A Thousand Tiny Gods
ShortStory 5,980 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"The minister’s wife arrives at the Bahrain Ministry of Nanotechnology in a black limousine with dark, tinted windows. She normally eschews the hijab, but today, she’s wrapped in a black abaya with a full face covering, a useful method of concealing her identity without drawing attention from those who would question her presence here, of all places."
Content warnings 2
deathillness-and-pandemic
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.