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 ^{(it's beta!)}

...it would probably turn out badly-plotted and generally not very good.

COMMENCE.

"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzz bzz bzz bzz, bzz... bzz bzzzzzzzzz... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzz bzz bzzz bzz... bzz bzz bzzzzzz... knock knock knock knock... bzzzzzz bzzzzz bzz bzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzz, bzzz bzzz bzz bzzzzzz─... oh, good morning, Mr... Freddie Mercury?"

It's days like these I thank the lord I decided to be a coppa'. When you're using the combination of door knocks and doorbell buzzes to perform 'We Are The Champions' by Queen, lemmie tell ya, you know all those years in the police academy were worth it.

"Nah mate, it's Thursday, Brian May today, but I'll let it slide."

"Ah.. yes, sorry... I'm here to conduct a search of the premises," I informed Brian May.

"'Orite, you got a warrant?"

"Indeed I have, sir, it's on the end of my truncheon."

"You gay or summink?"

"Just let me in."

"I already told ya', it's Brian May on Thursdays,"

I pushed past him, "Kor you queers are pushy ain'tcha." He saw my actual truncheon, "oh... you'll be wantin' a word with the guvna' then, I'll just get 'im."

I looked around the room to my left. It was fairly normal, save for the Wall of Queen (which was covered with life-size posters of each Queen member), and a bath of money sitting in the middle of the rug. I mean an actual bath, papier-mache. How impractical, I thought.

"'Allo, me garden tell's me you a grass'oppa [copper]."

"He tells you right."

"Mike Tayla', purveyors of your finest Persian rugs [drugs], atcha service. So, you'll be wanting Starsky or 'utch?"

"Neither, thanks. I'm here to conduct a search."

"A what? Ahh I get it, you're a Colombo man. I'll warn ya', it's gonna cost ya', a double monkey [£200] at least,"

Now, this isn't what a coppa' should do, but by this point I was somewhat curious, so I played along.

"Sounds pricey... can I get a sample?"

He eyed me up for a bit, before relaxing and saying "Well you look like a man of your dicky [word], but I ain' givin' ya' what ya' want right away, so just take a sample of the produce, so folla' me up."

I did, up the spiral staircase, inside his flat. More troubling to my sense of reason were the people sitting on the steps. One was rapping 'The Communist Manifesto' to Jay-Z's '99 Problems', another was sculpting themselves an elongated buttock, while slowly extending their arm out into infinity, yet another was encoding biblical phrases into something attributed Ozzy Ozbourne, and dated into the future.

"Test subjects," Mike said casually as he climbed through a set of horizontal thick curtains that made up the ceiling. I climbed up after him, entering a large room with green and black felt wallpaper, and a couple of furry sofas.

"This is what I like to call the asylum. The effects of the drugs are all automatically nullified up here. Hence, the lack of rhyming slang," he said in a completely different voice to the one he had before.

I'd decided by this point that he wasn't in. Searching a building this size would take a year, and reserves of sanity I clearly did not have.

"And now I'm not as easy going as your average cockney Londoner, I can see that you didn't come here for any of my produce. So why are you here?"

He was reaching for his pocket and I was getting more worried with every inch his hand moved. His pockets were huge... he could have had anything hidden in them. I said, with incredible presence of mind, "Oh me? Nothing," before adding "Just... routine... operations..."

"Which routine operations involve telling people you're going to 'search the premises'?"

At this point, he put his hand into a pocket, and pulled out a mannequin... a mannequin of a policeman. "Routine... ones?"

The mannequin moved its mouth along to my words.

Mike raised an eyebrow, "Oh really?"

I noticed a spot of blood drip down from my wooden counterpart.

"It's... uh... top secret."

Then another.

Mike burst out laughing, "You should have seen your face... it was a picture, my man, a right picture. Haha... damn, are all of your lot so easy to scare?"

I laughed nervously along, still terrified.

He tossed the puppet onto a nearby sofa, "Don't worry mate, let me curate your 'search',"

Leading me over to what looked like a sleek and modern food-preparation area.

"You get alternative everything, right? Indie magazines, indie films, indie food, indie lifestyles. Here," he put down a spice rack on the kitchen surface, "we make indie drugs."

"In keeping with the whole indie philosophy, it's obscure, it makes no sense, and it's frequently ridiculous, but most importantly it's nothing like mainstream drugs. At this crack-house, we make drugs to alter your personality, your passions, your identity. For example, cockney, you didn't really think that kind of language is natural did you? Cockney is just how people talk when under the influence of Cockerel's Best, the first drug I created. The way the world fell for rhyming slang was brilliant, and it's been the best cover one could ever hope for. Gangsta rap is my doing too."

"Gangsta rap? No way, I've dealt with those rappers, they live what they rap. There's no way that's temporary," I objected.

"Of course not. I mean the record companies, I slipped some drug into their water-coolers. Made them lose all sense of musical taste. It was meant to be for a friend of mine who wanted a record deal, but unfortunately that happened. Since then, I've just sold to individuals, no organisation shit, it gets messy."

He motioned to me to sit down at the bar (that itself was part of the fashionable food-preparation area). I did, and he sat down the other side.

"So what can I do for you? Anything you've always wanted to be? To create? Anyone you want to be like? I can do all of this, and any combination. Except, of course, anything to do with your job. For one, that would be a waste, for two, you'd probably arrest me."

I thought about this.... Could I trust this guy? A guy who made a puppet bleed? I'd seen the test subjects... though they could be actors. This could be an elaborate plot. They could've heard the drug raid.... Then again... if they wanted to kill me they would have already, and I probably have more chance getting out of here on drugs than if I refused and threatened to tell the guvna'.

"I... I... how likely am I to get addicted?"

"Physically addicted? No chance. Mentally addicted? Depends on the person."

"I've... always wanted to be... a French mime."

A smile broke out on Mr. Taylor's face, "a very popular choice, Monsieur."