Chapter Text
Anthony was not supposed to be down here. Especially not on a late Tuesday night. The only light source for the basement of the student union being the clinical glare from the overhead light at the end of the hall and the vending machine, leaving the rest of the hallway dim.
Strictly speaking, he was supposed to be back in his room editing a video about trying out for the university’s division-one cheerleading squad, but his brain had reached that specific level of creative fried where everything looks like a potential video for the channel.
"Bro, I’m telling you, it’s not even a real station," Henry said, shifting his weight against the vending machine that currently only dispensed expired bags of chips. Henry was a sophomore who lived across Anthony’s off-campus house. He brought up the campus’s radio station without thinking twice when Anthony inquired him for video ideas half-jokingly. He simply mentioned that he’s a part of the radio crew because ‘he was bored and needed to join a club’... as if he wasn’t already in 4 different ones.
"We don’t even have an FCC license anymore. We lost it in like 2014 because someone swore during a weather report. Now we just stream to a whopping nine listeners."
Anthony adjusted the strap of his Sony FX3, his fingers instinctively tapping against the cold aluminum of the camera cage. His eyes were already wide, that specific, hyper-fixated gluster beginning to take over his face. "Nine listeners?” he scoffed, “Dude, they could literally just move the broadcast to a Discord call."
"Exactly," Henry laughed, pointing down a narrow hallway that looked like it led to a boiler room. "The door’s at the very end. Sign says WRSU."
Anthony’s mind was already rendering the timeline in Premiere. “Today, we are infiltrating the most useless club on campus.” He could see the fast cuts and his hand drawn doodles and scribbles placed over clips. He could hear the royalty-free Mii Channel music playing underneath his opening monologue. He’d walk in, do a bit where he pretends to be a 1940s radio announcer, interview whatever weirdly intense kid was running the board, and walk out with a solid twenty-something minute banger for the channel. It was bread-and-butter content.
"Alrighty then," Anthony said, cracking his knuckles, his voice dropping into that familiar, slightly theatrical cadence he used whenever the lens cap comes off. “I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks a lot man,” He gave a quick pat on Henry’s left shoulder before he walked down the hall, the soles of his New Balances squeaking against the floor. The door at the end was heavy oak, its frosted glass pane cracked and taped over with an old sticker from a local indie rock festival that had gone bankrupt five years ago. Written on a piece of printer paper taped below the glass was:
WRSU 88.7 FM (ONLINE) — ON AIR / PLEASE BE QUIET (OR DON'T, NO ONE CAN HEAR US)
Anthony snorted.
He didn't knock. He just pushed the door open, camera already balanced on his other hand, the small red tally light glowing like a tiny, judgmental eye.
The room was smaller than his dorm kitchen. Three walls were lined with carton foam that had turned an unappealing shade of yellow-gray, and every available surface was covered in stickers - band names written in unreadable death metal fonts, local small food joints, old political campaigns. In the center of the room sat a massive, ancient broadcast console that looked like it had been salvaged from a cold war bunker, its analog VU meters twitching weakly in sync with a song Anthony didn't recognize.
And behind the console, with a pair of massive Audio-Technica headphones that sat slightly askew on your head, was you.
You were mid-sentence, leaning into a microphone with an enthusiasm that felt entirely too big for a windowless basement room at 9:00 PM on a Tuesday.
"... and that was 'It Is What It Is’ by Blood Orange, for the two people currently tuned in, one of whom I’m pretty sure is just my mom’s iPad left on in the kitchen," you said, your voice carrying that easy, rhythmic warmth characteristic of people who spend too much time talking to walls.
"Up next, we’ve got a track from a local house show that happened over three blocks away from here last weekend, recorded on a very sketchy iPhone voice memo. But first, let’s talk about the vending machine on the third floor because it’s currently—"
You stopped. Your eyes caught the massive camera lens pointed directly at your face, and then traveled up to Anthony, who was standing in the doorway with a half-grin, looking like a kid who had just found a dollar on the sidewalk.
You didn't freeze. Instead, a smile crept up on your face that caught him slightly off guard. You hit a red button on the board, sliding a fader down with a practiced flick of your wrist.
"Hey! Uh," you pull the headphones down around your neck. "Did you get lost looking for the esports lounge? Because if you’re here for the tournament, that’s two buildings over and down an entirely different flight of stairs. I’m not sure if they’re still going though," he wouldn’t be the first, given the fact that a few hours ago, two other people accidentally walked in looking rather… disappointed.
Anthony lowered the camera just an inch, his brain quickly recalibrating.
"No, no, I’m in the right place," He let his camera voice come in, that slight uptick in energy, the extra watt of charisma. "I’m Anthony. I do... video stuff around campus, maybe you’ve seen me before. I heard that there was an underground radio station."
“Oh!” Something shifted in your expression, a beat of genuine surprise, quickly followed by something you tried to keep neutral. Like you didn’t want to seem too interested before you knew what this was. “Uh, yeah, pretty sure I’ve heard of you before. Someone told you about us?”
“I have my sources.”
You gave him your name while flashing a smile, “I’m the station manager. Well, station manager, program director, and the person who has to clean everything around here. You can call me the President if you want to make it sound like I have a real job."
Anthony repeated your name, raising the camera back up, framing you against the wall of stickers. "Perfect. Mr. President—or, sorry, President—I have a proposition for you,”
He stepped further into the cramped room, letting the heavy door click shut behind him. He didn't turn the recording off, but he lowered the rig to chest height.
"I run a YouTube channel. Anthpo. I usually do dumb stuff - going around campus in costumes, harassing frat guys, that kind of thing. I also do some off-campus shit with my friends but most of my stuff revolves around here. I want to do a documentary on you guys. A deep-dive exposé on the last bastion of true college radio."
