignasius looking down at him and monitoring his vitals on the nearby monitor.

  “Administering Moonshield,” Ignasius said. He didn’t need to push a button; he was connected to all the systems in the Sunsword. Gondo felt himself being yanked out of reality.

  Once again, waves of color bombarded him, faster and faster until he was left floating in the darkness. The neon door drifted towards him, and he opened it.

  He found himself standing in his astral form on the Sunsword, right next to his friends.

  “Woah, this is pretty trippy,” he said.

  “I bet!” replied Lowell. They could hear him!

  “Seems like communication is working fine, at least at this range,” Ignasius said.

  “We’ll celebrate later of course,” Lowell said, “For now Gondo I’d like you to attempt to alter your physical form. I want you to imagine your hand has 6 fingers.”

  Gondo laughed. This was absurd, but it was fun.

  He closed his eyes and reached deeply into his focus. He told himself that he had always had 6 fingers on his hand, and that it was completely normal. Inside his mind he accepted that fact and opened his eyes.

  There on his left hand was an extra pinky finger, wiggling in the astral breeze.

  “It worked!” he cried out.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Lowell was looking around the room vaguely, unsure where Gondo floated.

  “Incredible!” they exclaimed joyously, “Now let’s try again, but imagine that your entire hand is a blade.”

  Gondo once more closed his eyes and reached into his focus. He used the same trick to assure his mind that having a blade for a hand was completely normal.

  When he opened his eyes again his arm ended in a sharp bladed appendage. It was half hand, half sword. It even had a couple fingers dangling off of it.

  “Well, that’s gonna use some work, but I’m about halfway there!” he said.

  “Excellent,” Ignasius said, “I think that’s enough experimentation for now. We’ll work on this every cast until you feel more comfortable with it.”

  The concept of being able to change his body’s shape had a million possibilities. He was excited to explore the new ability. He wouldn’t allow himself to get carried away now, that could break him from his cast. Instead, he turned his mind to the next task.

  “I’m now going to begin casting towards the A.E.C. headquarters,” he stated.

  He allowed his astral form to float once more into the air, and then to drift out of the ship.

  Viewing the universe from the void of space was something that never got old. Free from light pollution the galaxy erupted with color and infinite complexity, further bolstered by the effects of the Moonshield. He allowed himself to soak up the majesty of it for a moment. This was the kind of feeling he lived for.

  He peered backwards towards the floating blue/grey marble of Earth. It looked so peaceful. Like an ornament hanging on a Christmas Tree.

  He bent his focus towards it and found himself immediately floating in front of the planet. Satellites and space trash zoomed by, some even flowing through his astral form. He laughed.

  Looking at the world from this angle he could see the continent that contained the A.E.C. headquarters. He sent himself there, gradually so that he could hone in on the exact location.

  Flying through the atmosphere in his astral form he could barely sense the heat of reentry. He dove through the clouds and beheld the polluted metropolis of the Endless City from above. Regardless of what his kind had done to this planet, it was still a remarkable sight.

  As he flew along, he began to see the storybook kingdom of the A.E.C. campus come into view, its towers and castles slightly obscured by the huge weather dome that surrounded it.

  He bent his focus to breach the dome, but was abruptly stopped before he could cross through. How? His astral form had no mass. Why wasn’t he able to go any further?

  “I’m here, outside the compound, but it appears that they’ve erected some form of barrier against astral entry,” he said.

  “I was worried about this,” Lowell replied, “This tech is new, and usually relegated to political conferences, or the residences of the hyper-affluent. From my research the field should be extremely limited. The amount of power required to sustain even a small room with one of these fields is immense. See if you can go around it.”

  Gondo scooted around the outer wall, testing it at different levels. With his speed he was easily able to circumvent the entire dome in moments. There was no entry.

  “Negative, this thing is locked up tight,” he replied.

  “I’ve calculated the power requirements for maintaining such a field at this size. There are no known sources on the planet that could accomplish this,” Ignasius said.

  “So,” Lowell said, “Krueger’s discovered a new form of energy. That’s bad.”

  “Very bad,” Gondo replied.

  He floated there for a while contemplating the barrier, trying to come up with a way around it.

  “Whatever they’re up to in there, they are going to great lengths to keep it secret. I think the only way in is to send someone or something to investigate in corporeal form. Dangerous, but necessary,” he said.

  “A task for another day regardless,” Lowell replied, “How are you holding up Gondo? You want to call it quits for today?”

  Gondo assessed himself and found that the new slow drip of the Moonshield had increased the amount of stamina he had remaining.

  “I’m solid. Give me the ping that we decided on earlier. The one outside the current observable universe,” he said.

  As technology advanced, humankind was able to view more and more of the universe. A series of telescopic relays had been installed as far into space as physical travel would allow. Even after taking in all the light possible from the furthest current telescope, the universe still appeared to be infinite.

  Gondo and his friends wanted to know what was out there, beyond the infinite. To do that they had to take risks.

  Casters didn’t regularly send themselves out that far. There was no real need, since the rare metals they searched for could only be collected as far as an unmanned craft could travel. Periodic Scrys probed at the limits of the observable, but rarely past.

  This must have been how early explorers felt, venturing into uncharted seas or diving into the black depths of the ocean. Or how the colonists floating out into the darkness of space, centuries into their millennial journeys to settle new planets on the outskirts of existence must feel.

  The ping appeared in Gondo’s thoughts. It was almost twice as far as the longest recorded Cast.

  He harnessed his focus, felt the power of the Moonshield flowing through him, and cast himself again into the unknown.