We carefully followed the Agents to another warehouse several blocks away.  I caught a glimpse of a man in black leather and sunglasses walk by a hole in the wall.  Neo.

Not caring anymore, I sprinted into the warehouse, Castiel on my heels.  Once we made it inside, I stopped.

"In this movie you can do practically anything if you believe you can, like this," I reached my hand out and wrapped my fingers around a gun that had suddenly appeared out of thin air.  "Not just angel mojo."

Castiel blinked, staring at his own hands.  A banana appeared.  He handed it to me.

"Is this for the minion?" I asked.  "You're a bit late with that." Cas shrugged.

I spotted Neo as he rounded a corner.

"Come on!" I told Cas, and began to run again.  I tucked the gun into my waistband and looked over my shoulder to see the Agents climb out of their car.  "Hurry!"

I created a brick wall behind us; hopefully that would slow the Agents down a little.  I heard them beating their fists against it, close to breaking through.

I ran up a random flight of stairs that Neo had ascended.  Once I reached the top, I leapt into the air until I was flying.  I had never flown before; not even in a plane.  It felt wonderful.

When I was flying, I could get around twice as fast.  I headed straight for Neo, who was slowly turning around...

He lifted his hand, and I fell to the floor.

"Who are you?" he asked.  I rubbed the back of my head.

"A girl who is trying to get home," I grunted.  I crawled toward him, reaching for his boot.  I tapped it, but the scenery didn't change.

What?

"Who are you?" Neo repeated.  I tapped his boot again, looking up at him in confusion, and now fear.

Maybe I needed to touch bare skin?  I ran my hand up his pants leg...

A gust of power was thrown against me, and I tumbled backwards.  "Who are you!?"

I stared at Neo's sunglass-covered eyes.  "I-I..." I could not speak; I was so frightened.  Castiel reached my side.

I heard a smash.  The Agents.  They were coming.

A phone started to ring.

Of course.

This was The Matrix.  The Matrix was a computer program hooked to the mind to fool humans into thinking they were in reality while machines fed on them for power.  Neo and a few other people, the only ones that were aware of this, entered and exited the Matrix through phones.

The real Neo was the bridge, not the computerized one.

Neo's attention was no longer on me; he was now staring down the three Agents that had just entered the area.

This was my opportunity.  I followed the ringing.  I found it quickly.

"Answer it," I told Cas.

"Why would I need--"

"Just DO IT!"

Cas picked up the phone and put it to his ear.  "Hel--"

I saw pixels as he was sucked into the phone.

"Come on come on come on," I whispered.  "Ring again."

Silence.

Of course, this was possible.  They needed to call the phone again from the other side, but by now they might have discovered that they aren't bringing out the person they wanted to.

"Come on.  Come on, please."

I slumped to the floor.  It seemed that I would be stuck in the Matrix forever.

Why did I send Cas first?  Three reasons:

1. He probably wouldn't have known what to do if I had left first, leaving him to figure it out on his own.  He was already confused enough when I'd told him to answer the phone.
2. He'd done all of this for me.  He'd helped me with the amulet when it was killing me.  And the least that I could give him was the chance to still find his grace, even if that meant that he had to do it alone.
3. Sam and Dean still needed him.  Not only as a partner, but as a friend.  He has done much more for them than I ever could do for anyone.

Cas would probably eventually find the real Neo and get to the next universe.  Hopefully he could solve the clues without me.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard ringing again.  My heart rate doubled.

I can still make it.

With a new level of confidence, I grabbed the phone and put it to my ear.

I opened my eyes.  I was lying in a chair, a cord running though my skull.  I winced as I reached to disconnect it and lift my head, which was extremely difficult, given that I had to unscrew it, which caused me to stretch my arms really far in a very unnatural angle.

Cas was still lying down, his eyes wide with shock.  Perhaps he was still trying to figure out why he couldn't lift his head, and why it hurt when he tried.

I pulled myself to my feet and disconnected him.  He struggled into a sitting position.

