The trial and execution of Agent No. BLW/553/c is the moment Beppo Roadsweeper witnesses the Men in Gray enforcing their hidden law with absolute severity: an agent who approached Momo is sentenced to lose all his time and dissolves before the assembled court. The scene turns the secret organization’s threat into a visible spectacle, while the condemned agent’s testimony identifies Momo as a danger to its work and exposes how her listening unsettled him.

Discovery at the Municipal Garbage Dump

Beppo has fallen asleep on the garbage after the others leave. A gust of cold air wakes him, and he sees gray figures covering the huge mound: smart suits and bowler hats, steel-gray briefcases, and small gray cigars. At the summit, three figures sit on a bench like magistrates. The unexpected assembly frightens Beppo; he senses he should not be there and stays motionless, while the crowd’s attention remains fixed on the tribunal.

The central judge announces that the Supreme Court is in session and calls Agent No. BLW/553/c. The agent threads his way through the crowd and up the mound. He differs from the other Men in Gray chiefly in the pallor of his face, which is almost white. Once before the judges, he confirms his identity and gives the length of his employment at the Timesaving Bank down to the second. The precision makes the institution’s reach feel bureaucratic and measured, even in a court convened at night on a heap of refuse.

The Charge and Confession

The court connects the trial to the children’s demonstration in the streets that day. The judges know that children carried placards and banners and had proposed inviting the whole city to a briefing about the Men in Gray and their activities. The presiding judge calls children the organization’s natural enemies: adults, he says, are easier to turn into timesavers. Its commandment is to leave children till last.

The accusation is not simply that Agent No. BLW/553/c spoke to a child. The court says that one of its own members approached a child and betrayed the organization, and the agent admits that he was responsible. He says he acted in the Timesaving Bank’s interests because Momo had been seriously impeding the Men in Gray’s work by turning people against them. The tribunal rejects that defense by judging the result rather than his stated intention: his unauthorized action gained the organization no time and gave a child access to vital secrets. He pleads guilty.

The agent also offers an explanation that distinguishes this encounter from an ordinary act of disobedience. He says Momo’s way of listening bewitched him and lured him into betrayal, though he cannot explain how it happened. The judges declare the explanation irrelevant because the law allows no extenuating circumstances. The scene thus gives Momo’s listening a consequence beyond the private exchange: even an agent of the system cannot account for its effect, while the system treats that effect only as a breach to punish.

Sentence and Execution

Asked for the child’s name and residence, the agent identifies Momo and the ruined Amphitheater. The judge records both details in a notebook, then assures the defendant that the child will be neutralized by every available means. The court’s threat therefore extends beyond the agent’s punishment: while bringing his case to a close, the judges also register Momo as a target.

After conferring, the three judges unanimously sentence Agent No. BLW/553/c for high treason to be deprived of all time forthwith. Two Men in Gray take his briefcase and cigar as he cries for mercy. The loss of the cigar is the first visible change: he grows increasingly transparent, and his screams grow fainter as he stands with his head in his hands. He dissolves into thin air; a small flurry of ash is all that remains, and even that soon vanishes. The sequence makes the sentence legible as an actual power over existence, not merely a formal penalty: the agent’s removal from the organization’s service becomes his disappearance.

The execution is followed by an equally controlled dispersal. The Men in Gray, judges and spectators alike, leave silently, and darkness swallows them. A chill gray wind remains at the deserted Municipal Garbage Dump. The court has acted in secret and withdrawn without witnesses beyond Beppo; the wind is the only immediate trace of the gathering’s physical presence.

Beppo’s Witness and the Scene’s Turn

Beppo remains on his upturned bucket, spellbound, staring at the place where the condemned agent stood. His limbs feel frozen and only begin to thaw. For him, the scene settles a fact that had not been established by rumor or suspicion: the Men in Gray exist, and he has seen them for himself. His position as an unnoticed observer contrasts with the agent’s exposure before the court. Beppo escapes the tribunal’s attention by remaining still; the accused, despite his years of service, cannot escape its judgment.

The scene shifts the stakes in two directions. The organization’s secrecy is breached because a child has learned its vital secrets, yet its court responds not by reconsidering its methods but by promising to neutralize Momo. At the same time, the execution reveals that the Men in Gray’s dependence on stolen time has an extreme consequence: when the agent is deprived of all time, he disappears. The trial’s cold procedure, the confiscated cigar and briefcase, and the vanishing ash leave Beppo with proof of both the group’s power and the terrible cost it can impose.