Finn curled up in a part of the jeep that no one else fit into, and tried to sleep. He envied Siobhan. That girl could sleep anywhere. He could barely sleep in his bed.
They had both grown up on this rock, although he suspected that his circumstances might have been better. Siobhan had always lived in the compound, with her mom. He’d lived in a house, more or less. It was more like a tin can, with all of his brothers stuffed inside it.
A rock punched beneath one of the tires. Finn jerked out of his place, scraping his nose on the edge of the seat in front of him. One of the others grunted. Dale, probably.
The alert had been a deep one. They wouldn’t get there for another twenty minutes at least. Finn sighed and pillowed his arms under his head.
Business had been a little too good lately. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten any sleep. They’d had a green alert–a retrieval alert–at least once a day for a week. Or once a night, as the case might have been.
More people had been going out into the wastes. And nobody went out into the wastes without some insurance. Their retrieval agency was the only one with medical personnel built into the deal. It gave these crazies an extra sense of security. Hopefully someone else would figure that out, and Finn could get some sleep.
Dale thumped on the side of the jeep just as Finn was dozing off. He kicked the seat, cursing under his breath.
“Looks like fighting time.”
“Oh, piss off. This is the same reason as last time.” Raiders taking potshots at explorers. They’d only been preying on people since before Finn was born. Why didn’t the explorers ever think about raiders before going into the wastes? “We’re retrieval, not merc fighters.”
Nobody was listening. They never did. Half of them liked the fighting. Finn sighed and found a weapon.
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