We were in some kind of aircraft.  I suppose I could say I had flown in a plane now...sort of.  The aircraft shook as something smashed into it.  I struggled to keep my balance.

"Hurry!" I turned around to see Neo still lying down with his eyes closed, a woman leaning over him and whispering something in his ear.  She was crying.

I stumbled over to Neo and touched his arm.  And then I was somewhere else, staring down at green grass.

Thank God.

A cool breeze tickled my cheeks, smelling fresh.  I held my eyes closed as I stood up straight, inhaling deeply.  I felt my hair blowing, tickling my cheeks.

Something flapped against my face, smelling like fruit punch.  My eyes snapped open.

A butterfly had landed on my cheek.  Its markings looked like a homemade pink and yellow crayon.  I brushed its wings with my fingers, and it fluttered away.

I looked at Cas, and he was cross-eyed, trying to look at the purple and blue butterfly that was on his nose.  A laugh escaped my chest.

Cas smacked it away, looking at me with confusion.  "Where are we now?"

I shrugged, picking up ten one dollar bills, the clue, off of the ground.  "I don't know, but we have to find somewhere to spend this, I suppose."

I squinted at the horizon, which had a pink tint.  Suddenly, a rainbow appeared, slithering from one side of a forest to the other in an arc.  Sparkles rose up from it.

"What is this, My Little Pony?" I wondered aloud.

"Do you watch--"

"No!  No.  God, no.  Just a guess, that's all," I said.  I looked down at the money in my hands.

Something large hit me in the back of the head.  I stumbled forward.  "Shit!"  My vision grew spotted; I shook my head from side to side to clear it, rubbing the back of my neck.  "What the hell?"

As my vision began to clear, I searched the ground for what had hit me.  My fingers wrapped around the neck of a rubber chicken.  "Oh, dammit."

Hundreds of them suddenly poured from the pink sky.  "Shitshitshitshit..." I shouted, scrambling for shelter as I was smacked over and over again.  Several more profanities spewed from my mouth.  Castiel was several feet behind me, attempting to cover his head with his hands.  We finally found a cave, and it was a royal blue color.  Not that I cared; I was being molested by gag props.  I stumbled inside, but not short of several bad bruises and a headache.

I watched the rubber chickens, now thousands of them, pile up on the ground.  The rainbow sparkled in the distance, laughing at us.

"What the hell!"  I threw my hands in the air, wincing.  "What the hell, God?"  Cas looked at me with a frown.  "Next time I think about giving an example of a possible alternate universe, I'm gonna shut the hell up."

The rubber rain lasted for half an hour.  Once it ended, several more sparkly rainbows slithered across the horizon.  Suddenly, each toy that had fallen from the sky stood to its feet; they were all now live chickens.

I watched with raised eyebrows. "Damn."

I reached for the gun in my waistband, but it was gone.  Of course, it had been imaginary: a computerized gun, not the real one.  What a disappointment.

I walked up to the mouth of the cave, peeking out at the screaming chickens.  I stepped forward, and then I smelled it, and then I saw it.

Chicken poop.  Everywhere.

I wrinkled my nose.  Passing chicken houses as I traveled through Georgia was smelly enough; it hovered in your car like skunk odor.  But this?  This was chicken houses on steroids.  Steroids on steroids.  I threw up in my mouth a bit.

I mean, I could handle a lot of things.  I could see someone's flesh get ripped off and be mostly all right.  I can pick up dog poop with my bare hands.  I'll clean up a child's vomit.  I could handle chicken poop just fine.

But this.  This came from the deep depths of Hell, somewhere even Crowley and or Lucifer had never explored.

I stumbled backward, back into the cave, feeling lightheaded.  Also, I began to feel extremely lethargic again, so I sunk to my knees.

"Nicole?" I heard Cas say, but his voice began to fade.  Sleep, my brain ordered.  I crumpled farther down to the blue stone floor and fell asleep.

-

My eyes opened slowly.  I yawned.  I turned my head to see Cas sitting beside me and staring forward blankly.