You blinked, your eyes darting between the lens and his face. For a fraction of a second, there was a flash of something vulnerable in your expression, a sudden genuine hope that someone was actually paying attention to this room. "Wait, really? Like... an actual video?"
"An actual video," Anthony lied, or rather, stretched the truth. In his head, it was still an eight-minute bit about ‘weird campus clubs,’ but looking at how your eyes had gone wide and serious, he felt a weird little twinge in his chest that he brushed off as hunger. "Yeah. Full production. Behind the scenes. The history and all that jazz,” leaning against the edge of the console and gesturing with his free hand. “It’s an underdog story type thing. We’ll show the grit behind the broadcast. How the student senate is starving you out."
He was internally taken aback at how he was just throwing darts in the dark. He didn’t exactly come with a proper preparation, and he didn’t fully realize that until now.
"Oh my god," you said, clapping your hands together. You looked over at Henry, who was peeking around the doorframe looking awkward. "Henry! Did you bring him here? I owe you one, your lunch tomorrow is on me. Seriously." You pointed at him and turned back to Anthony, leaning forward over the massive analog board, your face full of an earnest, uncritical excitement that made him feel, for a very brief second, like a bit of a fraud.
"We… would love that. Seriously, Anthony. We’ve been trying to get the student senate to increase our budget for new cables for three semesters, but they keep waving us off. If we get some eyes on this... man, we could actually get the FM transmitter fixed."
"Yeah," Anthony said, his thumb adjusting the focus ring. Through the monitor, your smile was incredibly sharp, the colors of the vintage stickers framing your head like a strange, chaotic halo. "Yeah, exactly. We’re gonna put WRSU on the map." He paused, deciding to really sell the pitch. For a split second, he became weirdly aware of his compulsive and sudden need to really get this in the bag.
"Look, if the video turns out as good as I think it will, we don’t just drop it online. We rent out one of the big lecture halls. We do a full campus premiere. Make it an event. Get everyone to come watch.”
Your eyebrow quirked up. "You’d do that? For a club with nine listeners?"
"President," Anthony smirked, tapping the side of his camera, "by the time I'm done, you'll have at least twelve."
You let out a sharp, genuine laugh, the tension in your shoulders evaporating. "Alright. You have yourself a deal. But if you break anything in here, you're paying for it out of pocket."
"Understood, prez," Anthony said, doing a two finger salute at your direction before finally adjusting the focus ring on the lens.
You leaned your elbows onto the plastic casing of the broadcast board, resting your chin in your hands. "So, what's the timeline? Should we prepare the station?"
Anthony killed the recording, the red light blinking out. Instantly, his brain began spinning at a violent, erratic clip. The manic, hyper-fixated itch that usually took three cold brews to ignite was currently burning a hole through his skull. He didn't exactly want to wait, for some reason.
In his experience, time was the ultimate killer of good internet content. If he gave a college club more than twenty-four hours to prepare for a camera crew, they inevitably ruined the bit. They would clean up the charmingly depressing clutter, rehearse fake sterile answers, or worst of all, try to be intentionally funny. He didn't need them to be funny. He needed them to be entirely deadpan serious about something completely pointless. That’s the catch. The comedy wasn't in mocking them directly; it was in the agonizing, beautiful contrast of someone giving a hundred percent of their soul to something on the verge of dying.
If he waited until next week, the creative lightning would leave his bottle, and he'd end up making another generic "I joined a frat for a week" video.
"Tomorrow," Anthony said, his voice dropping from its theatrical 'YouTube voice' into a fast, pragmatic clip. He tapped his knuckles against the aluminum camera cage. "I want to catch the station in its natural habitat before anyone has time to overthink it. What’s the programming look like tomorrow? You guys busy?”
You let out a dry huff of a laugh, shifting your weight. "’Busy’ is very generous, but uh, the lineup is surprisingly stacked for a Wednesday. At four, we have a freshman who plays nothing but mid-eighties British post-punk, who kind of breathes into the mic when the songs are playing…” your eyes darted to your left side awkwardly, you didn’t exactly want to pick on your fellow crew. It’s a tight-knit group and you could barely afford to jab on anyone.
“Then at five, we’ve got a little talk show segment where two guys just scream at each other about stupid shit for an hour."
Anthony bit the inside of his cheek to stop a massive, unprompted grin from breaking across his face. It was an absolute goldmine.
"That is exactly what I'm talking about," Anthony said, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk, keeping his expression carefully tuned to 'enthusiastic documentary filmmaker' rather than 'internet vulture.' "It’s perfect. I'll be here at four sharp."
"Awesome! Sounds good to me," you said, reaching out to give the volume slider a smooth, practiced shove upward to transition into your final music block. "Uhm, you can stay and watch for the last ten minutes if you want. Just grab that chair in the corner."
"Alrighty," Anthony muttered, carefully backing his way toward the creaky plastic folding chair.
He sat down, adjusting the camera back onto his lap, and clicked the record button once more. Through the small flip-out LCD screen, he watched you pull the heavy Audio-Technica headphones back over your ears, your posture instantly shifting back into that confident, relaxed 'on-air' persona. Your fingers danced over the dials with a weirdly mesmerizing muscle memory, controlling a dead ecosystem with the precision of a surgeon. You were completely isolated, shouting into a void that didn't care, yet you were doing it as if thousands of people were listening. It felt almost magnetic.
The lens caught the glare of the fluorescent bulb bouncing off a silver ring on your thumb as you adjusted the master volume.
This is a great b-roll, he told himself.
The contrast between how hard they try and how many people care is gonna be hilarious.