Tiger Rock | The Monty Within | Bleeding Heart
Big tiger is always watching.
"Are we playing hide-and-seek?" Tiger Rock asked. "I know how to play. I learned a long time ago."
Kai and his friends are excited to see the new Pizzaplex attraction, but upon discovering it's already been removed, they head over to the VR booths, and Kai decides to take a fun little adventure into a simulation of a future Pizzaplex. There, he meets a new mascot– Tiger Rock, a chill white tiger who loves hanging out with him. Maybe a little too much, cause he seems to be gripping his arm just a bit too tight. After a terrifying rendition of hide-and-seek, Kai gets out of the VR and tries to forget the tiger. But the tiger doesn't forget him.
The nineteenth Tales from the Pizzaplex story, and the first of the seventh book. It takes place at the same time as the last book's "Nexie," and serves as a direct sequel to "The Storyteller," "The Mimic," and the Mimic epilogues.
Tropes related to “Tiger Rock”:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The one-day-only VR attraction lets customers "see the Pizzaplex ten years from now!" The designers gave everyone bright fashion with strange fabrics, and made the animatronics way more lifelike and closer to their animal appearances.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Eleven-year-old Bookworm Todd.
- Affectionate Nickname: Todd calls Asher "Ash." Kai's mom also calls him "keiki" when she's concerned.
- All Just a Dream: Kai's first escape from the VR booth is entirely faked, with the Tiger still trying to get to him through a false reality. It's unclear how well he got out the second time, too.
- Ambiguous Ending: On whether Kai is still in VR, dreaming, brain-damaged, or actually attacked by the Tiger.
- Animal Lover: Kai put a hummingbird feeder in the tree outside his window, and enjoys watching the birds fly around.
- Antagonist Title: As the Mimic takes the form of a white tiger animatronic.
- An Arm and a Leg: The story ends with the Tiger ripping Kai's arms off and escaping.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A lowkey version of this, Kai states that his mind wanders too much for him to get good grades in school. He's more interested in "nature and art and the spirit world."
- Big Brother Instinct: Kai adores his little sister, Malia, and loves to tell her stories.
- Big Brother Is Watching: No matter where Kai goes, the Tiger sees him and tries to rip off his limbs. It gets to the point where Kai barely opens his eyes in fear he'll spot it.
- Break the Cutie: Kai is well-known for being extremely chill and laid-back. After being constantly hunted by Tiger Rock, breaking out of a false reality, and still being confused and hurt afterwards, Kai is very clearly traumatized, despite his attempts to hide it, and his friends and parents notice that he's worryingly different. He ends up terrified all night.
- But Not Too Foreign: Kai avoids this trope, but his sister has their dad's physical appearance, giving her light hair, eyes, and skin. Kai says they don't even look related.
- Captain Oblivious: Todd never seems to notice what's happening around him or how people react to him.
- Cat/Dog Dichotomy: Vitriolic Best Buds Asher and Todd start arguing about cats vs dogs after Kai mentions he saw a cat. Todd says cats are menaces and dogs are better, while Asher says that cats are great and dogs are "stupid suck-ups." Apparently they have this argument a lot, as Todd has a dachshund and Asher's got two cats.
- Constantly Curious: Tiger Rock says that he loves learning and will learn anything he can. This is, well, because he's a program designed to mimic what he sees.
- Foreshadowing:
- The first line:"Hey!" Kai protested. "Are you trying to pull my arm off?"
- Todd talks about dream interpretation, which prompts Kai to explain that he's trained himself to wake up from lucid dreams. Good luck using that on a VR booth, Kai!
- Right before entering the VR booth, Kai takes a long look at the AR snowglobe-like booth, calling back to the earlier story "Under Construction" and hinting the reader in that we're about to get another VR fake reality.
- Tiger Rock tells Kai that he likes to go all over the place, and that "I can be anywhere."
- The first line:
- Death by Disfigurement: Tying in with the Mimic's normal method of murder, Tiger Rock consistently tries to rip Kai's arms off. The ending implies he may have succeeded, or at least traumatized the boy enough to give him nightmares.
- Free-Range Children: Kai, Asher and Todd's parents let them wander, with Kai's dad sending them on scavenger hunts across town.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Asher, who speaks binary with his brother as a secret language and loves to ramble off programming jargon to his confused friends.
- Gainax Ending: After finally escaping the VR simulation, Kai remains traumatized despite his attempts to hide it. He looks outside and is relieved to see that everything is normal... only for the Tiger to... appear out of nowhere? And rip his arms off? And then fly into the sky? How–?
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Malia has a beloved plush elephant named Elliot. When Kai is injured, she marches five of her toys in and puts them on his dresser to "help him get better."
- A Glitch in the Matrix: Tiger Rock's presence in Kai's false-reality. The rest of the VR world starts to bleed into it, too, as his school stairwell turns into an escalator and his sister's toys come to life to attack him.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Everything the Mimic/Tiger possesses has one blue eye and one green eye.