I cleared my throat.  He blinked several times and looked at me.

"You slept," he said.

"No shit, Sherlock," I replied.  "Did I do that extra-super-deep-sleep-once-every-few-days thing again?"

Cas scrunched his eyebrows together, then eventually nodded.

"How long was I out?"

"Hard to say, since it appears that night never occurs in this universe.  Unless, days are longer..." He cocked his head.  "I'd say, probably two days though?"

"Jeez.  And what did you do?"

"I just sat here, quietly."

"Wow, Cas.  Five more seasons and you still haven't changed."

"I don't understand."

I waved my hand in dismissal.  "Never mind."

I groaned, struggling to sit up.  My back hurt from lying on the hard floor for two days, and I had to piss a waterfall, but, other than that, I was pretty good.

The stench of chicken poop still lingered, but it was surprisingly faint.  All of the chickens and their excrements had disappeared.  My goodness, alternate universes were strange.

It took awhile to explain to Cas that he couldn't come with me when I peed behind the rocks.  Finally I managed to do so, and I returned to him at the mouth of the cave.

"So, spend money." I clapped my hands together.  "We should go looking."

Castiel and I wandered through a field of tall grass.  Eventually, we approached a river.  Thirsty, I bent over and ran my fingers through the water.   As my fingers came into contact with the water, it turned brown and sticky around them.  Startled, I pulled my hand back.

"So it's secretly syrup-water.  Awesome," I said, trying to get the stickiness off of my fingers.  "I'd rather not drink syrup, thankyouverymuch."

We followed the river to a small town.  There were no people in sight, only animals dressed in human clothing.  They looked like they had just come out of a little kid's computer game...well, maybe a little kid's movie.  Live-action; they weren't cartoons.

I walked up to a cow, cocking my head and frowning.  He was wearing overalls and a straw hat.

"What dur ya want, kid?" he grunted.  I stepped back, my heart skipping a beat.

"Cas these animals talk," I said.

"Who duttin'?" the cow said. He lifted a hoof and knocked some straw from his hat, then bent over to the bare ground and ate it.  "Evbuddy talks 'round hur."

I frowned.  "Hey, uh...MooMoo?  Where can we spend this?"  I lifted up the dollar bills.

The cow chuckled.  "Over thar."  He pointed his hoof to the right, to a large building.

I nodded, immediately heading to it.

What did it look like?  A gingerbread house.  A giant gingerbread house.

It took all I had in me to keep from getting icing on my hands when I opened the door, and I still managed to get three fingers covered in it.  I licked it off, giving Cas a side glance.

I walked inside.  After only a few steps, we were suddenly overwhelmed with loud music.  The building was dark, but we followed the flashing lights.

"What is this, some kind of club?"  We stepped through a doorway.  "Ohhh..." my voice trailed off.

We stared at the stage in awe.  Five unicorns stood on two legs, swaying their hips, causing their tutus to fluff.

And then one of the unicorns stepped out of the way, revealing a pegasus.  It was also on its two hind legs, wearing, well...the best way I could describe it was a horse thong.  Though those don't exist, well, apparently they do now.

The pegasus was also wearing a bright pink bra to match the thong.  Its wings glided slightly outward as it danced around a pole.

"Stripper pegasus.  Right," I said.  I lifted up the dollar bills, staring down at them.  "Well, here goes nothing."

We filed through the crowd of animal spectators--who were deeply intrigued, by the way--and tried to get as close to the stage as possible.  A donkey hopped up and down in front of us with too much excitement, the only thing blocking us from reaching the stage.

I pushed him as hard as I could to the side.  "Move it, jackass."

He looked at me with a frown, but he didn't try to stop me.

I threw the dollar bills at the pegasus.  "May I?"

She stopped for a moment, looking at me as she decided what to do.

"Come on, then," she finally said, blinking quickly to emphasize her fake eyelashes.

I dragged Castiel onto the stage.  And what happened after that, well, um....

Let's just say we finally crossed that bridge.