[Some fiddling on Dustin's end makes his end of the conversation private too, and his brow furrows when Mike tells him about the shadow monster, the army of baby demogorgons. He glances down at Dart, and wonders how Dart, of all things, could be part of this shadow monster's army. He couldn't be. He's Dart, he likes nougat and hasn't shown any signs of wanting to eat anyone or anything.

But then, he is a baby.

But then, Dustin cares about him.

Dustin huffs out a breath, looks back up at the camera.] Wait, so the demogorgon from last year, the one El disintegrated—was that just a scout? [Because if so, then shit, they're in trouble if the army actually invades.] Shit.

—that's the house they assigned me to. [That's a brief little speck of good news in the sea of shitty, shitty news.] Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can, Nancy's picking me up.

[o o p s.]