“Put the gun down and lay on the floor, now!”

“What?”  I blinked but I was looking through glitter.

“Put down the gun!”  The man sounded angry.  There was screaming and sirens too.

“Gun?  What gun?”  The glitter cleared and I was surprised to see a squad of heavily-armed police pointing their weapons at me.  Behind them was a shopping mall in chaos; broken windows, items on fire, people being treated by medical personnel.  Even more surprising was that I was indeed holding a gun, and also an empty tin of custard.  I dropped both.  “What’s going on?”

The police pushed me onto the floor, which was covered in custard, and cuffed me.  “You’re under arrest.  Anything you do say may be used- “

“I don’t remember a thing!”  In fact the last thing I remembered was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, nothing unusual.  Oh I also remember putting on my VR headset to run my yoga program… “Wait a minute, I’ve been hacked!”

The police hoisted me to my feet.  “A likely story, sir.”

“Honest!  I wouldn’t do anything like this!  My virtual reality mask must have been infected with a virus!”  The police dragged me through the shopping mall.  “Tell me what happened, please.”

They dumped me into the back of a police van where a paramedic waved a device over my face.  “There is evidence of a brain hack,” she said eventually, then leant down until her nose was touching mine.  “Why custard?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I was getting ready for bed, and then this!”

She straightened up and nodded to the lead officer, who placed a tablet on my lap.  “Have you installed any of the following programs into your VR set recently?

One name immediately caught my eye.  “Yes!  Yoga4All, that’s what I used before I went to bed!”

“Was it a legitimate copy, sir?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you pay for the application?”

I hesitated.    “No officer, I didn’t.”

“So you downloaded and installed an illegal version of a popular program, onto a device that plugs directly into your brain?  Did you not consider that a bit irresponsible, sir?”

“How was I supposed to know what it would do to me?  I’m the victim here!”

The officer pulled me half-out of the van and pointed to the destruction.  “They are the victims, sir, those bodies covered in custard, not you.”

“I’m very sorry.”  I was thrown back to my seat.  Custard squirted out of my pockets.  “I’m really, very sorry.”

“Let’s get you back to the station,” replied the officer, “before any more custard trucks turn up.”