Nossir, I am not a cunning linguist like Mark is. :^)
That was going to be my next question. :)
Having spent way too many years reading code, I am not the best person to evaluate your writing. A man has got to know his limitations... Good luck with the novel, Laz.
You know, when I was in the Air Force, I used that very line on a pretty young female Air Force linguist, and she never did get the joke. And I never got the date...
I like it so far, and I'm eager to read more. I'm a HUGE fan of sci-fi!
1) A couple of things that I'm not clear on:
When you first described the discs hovering over all the world's capitols, I imagined a disc that was perhaps a mile or more in diameter, or at least several football fields in diameter. Mark said that it was larger and much brighter in person than he imagined from seeing it on TV, which only reinforced my initial impression on how large the disc must be. I guess I made my initial impression of the scale of the disc based on all of the alien invasion movies and TV series I've watched in the past that had alien spaceships hovering over cities including Independence Day, V, and District 9, to mention but a few.
And on the day that he arrived in D.C. and saw the disc in person for the first time on his ride in from the airport, Mark saw that there was an incomplete scaffolding rising up to the disc, but the disc was still clearly visible from his car window, so the structure was not yet enclosing the disc.
Yet only two days later when he meets his team for the first time not only is the scaffolding complete, there's an elevator, exercise rooms, studies, showers, a kitchen, bedrooms, and all the amenities for long-term 24 hour living by a team of 6 in the structure, as well as technical equipment such as computers and monitors installed. And the structure supposedly completely encompasses the disc to shield it from public view.
If the disc is indeed at least several football fields in diameter, and presumably several hundred if not a thousand or more feet above the ground, it doesn't seem credible to me that so much construction work could have been completed in only the two days between the time that Mark first saw the disc and when he meets his team inside the facilities surrounding the disc. That to me seems more like many months' worth of work, if not years, even it were a top national priority given unlimited federal funds and resources.
2) In Chapter 3 there is a minor typo: The next twenty minutes was spent filling out security forms, Nondisclosure agreements, and an application for and AN Eyes Only security designation.
3) Hurry up and write some more, I want to know what happens next!
P.S.: There's no Transgender on the team. Huge faux pas in 2024. Good for you! I listen to podcast short sci-fi stories from Analog magazine, and I swear every single story has a transgender character.