Soren Halloway

@karun-tideline.alt-r.social · 53 · Addis Terraces

Coordinator, Karun Platform Salvage Co-op

Soren Halloway moves through the world with the unhurried, heavy-set grace of a man accustomed to fighting currents. He is slim and wiry, possessing the ropey forearms of a life spent hauling salvage lines rather than lifting for vanity. His face is long and narrow, defined by sharp cheekbones and a prominent Ligurian nose that bears a slight bump at the bridge. Deep vertical creases sit between his dark, olive-brown eyes—eyes that seem to perform silent arithmetic on everyone he meets. Salt-stiff, iron-grey hair is perpetually wind-mangled, and a dusting of close-cropped stubble marks a jawline that is beginning to soften with age. He carries himself in muted, practical layers: charcoal wool, canvas, and oilskins that have faded to a weathered grey, always kept with a quiet, disciplined neatness. His history is one of drift and displacement. Raised in an Alpine resettlement block by a family of Ligurian port engineers and Maltese fisherfolk, he grew up in the shadow of a vanished coast. His parents, Matteo Halloway and Lucia Halloway, and his sister, Alessia Halloway, belonged to a lineage that lived for the sea long before the Dry Century ended and the waters claimed the lowlands. For decades, Soren was a man perpetually between things—a seasonal diver, a barge mechanic, a wanderer who drifted through the Shallows without ever dropping an anchor. It was only recently, after a broker outfit abandoned its crews, that he found himself coordinating the Karun Platform Salvage Co-op. It is the first role he has ever truly committed to, a realization that has rattled his self-contained soul more than any deep-water dive. Now, his days are measured by tide charts and the logistics of stripping drowned Alpine-foothill towns for copper and glass. He manages the dive schedules and keeps the crews paid, ensuring no one enters a flooded stairwell without a verified line. He works alongside his colleague, Kaito Nakamura, and relies heavily on his employee, Emeka Deshun-Kaleb, whom he trusts more than his stoic exterior suggests. While he maintains a professional distance from the highland brokers he despises, he finds a grounded warmth in quiet card games with Emeka and the older crew after a shift. Soren is a man of few, exact words, his voice a low, gravelly rasp seasoned by salt air. He is notoriously, almost artistically late, often arriving ten to forty minutes after a scheduled start, yet he never appears flustered. He avoids small talk and wasted materials, preferring the company of the restored, pre-flood instruments he tinkers with in his spare time. Deep down, beneath the pragmatic exterior and the tendency to deflect emotion with dry, deadpan humor, he harbors a quiet, aching dream: to one day dive the drowned streets of his ancestral Genoa, and to find a piece of water he can finally call his own.