On Monday morning, Ben was busy copy editing and rewriting news releases as usual, when his telephone rang.
"Hi, Paul," he answered.
"Hi, Ben. How are you?" said Paul O'Hara, the editor-in-chief of the Thunder City Gazette. Without waiting for a response, he said, "Ben, I'd like you to write a story."
"Oh?"
"A story on Thunder City's metas. We've seen several of them come and go in this city, the most famous ones being, of course, the MBL. I want you to write a story profiling one of these metas, a kind of 'where are they now?' type of story, but something with a bit of an edge to it, so find whatever dirt you can. We've generally championed metas at the paper over the years, but controversy always makes for a better story. Call the meta registry center at City Hall and find out how you can contact one. In your story, make sure to try and find reasons metas have been less active on the world scene in recent years. If it works out for you, this could turn into a series. Does that sound good?"
"Yes, it does, Paul. Thank you."
"If you have any problems, talk to Jack," Paul said, referring to Jack Stetson, the paper's star reporter who now acted as the editor in Paul's absence.
"All right," said Ben.
"Okay, talk to you later."
"Bye," said Ben, hanging up. He stared at the phone for a few minutes longer. "Wow."
