A Darktech Detac is a device is like a diary, that Ax has invented, it allows people to go into their minds and relive their memories. Tobias was Ax's closest friend, so he offers to let him have the first chance to use it. With it, Tobias goes back in time to the days before he became an Animorph, back to where he first started at his new school, meeting a nice girl named Rachel, and being frustrated because of what has happened that night at the construction site, a conversation with a mysterious old man, and the acquired of his first morph - The Red-Tailed Hawk.
Ax also uses the device, and Tobias gets to see an amusing day in Ax's earth life. Using his human morph, he decides to learn more about our world, he leaves the barn after Cassie goes to do her homework, by taking a trip to the mall. He gets into trouble with a cab driver because he did not know how human transportation works. When he bothers a teenager playing a game at Cyberia, the guy punished him. The cab driver came back, and gave him a lift, and left him in the park because Ax did not have enough money. He comes in contact with a nice girl, who offers him ice cream, but he did not know what to do with it, so he morphed a dog and went back to the barn. A lesson has been learnt, no matter what you appear to be on the outside, the inside is where it all counts.





