>it
>gets better: If you pause in one of the offices and read the con
>organizers' emails, you find out that said noodle machine is haunted.
>The con has been trying to get rid of it for 14 years, but no matter
>what they do, every year it reappears on the floor, supplying noodles
>to the faithful despite the fact that it has no supplies. The
>later emails between the con staffers are outright panicky. "The
>machine is empty, where are the noodles coming from?!"

That doesn't seem like a haunting in the usual sense; that sounds more like a small god has taken up residence inside the machine, feeds on the deckers' devotion to the vending machine, and turns it into miracle noodles. An opportunity like that comes by but rarely; the god moved into the machine like a hermit crab, gave someone noodles despite the lack of supplies, and their residence became a shrine. By itself, not especially malevolent, but there may be conext or spoilers I don't have showing they actually have a malign plot.

But I want to believe in Noodle God.