- Good Parents: Kai's parents insist on family time every Saturday night, where they sit around a campfire and talk to each other. Kai's dad also gives his son and their friends fun scavenger hunts with great prizes, and offers to stay home from work to take care of him when he's sick.
- Great White Feline: The titular Tiger Rock, who is a large white tiger.
- Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Subverted, as Kai is a native Hawai'ian boy who moved to "the mainland" recently and still wears Hawai'ian-print shirts.
- Hide-and-Seek Horror: When Kai is desperately trying to hide from the Tiger, it asks him eerily if they're playing hide-and-seek, which it had learned to play long ago. Kai's various attempts to hide from it turn into a sick game.
- Hippie Parents: Kai's parents are both extremely laid-back and "chill." His mother lets Todd borrow a dream interpretation book from her, and Kai says his dad has a "What's your hurry, pawdna?" energy.
- Hula and Luaus: Downplayed, but when Kai thinks of home, he thinks of the ocean, surfing, and "Hawai'ian time" relaxation. His mother, an indigenous Hawai'ian, brought natural plants in a terrarium to their new home and calls Kai by Hawai'ian-language nicknames.
- Killer Robot: The titular Tiger Rock.
- Meaningful Name: Kai's name means "sea," and he's always able to "go with the flow."
- Mellow Fellow: Being raised by a "Hawai'ian Time" mom and a relaxed "cowboy" dad, Kai is very, very chill.Todd regularly accused Kai of being so laid-back that he was practically horizontal.
- Mind Prison: Thankfully spending less time in VR than Maya, Kai goes for three days until he realizes he's stll in the VR booth.
- Monster of the Week: Tiger Rock.
- Motor Mouth: When talking to each other, Todd and Asher tend to go on for quite a while and start rambling.
- Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: The Storyteller causes the VR booth to go haywire, trapping Kai in there for five hours in real-time and giving him a nightmare experience and possibly brain damage.
- Nature Lover: Kai.
- No Full Name Given: For any character.
- No OSHA Compliance: Implied when Kai gets out of the VR booth, and Todd and Asher tell him that he was in there for five hours, with the booth having locked up. The employees apparently had no emergency entrance or exit to it, and were arguing with the technicians on how to safely break the glass in order to get to the kid inside.
- Omniglot: Tiger Rock impresses Kai by being able to speak native Hawai'ian, and he later communicates with a proto-STAFFBot. He tells Kai that he loves to learn languages.
- Panthera Awesome: The Mimic takes the form of the White Tiger that it and David had been associated with in the previous story.
- The Philosopher: Todd is all about living in the moment, saying that "the only real thing is now." His friends don't really get it.
- Plagued by Nightmares: After seeing the robot owl, Kai has terrible dreams about it coming to get him, and he has to force himself to wake up three times.
- Plot Parallel: To the earlier "Under Construction," where the VR world appears to be completely and utterly real, up until glitches in the Matrix start occurring. While Kai is thoroughly traumatized, he has more of a chance of survival than Maya got.
- Power Trio: Kai, Todd and Asher call themselves the "Timeless Trio," which Todd had started because he feels that time is a construct.
- Properly Paranoid: In the false reality, Kai starts seeing the Tiger everywhere. Because, well, he is.
- Redheads Are Uncool: Todd.
- Scavenger Hunt: Every Sunday, Kai's dad gives his son and his friends "quests" to keep them busy around town.
- Searching the Stalls: Kai tries to hide from Tiger Rock inside futuristic bathrooms, and the Tiger starts trying to get into his pod.
- Shared Unusual Trait: Kai is able to identify the shapeshifting Mimic in the false reality by him keeping his white color scheme, metallic sheen, and heterochromic eyes.
- Stealth Sequel: Serves as a sequel to "The Mimic" and "The Storyteller," and Kai spotting Astrid in the crowd confirms it takes place at the same time as "Nexie."
- Uncanny Valley: Kai finds the VR Animatronics' style to be this, as they're sculpted to look like they're real anthropomorphic animals wearing clothes.
- Uncertain Doom: The Gainax Ending leaves it unclear if Kai is still in the VR world, escaped but brought the Tiger with him, or is just having a nightmare. Or if the machine malfunctioning and his overexposure to VR gave him brain damage.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Asher and Todd have been best friends since they were toddlers, and their main method of bonding is arguing intensely with each other over everything.
- When Trees Attack: Looking up at the Storyteller for the first time, Kai finds it terrifying, and imagines it uprooting itself and attacking the Pizzaplex children. Its glitching is later what causes both his VR incident and Astrid's Buddytronic malfunction.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: It's mentioned that Todd's parents are "total workaholics" who ignore him most of the time.
- World Tree: Asher talks about how cool the Storyteller's baobab design is, and Todd snarkily says that it should have been a redwood.
- Would Hurt a Child: Tiger Rock, as an extension of the Mimic, really wants to rip Kai's limbs off. Even in the false reality, it's trying to get his arm and leg knocked off through accidents, similar to another story...
