It took a while after that statement of Mom's before any of us were ready to initiate the plan. Once we were all more stable emotionally, Mom made her move.
With a little help from Dad, she made her way up to a point where she could see all three trains as they followed their tracks, Dad went down to get ready to do his part, while Uncle Bentley and I went to do ours. From what the schematics showed, none of the Clockwerk Parts were firmly affixed to the engines, and could easily be removed with limited technical skills. As such, we would be moving fast and hard, with the three of us each raiding one train.
"Is everybody in position?" Murray asked through the Binoc-U-coms.
"I'm ready to fire," Carmelita spoke calmly through hers, the click of her weapon carrying over the signal.
"I'm in position for Iron Horse One," Bentley called out. "Coco, you sure you can handle the RC chopper for the defenses on Iron Horse 2?"
"I'm no slouch at video games, Uncle Bentley," Coco responded confidently. "I may not be as good as you, but I can handle it."
"And I'm already on Iron Horse 3," Sly chimed in. "Security's rather lax since we haven't done anything yet, and I was able to get aboard rather easily starting from out of town. The train will be coming into town soon."
"Then it's time to begin," Carmelita spoke up. "I have the trains in my sights...now!"
Three shots rang out. Three roof hatches popped open as their locks were destroyed.
"Damn!" Sly murmured in amazement. "Nice shoo-"
"Language!" Carmelita snapped out. "Coco's on the line!"
"Sorry!" Sly responded quickly as Coco giggled and Bentley and Murray chuckled. "Though one question. How come you were able to shoot those so accurately, yet could never manage to hit me?"
"For one, you didn't move in a predictable pattern," Carmelita sniped back. "For another...I never actually wanted to hit you for real. ...guess Neyla was-"
"Mom, don't!" Coco snapped out. "Don't let her get inside your head."
"You did what you did for Coco," Murray added. "There was never anything wrong in that."
"And despite what Neyla made it look like, you never violated any regulations or ethics codes," Bentley added. "Believe me, I checked."
"...thanks, all of you," Carmelita offered softly. "I'll...I'll just have to try and believe that..."
Coco looked up as she heard explosions along the train. "Gotta go! The anti-air security kicked in!" Breaking the connection, she activated the RC chopper.
The two screens on the controller were linked to the front and bottom cameras of the RC chopper, allowing Coco to maneuver carefully as long as she maintained altitude. She moved the chopper slowly along the length of the train, using the destructive bombs to break the rocket launchers, sleep bombs to knock the guards out, and the cannon on the front to take out the drones the train released.
Once the defenses were all destroyed, she climbed up to the top of the caboose and dropped down the open hatch. The interior of the first car was a straight path with only a few moose guards Coco was able to put to sleep with her needles. The second car had some fast moving security lasers and spotlights that she evaded with carefully timed jumps. The third car was sealed, and she had to climb up to the roof to cross. The guards were still asleep from the sleep bombs, so she crossed carefully to avoid waking them.
The fifth car was a flatbed open to the air, with two moose guards patrolling it. Coco used a carefully thrown needle to embed some twined threads in the far car and the one she was on, then crossed the makeshift tightrope before pulling it back in at the other end. The strong winds of passage kept it from trailing down to the car in the middle, so the guards didn't even notice. She then dropped into the sixth car, using quick hops to evade the fast moving security lasers on the floor.
The seventh and eighth cars each had three moose guards patrolling, with various bottles scattered around as sound traps. Coco decided to avoid both cars, using her cane to pull herself onto the roof and race across to the engine block. There, she retrieved one of the Clockwerk lungs. "Got it!" she called out through the Binoc-U-coms. "One lung retrieved! And the train's starting to slow down!"
"Then get off!" Sly responded immediately. "I've got the stomach."
"And I've got the other lung!" Bentley called out. "We'll meet back at the hideout to plan our next move!"
Smiling, Coco waited until the terrain outside the train was moving slowly enough before leaping out the window and into a snowdrift. Shaking herself off, she made her way back to the hideout.
Jean Bison threw such a fit when he found all three parts missing and all three trains down at once. It was so funny! I'm glad it got Mom to laugh, too. She seemed...really down about her decision to join the Gang permanently.
When I asked her about it, she tried to say I was wrong, that she couldn't be happier...but we all saw right through that. And I didn't blame her. Interpol had been Mom's entire life, her career, her family legacy, her dream, before meeting me and Dad and Uncle Murray and Uncle Bentley. Things had changed, but law enforcement was still a big part of her. She hated that she was 'abandoning' all that, but she couldn't admit to being upset with her decision for fear of making me think she resented me. I knew better than that, of course, but grown ups always seem to think kids don't really 'get' grown up thinking. Maybe most kids wouldn't, but thief training had given me a bit of insight into that.
...besides, Mozzie covered any of that in my sessions with him back when we first beat Clockwerk.