Central Markets Tower (1901 -> 1975)

Time rolls forward as you arrive to see the Tower arise before your eyes! A second storey pops above the awnings of the street-front, turning the market into the fortress structure you’re familiar with. The sounds of car engines fill the air: time is clearly shifting you closer to home! A group of children roller-skate past you, while a man in flared trousers grooves to a disco beat blaring from his gigantic boom box.

“The seventies!” says the Professor excitedly, dancing to the music.

“But where is the machine?” you say, staring at the front of the market. It looks like a castle, only with more fruit and vegetables inside.

“It must still be here, after seventy years!”

“Where am I?!” you hear a voice cry. It’s the clerk, rubbing his spectacles as he stares at a Vietnamese family selling vegetables from a stand. They stare back at him, just as confused. You realise in horror: the clerk has been teleported too!

“The machine must have imprinted him,” says the Professor.

The clerk points at you. “You! You’re a wizard, you’ve teleported me all the way to the Far East!”

“No I haven’t,” you say, slapping his hand away. “You’re still in Adelaide, it’s just the nineteen-seventies.”

He picks up a bunch of small red balls from the stall. “Then what do you call these?”

“Pomegranates, I think,” you say, staring at them. “Where’s our machine?”

But he’s staring at the people and the stalls. The Professor approaches him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not the nineteenth century any more, there are people from all over the world living here now. Immigrants from Vietnam, China, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia… you name it!”

The clerk looks at the Vietnamese family again, then at the pomegranate. He sniffs it, pulls open the skin, and touches his tongue to the seeds inside. His eyes widen. He smiles.

You look to the Professor for help, but he is busy buying a stir-fry.

“Listen, where did you last see our machine?”

The clerk concentrates, looking at the different stalls.

“It all looks so different, so much more… colourful!”

“Think!” you say. “The box, small, weird, with dials and gears…”

“Excuse me,” says a voice. You look around, and see a pair of eyes peering over a pile of cabbages. It is a small girl, the daughter of the Vietnamese grocer.

“A box like this?”

She lifts up a box of bamboo shoots. Beneath is a pile of old crates and boxes, decades old, holding up the stand’s produce. One of them looks familiar… it’s the time machine!

“Professor!” you shout, startling him, and making him spit out a mouthful of lemongrass.

With the help of the market traders, the Professor tinkers and oils the machine, pulling out a stray leaf of bok choy, and then…

“It’s working! Now all I need is somewhere to mount an antenna.”

“There’s tall buildings everywhere,” says the clerk, pointing around in astonishment.

“But if it teleports us again,” you say, “there might not be any buildings! Maybe we’re better off with a tree. Whitmore Square is just up the road!”

“Nonsense,” says the Professor, inspecting a coil of copper wire on a stand nearby. “What were the tallest buildings in town originally?”

You look east, up the street, towards the tall spires of St Francis Xavier Cathedral.

“Churches!” he says, happily. “When have I ever led you wrong?”

Do you:

St Francis Xavier Cathedral (1975->1954): Think the Professor is right, and that the higher antenna will give you a better shot at getting home. Then head to St Francis Xavier Cathedral.

Or

Whitmore Square/Voyagers Sculpture (1975->1888): If you think it’s safer to keep your feet firmly on the ground, grab the Professor and head to Whitmore Square.