From "Backlash" by Nancy Fulda

Clarise leaned into her guest’s shoulder as he opened his fortune cookie.

“Beware of beautiful women bearing gifts,” he read, and the two of them smiled as if at some private joke. Clarise glanced up and saw me watching them.

“What does yours say, Daddy?” she asked. I snapped my cookie in half and glanced at the paper.

It was covered with spidery lines that somehow seemed random and precisely geometric at the same time. A clear space in the middle hosted crisp black text:

Eugene Gutierrez. Activation code: pupae.

My hand was shaking.

“Very funny,” I said, crumpling the message in my fist. “Clarise, if this low-brow prankster is the best you can do for a boyfriend, I suggest you stay single.” I threw the paper onto my plate and stalked away from the table. I was halfway down the block when Sean caught up with me.

“Mr. Gutierrez? Mr. Gutierrez, I didn’t, I wouldn’t — I mean, Clarise told me you worked in special ops, but she also told me about the nightmares, and I would never—”

“Go home, boy,” I said. Clarise had been telling him quite a bit, it seemed.