I am not sure if this is the correct community for the answer, but since this part is about a bicycle part, I thought it's okay. If this is better posted in physics, or anywhere else, please let me know.
I am working in a custom mechanism for a cosplay prop (which is not relevant here, if you want to know, it's the blades from Attack on Titan). I need to pull a pair of pieces, that work in a lock mechanism. They lock themselves around the piece that goes inside the mechanism with springs, and the way of freeing the object is pulling from them, with the same mechanism as a brake lever.
The matter is that I need that pieces to travel back about 2 cm, which is the length of the pieces, and I don't know if it is posible to pull that length of cable with a simple brake lever (long, I suppose) that I can buy. Would it depend on the length of the lever? The tyoe of lever? The angle? All of them?