Immortality! by Mark Grealish

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Its called endangerment for a lot of exceedingly good reasons.'' Hao tries to stare me down for a long moment before he looks away and nods. ''Okay, so tell me. If it's not suicide or an addiction, then what was the overdose for?''
By way of answer, Xiang kicks over to a cabinet above his bunk and pulls out clean overall. ''You must clean yourself first because you reek of vomit. As your doctor I tell you now that you should shower more.''
It breaks the tension and I laugh. ''That so?''
''Yes. Get changed!''
''As soon as you start explaining,'' I say as I pull off my shirt.
Xiang Hao, statesman, physician, the Terror of Beijing, the Saviour of Hong Kong, hero to the peoples of Greater China and son of the first man on Mars, draws a deep breath. And hesitates. Looks kind of embarrassed, actually. ''Have you ever heard of Project Pahsien? Tell me what you know.''
I think about it for a minute before I recall that Project Pahsien is a pet favourite of conspiracy theorists. ''About twenty years ago, maybe the mid-fifties? Something about research into improving trauma medicine being used as a cover for experiments in life-extension? Uh, the most I remember is a documentary showing an old camp in Tian Shan mountains that had a really pretty backdrop.''
Hao nods in recognition. ''That was camp Li Tieguai,'' he says,''which studied cybernetic augmentation. We had one laboratory for each of the Eight Immortals, each facility following a different line of possible life-extension medicine. I was assigned at He Xiangu, where I studied biological symbiosis.''
''And it succeeded?''
Hao holds up the dihydrocodeine bottle. ''In ways. Better that we just live and die...''
He trails off into a self-pitying silence that grates on my nerves, so I snap my fingers in his face.
''In ways?''
''We began with the common parasite Onchocerca Volvulus, with the intent of finding a...messenger. Something that could carry messages to the body like 'repair these veins!' We have known since the thirties what to say to the body, but not how to say it. We made excellent headway, following expected and unexpected turnings of our works. At first we modified old life, but soon we were creating entirely new organisms that could enter a body and repair almost anything! Grow new eyes, eat your kidney stones, repair broken nerves.
''After a year of testing this symbiote on rats we announced to the Chairman that we were ready to begin a human test. She flew from Beijing in person to observe our first human test: A boy, a peasant from Artux. Sutuk Buhrahan, who cleaned our laboratory for a hundred yen a day, and another five hundred old notes pressed into his hand to take 'one little injection.'
''He screamed, Jason, for a night and two days before the tumours filled his throat, and lived for a full month after that. The symbiote sustained his life him even as it converted his body body into one cancerous mass. We were shamed by our failure, but the Party board bid us, 'continue!' It took a further two years and six more deaths before we discovered why they died: The symbiote was tuned to a specific organism.